And I think everyone, everyone should have the same drive. If you're able to tell a story and you know these stories of the faith, it is your duty to tell that story. Because if you didn't, then these stories might die. And that's where you have things like people specifically, like Abba Pavnotius was led by the Spirit specifically to go in the desert, take down and write down the stories of the saints. And that's how we
know the story of Abba Nofer. the anchorite so it's like if these people who are writers like like let's not view them in that shell of a saint who are writers painters artists the ones who painted the walls and frescoes in the monasteries if these people chose not to tell stories we would have had a huge huge gaps in our in our in our tradition huge gaps in in the beautiful tapestry that is Coptic orthodoxy. And so that's the way that I view it. I don't so much view
it as, oh, there's social media. Let's do something cool there. Let's have an account. Let's run it. Let's make pictures. I just view it as the church itself and our faith is story. And if I can, and I love this stuff and I enjoy it, that's my hobby. I will tell these stories. Hello, everyone. This is Father Paul, and I hope you're having a good day. You're listening to Coptic Conversation. All right, so today I have the
pleasure of speaking with Michael Elgamon. And if you don't know this young man, he is a Coptic Orthodox writer and artist. And before I tell you his big project, let me tell you that he published picture books for children, graphic novels for all ages. And one of his most recent works is Anastasis and The Life of St. John the Short. If you haven't guessed by now, yes, it's
Michael from Creative Orthodox. And under Creative Orthodox, he published Anastasis and The Life of St. John the Short and other visual works such as Ascent, a documentary on St. Anthony the Great. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada with his wife, Marjorie, and two children. So thank you for being here, Michael. I'm looking forward to our conversation. And like digital media meets the Orthodox faith and, you know, bringing them both together. How did all this
come about? First of all, thank you so much, Abuna, for having me. It is a pleasure. And I love that we can have these conversations and have these. projects so near to home. It was an hour drive for me. So it's so encouraging that so much is happening in this area, art and media wise. And as far as when Creative Orthodox and how Creative Orthodox started, it was actually from a negative experience. So it was I was let go out of my first job out of university. So
I have a marketing background. So it was an entry
level marketing position. And I was let go from that first role and it took me a very long time to find a job around a year and a half and so unemployment it's it's a tougher cross to bear mentally more so where the day -to -day starts blending you you stop having having reason to to wake up early you stop having reasons to have discipline right and things start things start meshing together and you can very easily um lose lose your way and lose focus and so at the time
i wanted something to keep me disciplined to give me a schedule to have to have a job other than applying for jobs and so i wanted to um i i I've been drawing all my life. So I said, okay, I'll just, and I love comics. So I said, I'll start drawing comics. And I actually wanted to start with the, one of my favorite saints and Anthony the Great. And then I got to drawing and one of my closest friends, Anthony Paul, I would take to him the drawing and I'd be like,
here, here are some sketches. He's like, no. No, that's not Saint Anthony. It doesn't look like him. And so I realized that, okay, maybe not my first project out the gate, I'll be able to get this right. And I can't get it right unless Abuna Anthony felt like it's close to the saint.
um and so i was like okay let's do the second the the let's do another one of the great saints and i found that saint john the short had um an awesome thorough translation of the manuscript we have we have his entire life translated and so there's a lot A lot to work with. A lot to work with, exactly. And so I started doing that. And then over six years, I was drawing day in, day out. Obviously found a job a year and a half
in, but continued doing so. And while I was working on the book, I started illustrating saints on the Orthodox calendar year. So whenever a feast day comes, I would illustrate that saint. You would release that. Exactly. And so over the years, it just built up from there and then got into Anastasis. And it sort of just became a way, a creative outlet for me. And to a lesser extent, for my personal service. But it's just
my entire life I've been telling stories. And so I kind of very naturally fell into Creative Orthodox. And it's interesting that you're coming from a marketing background. I thought for sure you'd have some sort of artistic training or training in the arts or digital media, even something. But coming from marketing, how did that help? Yeah, so marketing is actually storytelling. And I would say this about most projects and
things that I make. It's actually... It's actually stronger from a storytelling perspective than the artistic and the technical standpoint. And so in everything I do, even even at work, it's all it's I live and die by story from marketing to grow in marketing. You have to know your audience. You have to know what they're what you're trying to say, the concise message that you're trying to deliver. And it's the same thing. And it God
has sort of. worked with me in this way in my life where the things that I need to learn to help me with my projects or service or help me grow um end up working their way into all aspects of my life and so when at a time where I need to get into filmmaking I would get a project at work to start going and shooting commercials at a time where I would need to start getting into audio same thing at work and so and and vice versa so things that I would do for creative
orthodox help helped me go further in my career so is it was sort of this mutually beneficial relationship between my work and other aspects of my life and creative orthodox very nice and you know the challenges of trying to find work and all that stuff to be able to to channel all that creative energy into something like this. You channeled it into the faith and produced something and created something that's truly
remarkable and unique. I don't know of any other illustrator or digital media creator out there that's Orthodox and creating, at least Coptic Orthodox, and creating similar things. And it's amazing. And my question is, with all of the things that the church does, where does digital media fit into the grand scheme of things? I mean, I know a lot of people who have artistic ability and they usually tend to go into the route of iconography. So I'll sidestep your question
to frame my answer. I actually think this storytelling is in the fabric of the church. 20 steps back. Actually, I actually think storytelling is every human's way of communicating, disseminating information and building, passing down culture and tradition. So that's just the natural human way of communicating. But I actually think specifically story and narrative is a way of action. A way that the Holy Spirit
takes action in our lives. Christ could have used any way of communicating, but he chose story, he chose parables. I actually think this is fascinating. In stories of a lot of the saints, you have the Spirit guiding someone specifically to get the story. In the life of St. Mary of Egypt, Abba Zosimas, specifically, all he did in her life. Well, he gave them communion, so there's that. But all he did in her life is led by the spirit to get her story down. And that was it. That
was the end of their interaction. And so even when you take a look at the life of St. John the Short, it was written by a saint, Zachariah of Sacha. And he was just a well -learned man, a rarity at the time. He worked for the government because he knew how to read and write. And he was called by the Spirit to become a monk. And then the monks passed down the story of St. John the Short. And that's how we have his story today. And so I feel like that's one explicit thread
when it comes to storytelling. The church itself, we have the institution narrative every liturgy. So story permeates every aspect of our faith. And I feel like the Holy Spirit uses story to bring humans, to bring us closer to God. And so when I think of creative orthodox, I don't just think of it as a way of digital media. I almost feel compelled to, and I think everyone should have the same drive. If you're able to tell a story and you know these stories of the
faith, it is your duty to tell that story. Because if you didn't, then these stories might die. And that's where you have things like people specifically, like Abba Pavnotius, like was led by the spirit specifically to go in the desert, take down and write down the stories of the saints. And that's how we know the story of Abba Nofer,
the anchorite. So it's like if these people who are writers, like let's not view them in that shell of a saint, who are writers, painters, artists, the ones who painted the walls and frescoes in the monasteries. If these people chose not to tell stories. we would have had huge gaps in our tradition, huge gaps in the beautiful tapestry that is Coptic Orthodoxy. And so that's the way that I view it. I don't so much view it as, oh, there's social media. Let's do something
cool there. Let's have an account. Let's run it. Let's make pictures. I just view it as the church itself and our faith is story. And if I can, and I love this stuff and I enjoy it, that's my hobby. I will tell these stories. Right. And it's actually, it's a way of bringing us into that grander story, the story of salvation. Yep. Right. And I love, of course, how you mentioned how that common element in many of the same stories about someone's only role in the story is to
go get the story. Like St. Julius Al -Aqfasi, who is the biographer of the saints, who is... Every time he appears in a story, his role is to look at the story, just to write it down, write down what happened, and to witness for that, to provide that witness and to say, this is what happened. And it's not just as a way
of documenting history. there's a purpose to it right like it's hagiography it's bringing us into the story it's pushing us forward towards something towards holiness towards righteousness right so it's not like like you're saying it's not just digital media for its own sake yep I love how there's a purpose behind it. It's something that draws you in. Whenever you see one of those paintings, drawings for one of the saints, illustrations,
thank you. So whenever you see one of those illustrations for one of the feasts of the church, one of the saints, it draws you into the story of the saint. It's not just about reminding us, yeah, today is the feast of St. Anthony or today is the feast of St. Moses. It draws you into a story, into
the life of the saint. yeah and so two two points here that i want to bring forward and and you remind me of that i'm actually very careful not calling any of the work i do icons and i'm actually relatively inconsistent with this but sometimes i make the decision to not have a halo to be to purposefully say this is not an icon this is not a an object of prayer Sometimes I add the halo. It's inconsistent. But the times that I do ignore it is because that's on my mind.
And I am not illustrating within the trained and the incredible tradition of iconography. It's story. It actually is story. And that's also an extension of how I was raised. I immigrated
to Canada when I was 14 years old. um and so i in in egypt i have really fond memories of my geddo he would um he he lived in shobra we lived in maedi and he would bring after he would come visit us um in our home over the weekend he will go to a liturgy and he would come back and i remember he he comes back and i'd be very excited because he gets a full urban um from the hamel so i'd be really excited for the full urban and then he would come in we'd go into
a room and he had he had a a brown briefcase i remember vividly and the briefcase the plastic and had like a leather texture to it he would sit down very slowly very carefully open it up and he would he would So the back of the briefcase is to me, so I can't see what he's picking up. And so it was very exciting for me. And he would take out pictures of the saints that he picked up at the bookstore. And every week he would do this. He would go get different pictures,
pick them up and would bring them. And every time he would pass them to me, tell me their story and we'll go from there. At the same time, my tita's brother was a monk at Dera Suryan, so Abuna Personofius. And then whenever he would have any medical procedures to do in the city, he would come, he would visit, and he would always sit us down and he would start telling these stories. And whoever remembers details of the story, he would give them a picture of the saint
from his pocket. And I didn't realize this at the time. And the things that he was giving away
was the things that he had. had collected along the visit so he can go back to the monastery empty pockets same way he left exactly so he would he would visit people accumulate things and then as he asked question he just gives them back as he's as he's moving and so i was raised on on story in this way and that's why that's sort of the place that i operate and not not iconography i feel like this is its own pillar
in our In our tradition. But there's also the aspect of story that is a very big part of why such a small collection of persecuted people in Egypt made it over the centuries. Because the story. Because they told their story. Yeah. And so I would assume you would see yourself as a storyteller. Yep. More than anything else. You're a storyteller. And this happens to be your vehicle, your medium, the way you're telling the story. And it's actually probably frustrating
for... For anyone who follows my work, if they had liked one thing or another, because I keep switching the mode. I did graphic novels, and then I switched to coloring books and picture books for children, then switched to the documentary, so a bit of filmmaking, and then switched into the audio drama, pure audio. And actually in Kitchener several years ago, we made a dinner, and it was the story of salvation told through the meals. So we would have every course, it
was a nine course. um dinner and every one is part of the story of salvation it was the garden of eden was a garden salad as an appetizer and then we had the the ark as as first um soup but without the water and then servers would go around and drown drown the the soup and so it kept going and then the we were very careful in the application i'm giving a very blunt summary of it but um then it comes to the the sacrifice and resurrection resurrection being a dessert so it's a sweetness
we actually had in the fall we had a salad and in it we had very bitter flavors so the person would start getting into it and then all of a sudden they start tasting like the apple but then also and fruit and then they would start tasting bitterness so i i actually i don't i i don't stick with one vehicle just because it's whatever i'm into at the time whatever mode tells the story the best. It usually starts with what story am I trying to tell and then it sort of
dictates what. um what the vehicle is but yeah it must be frustrating for someone who likes one thing and is expecting more of it and he's and someone who's following your work and then to see like okay now he's switching lanes yep he's still telling stories but he's doing something else with it i love how you're doing it with food even that's amazing was this something at your home or a church it was a church it was a church and we actually i mean there's so much
involved with it but we actually wanted to um expand it to name like the neighboring churches in the gta as well and then we also explored well what if we go to churches use their kitchens and tell the story there so there's a lot of unexplored territory there for that project specifically um but yeah and speaking of influences you have you mentioned your grandfather and your uncle correct my teta's brother teta's brother Both
of these were in Egypt. When you immigrated, you came here at 14 years old, around that time. So what kind of things influenced your thinking as you went through the high school, university kind of years? Yeah, so to a very large degree,
it was a combination of... It continued being my grandfather until the end of high school when he... and then my father he is very well learned in theology so our home is riddled um my parents home is riddled with books on theology and such and him and i have a very funny way of communicating where if i even express a secondary thought of a question about the faith that i have um He wouldn't sit me down and start explaining it to me because that's not how either of us kind
of think and approach it. I would start seeing trickles of these books appearing all around me, stacks of these books appearing around me. And so it's a very fun way of communicating where if I have a project, I just, and from watching
him, he's been writing. for i think for 20 plus years um for a publication egypt so i would see him sit down with these books preparing writing in egypt he he wrote plays he so that that sort of space um in a way i was just echoing what i see my father what i saw my father do And then the other huge influence was Father Anthony Paul, where he was part of our close friends group. And all together, we saw his love for St. Anthony.
And all of us converged on that love so much so that it became a fabric of all of who we are.
as as people whenever he had a feast we would have a cake we would a cake for ava anthony and then we'd read his life um and do tasbah had the night before it it became a non -negotiable for us as a group of friends um and so that that was another that was another huge influence on me and that's that's why i sort of gravitated to this place i'm in with the desert fathers um and patristics and such And I noticed that in your work, Desert Fathers occupy a large portion.
It's mostly Desert Fathers. Yeah. And you focus so much on their lives. And it started with St. Anthony. Yeah. And then it went to other Desert Fathers. So what's your preparation process like? So this is the part where I actually, I take a step back and I notice that the things that I'm making are the things that I would have loved to consume when I was younger. I loved comics. I still love comics. I grew up on both Disney, superheroes, love Batman, all of these things.
Lord of the Rings. These things are the way that I find, that I interpret and find meaning in
life or find life's meaning kind of thing. And so when it comes to... illustrating the life of a saint or researching the life of a saint usually I start with the church calendar because again the church is such an amazing storyteller throughout the year the way that the saints the way that the different the different saints are interwoven in what the church is celebrating now even the way that we when when it comes to holy week we change the curtains to black to
white like there's a there's this incredible narrative throughout the year that the church um that is right in front of our eyes but is really easy to to kind of miss um and so that's usually where i start where it's like what's coming up when it like what's a feast day that's coming up From there, I usually take a look at the Synexarium. Most often, the Synexarium doesn't have a lot of detail, doesn't have a lot of historical grounding. And so then I'd start taking a look
at manuscripts. I'd start looking at translations, works by Tim Vivian, Deacon Severus. Michael, there's so much out there. And this is where younger me would have been so thankful. It's just reading these things is tough. You're reading something. I experienced this when drawing The Life of St. John the Short. The manuscript is
not written how we interpret stories today. obviously it was in the fourth century it's written as um more like a mosaic of like saint john did this saint john did this and he did this and then did this and then he died let us emulate him and that's the way that they consume story back then it's changed right now we have a very tight um way of story whereas someone woke up something changed the way that something changed the way their day -to -day they went on an adventure
they refused the adventure they decided to take it on they grew they fought there was a darkest night they chose to overcome and then they changed and they became a different person and rinse and repeat that's just the the story cycle and so when you take that and you apply it to a manuscript you see you see that it's a very different um a very different way of telling the story and so that's i think where the bulk of my work goes into it's let's look at the original um text
let's look at the the translated text english or arabic and let's find a narrative in there and translate it to whatever medium that uh that comes out of it very nice and obviously it goes without saying that there's a lot of work there's a lot of reading that goes into it consuming everything that you can get your hands on trying to get as much data as much information is there someone that kind of like a reference at the rate at the rate i go i usually finish it depends
on big projects i have i have a a group of close friends and harsh critics um where i where i send i send the the work and kind of get their get their feedback And my parents as well and my sister. If you want to know the pure opinion about anything in life, just ask your family. They will not sugarcoat anything. Absolutely. So I have a circle where I do send these things. The smaller stuff like the day -to -day, I sort of just get the small stories out there. But
for bigger projects, absolutely. It's so easy to make mistakes, especially since there's so much about the faith. I'll give you an example. At some point, I was excited about representing an Orthodox family. And so I drew the Holy Family.
And I was so excited about it. let's do this then i then i started getting the feedback that actually we don't really love illustrating um saint joseph with christ and saint mary because it doesn't communicate the true nature the true nature of christ so even though it's right it's not we don't really typically do it in this form and so these subtle things there's so much of it in in all in all the stories of the saints and so it is very easy to make a mistake and
that's why i have great respect for iconography because it has these parameters where which a master or a master iconographer would teach those those rules um to to a student and so for lack of that i i've i make i've made i can i will continue making these mistakes i'm trying to learn learn from it um as i as i tell these stories And I think that's where you probably grow the
most is from learning. And as a modern person reading something from the 4th century, from the 7th century, it's so hard to not read something into the story. Right. Like you want to read it this way because this is how you would react if you were there. If you were the person in the story, what would I do? Right. And it's very difficult to kind of read it on its own terms.
And I love how you're able to do that and then present it in a way so that someone from the 21st century is able to read that and not misunderstand, not kind of read something into the story. Absolutely. I'll give you an example. And I still struggle with this. I struggle with my decision, but you make it, you move on. In the life of St. John the Short, Abba Amoy, when he first sees him, Abba Amoy kicks him out. After St. John the Short made a 12 -day journey to reach the monastery,
and then Abba Amoy ignored him. He told him, you're not going to be a monk. You're not going to last a day. And then he kicked John out. John
sat outside of his cell praying. And Abba Amoy, every day, for weeks at a time he would go out with um with branches and he would beat saint john away from near his cell every day he opens the door of his cell beats saint john saint john goes and then comes back continues praying until after that period of time about one went out and saw saint john praying and then he's surrounded by seven angels praying with him he was like okay wait a minute um but for me when i made
the the graphic novel i actually chose not to not to include that and for better for worse i felt like i'm from a narrative perspective usually this is the point the point where you have that father figure come in that sensei that that teacher and um you want to communicate to the reader how incredible they are how much they're building um the protagonist and so at at the point of making the book i decided not to include that i figured it's it paints about moi in a
very harsh way exactly and the modern the modern reader might not see through that they might say like How are you teaching love when this is how you're welcoming someone who comes to your monastery? And so I made the decision not to include it. I don't know. I still think about it sometimes. I think maybe, you know, you're representing the part of discipline, the part of chose the seriousness of taking that vow of
poverty and becoming a monk. I don't know if it was the right decision or wrong, but that's what I mean is that there are so many chances to make these little decisions and cloud the story with my own interpretation. But I think this must have happened in the same manuscript of the St. John the Short. There is a huge paragraph.
that that goes on basically a rant an anti -chalcedonian rant and it was obviously just the interpretation of of saint zacharias that's he was feeling at the time and it's a it's the same with on the incarnation You have St. Athanasius communicating how St. Anthony and he reacted towards the Arians. And so no matter what, whenever someone sits down to write a story, it obviously takes their
own personal lens. And that's scary. for me it's a lot of responsibility on your shoulders exactly but we do have a lot of that like we have in the story of saint moses and the the treatment he receives in the monastery i mean like you know uh it seems like i mean this must have been such a harsh thing like to come in earnestly seeking god and then you know being put through all these tests and then still enduring any you see this like you hear stories about like sanctuary
right to your stories even about saint cyril of Alexandria. And, you know, for the longest time in the West, he's vilified because, you know, harshness of, you know, it's so easy to fall into that mistake that, you know, as a modern, you're reading a lot into the story and not reading
it necessarily on its own terms. And if you, if you hear stories today, not stories from the fourth century, but today, you know, about monastic communities and how they function and, you know, the kind of seriousness that they approach monasticism. This is not something interpreted as like, you know, you have to be nice and polite and you have to be like, these are people who are going out there to be tested to their limit, to face, you know, the spiritual battle at its harshest,
right? They're not there, you know, to be coddled. They're there to be tested and that's why they go there to be tested, right? I see also that... You do focus a lot on earlier saints, but there are a few modern saints that you've included, like Father Saman Shahata. What was the motivation behind that? Kind of do an illustration for him. It's still this line that I try to walk, where I called the platform or brand, whatever, Creative
Orthodox. To be able to tell the stories of our saints and not offend people who might, for example, shun it just if it's called Coptic Orthodox, for example. I didn't call it like creative Christian, for example, because I feel like there are so many artists that are way and storytellers way better than I am telling those stories at that level. And so that's that's sort of why I focus
on creative Orthodox. and at the same time i focus on early fathers because they are the ones that are common across um eastern and oriental orthodoxy so it's a good it's a good way to tell these stories of these incredible saints away from any preconceived notions away from that right from all the polemics and all that exactly um and sort of do that one work telling that story and serve a bigger a bigger portion of um of christians on the other hand When I think
an advantage of social media is the speed with which it goes. I think an iconographer would write an incredible icon for these martyrs, but it might take a week, it might take a month. And so something that I feel is within the limits of my service is when there's a modern martyr. I like to illustrate a picture so the picture of them, if there's a picture of them bloody, like from the investigation, from whatever, I
wouldn't want that to be a thing. You wouldn't feel comfortable sharing it with your kids, for example. So I usually do it under the guise of let's put something quick together, simple, but an image to put them in context with the rest of the cloud of witnesses. Like these same saints that I'm drawing, The church hasn't stopped. It's still going and we're still telling these stories and adding them to the same larger picture and the same cloud of witnesses that we have.
And so that's the main reason why I tend to illustrate also modern saints to kind of tell that story of it's still going. It didn't stop in the fourth century. It's bringing people into that reality that we're still in the church. There's still the cloud of witnesses is growing. Exactly. But at the same time, I usually have the same challenges that we just talked about. I try to pause, investigate, look into it. How did the martyr die? Is it verified
by the church? Like all these things. I don't want to rush just because of how fast things may go, how fast news can go and falsehoods can go around. I don't like it too much, that part, how quick these things make go. It's like a double -edged sword. Exactly, exactly. So sometimes you'll notice that sometimes I would have forgone drawing a person or another just because I just
wasn't comfortable with the whole thing. But if it is, if the church came out and identified them as a martyr, I love to have this thing to share with children that is not graphic or scary. And you mentioned how we used to give out pictures in Sunday school. I miss that. Growing up, I used to get all these pictures and go home with all of them. But I don't know if we do that anymore. I don't think we do much of those. I don't think so. And if we do it, it's from an ancient...
We have this stack that we haven't... We do, yeah. It's not a new... We don't make any new ones. We just use the ones we already have. Because everything is going digital now. So did you ever consider doing something that's not digital?
taking it and maybe doing something in print absolutely and that that's why i also started um exploring carving recently there's there's a fleeting quality of digital like drawing with pixels um and so recently i've started um exploring exploring carving or doing ink prints so to carve a block and then put ink on it and then you put the paper so you produce something tangible something you're able you're able to hold um with this stuff i i have limitation logistical limitations
as in i i do everything related to creative orthodox and so When it comes to shipping, when it comes to store setup and all of these things, finding good rates. And again, being an individual rather than a company means things are expensive. You're the only employee in the whole company. Exactly. I'm HR. All of them. Yeah. R &D, everything. Marketing. Exactly. You're meeting the whole team right now. So it's harder for me to find economies of scale and make it available at a
good rate. And so I try as much as possible to make the books available cheaply, accessible and such. But at the end of the day, nothing is as easy as here is a $2 PDF. Here is this thing. It's just so much easier to do it digitally,
right? Exactly. one of your illustrations for saint anthony uh the way you had the light focus in and then like everything else is darkness and saint anthony and then all the demons are you know in the periphery and then saint anthony is in the middle and you know there's light how were you able to make that happen and do that without formal training in this kind of thing is this doable like if someone has the passion someone would like to be a storyteller and you
know go into these kinds of illustrations. How doable is this? It is so incredibly accessible and I think I'm the best example because my drawing and I say this with all objectivity, it is so bad. It is a child's drawing. If you actually see, I have a sketch of St. Paul that I did when I was very young. My mother usually, my parents always encouraged me to keep drawing and draw comics and such. And so my mom kept this, I believe I was four years old, but it must've been a bit
after. But anyways, it was St. Paul and it was
drawing. it looks exactly as how how i would draw him today i haven't changed one bit and so i and but what is encouraging to me so so that's one thing i mean i i don't think i'm particularly good at illustration but what is encouraging to me is that i and it brings me even a little bit of pride is that when i look at the frescoes in san antonis in in bowit when i look at all of these wall paintings um they look the same there it's not i mean obviously there's so much
more artistry that goes into putting a fresco on a wall mixing the colors and painting them but the line the line work is simple it is it is a nice um unobstructed childish look at the story it is simple it's and that's what i love about the old coptic the old coptic art is that it is so deep but so accessible And so anyone can sit down and draw. And there are so many tutorials online now. It is so accessible. You can get a drawing tablet for, I don't know, $70.
And that's it. You don't even need a drawing tablet. You can draw, scan, take a picture, and that's it. And so when it comes to that, I think the beginning is really easy. And then knowing how to... How to tell the story that you're trying to tell. This comes from practice. You'll see that I've drawn some things where I take a step back and I say, okay, the eye isn't going to the saint first. Something needs to change there. From us growing, looking at iconography, all
of that. it must be entrenched in us to be able to, it's a language. And I think that our church is really good at teaching us that language. And so I think anyone who is familiar with that imagery were to sit down and start drawing and practice a little bit. With time, they'll easily, I mean, very quickly, they'll draw better than I draw. And then with time, they can even start exploring iconography wherever their heart goes.
um and then you can get into a formal the formal artistic areas where when you draw something you make it black and white take a look at where what these um gradients are telling you what story these gradients are saying what's coming out what's falling in the back um and so right now my general process for for creative work and i apply this to film i apply this to scripts i apply this to any any media is um doing different like finishing the work very quickly don't don't
edit too much and then just staying in editing and doing many passes of did i make any theological mistake did i is this out of the ordinary um are the colors that telling the right story like color temperature and such um or is the picture um or am i emphasizing the elements i want to emphasize that sort of thing and then just taking all these different passes of editing and at that it's so much easier at that point because you're not you're not in the in the mode of like
creative expression and and focusing on drawing at that point you're just looking at it as any other um as any disconnected audience member. And so you can take a look at it and say, okay, this is right, this is wrong. And you do it separately. You do a pass for color, do a pass for values, do a pass for the line work. And so it becomes easy that way when you break it down into those different phases. And this process developed obviously over time. Absolutely. Trial and error.
And it's amazing. how simple the the drawings are but they speak a lot they say a lot and they really do effectively draw you into that story and you know it's every time i look at part of the illustration like i can draw that yeah like i i and that's the like it's deceptively simple like like i can like and then yet at the same time all these elements work so well together to really bring you into that. And illustration itself doesn't become kind of like an obstacle.
It draws you deeper than actual illustration, right? And it definitely helps to look at it with the liturgical, like liturgically our senses are being trained. And for someone to start doing this kind of thing, like you're not starting from scratch, like you've been in, you've been churched. You've been in a church, you're born and raised, and your eyes, your ears, your senses are being focused towards this. So when you approach
this, men speak a lot, right? And the choice of colors, all of that, like the composition, it's just beautiful. And I do want to get into your big work, Anastasis, but before, I also want to ask if you consider doing something contemporary.
using the same you know same techniques you know your same kind of visual have you considered doing something in it absolutely um so one i'm still trying to figure out how to tell that story is the story of saint moses the strong scene in a contemporary um present -day context and i think for this one specifically it's so easy when we talk about the saints i mean kind of it's kind of the other side of what we were just talking about where it you don't you don't think
of them as this could be my dad this could be my uncle this could be someone an elder at church you just see them wearing their tunics their big crosses the halos you you separate yourself from them yeah and and even more so for the saints that that their writers made sure to say they were born praying they were since a very young age they loved god And so I think the strength of the story of St. Moses is that he didn't.
And we have enough detail. We have other examples, but we have enough detail in the life of St. Moses to know what he did before he started turning towards God. He was definitely a sinner before he became a saint. Yeah, and he would have done things way worse than most of us would. Not that that matters, but it's a good example. It's sincerely
a good, relatable example. um i'm really passionate about and i've had this this idea for for about seven years where to tell his story in in present day showing him struggling with drugs with gang activity stealing with um with lust and the things that are like pornography as it as it it's ravaging the young like the younger um yeah young people these days and so showing showing him going through that and showing how he turned to God. Again, there are logistical limitations that I have
there. I've always envisioned it as a film. And I know that actually a filmmaker from the Eastern Church started making a film exactly the same way, the same story as told in Chicago. And so I think this is another thing that kind of goes to the beginning of our conversation. The spirit finds a way to tell the story. And so that's one way. The story is still in my heart and it's been in my mind for a long time. So I think I wanted to start exploring telling it in other
formats, maybe audio. So that's one idea. But another one that I'm really passionate about, we've actually made it as a film for our church's kids camp years ago. It's called The Keepers
of the Word. And the story is in a dystopian future where... all the big companies and the governments merged into one entity and in order to avoid fake news and all of these things anything that is not scientifically proven is purged and information is disseminated from one governing body of the world and so sort of taking all our present day uh scenarios and kind of taking them to a to a characterized extreme um and then showing how christianity lived at that time or how it
survived and the way that i'm structuring it it actually mirrors early christianity's rise um in the in the roman empire and so it's um it it takes it it follows it follows this group of christians that identified the last remaining bible um months before it gets purged and then all of christianity because it can't be proven so it's part of that thing that is um that is getting purged yeah exactly and their their story for how to uh how to revive the word and how
how does this group of people live in this um hostile environment how are they living their faith and how are they containing their tradition and and the bottom line that i'm hoping of currently i'm doing it as a graphic novel the bottom line that i'm hoping to communicate with that with that work is if you are not taking specific actions today to learn your faith tell tell the story of your faith and live out your faith um explicitly and not compartmentalize it and just your weekend
or or such um then then the faith is at at a risk but more so your life and your spiritual life is is at risk and there are implications for our children and and the future of the the church so when you say you wanted to do a film and you mentioned doing some audio uh what was how's the transition from just like a digital illustration now you're putting in audio adding another dimension yeah so And the transition between one medium to another is not hard in
the way that if you have the core story, it doesn't matter what you're... You can do interpretive dance. You're telling... If you have the story down, you're... You could, but probably shouldn't. You could, but shouldn't. And it's not something that I'd be particularly good at. Would that be something maybe down the line for you? No, no. I don't think that's something we're going to explore. We're going to rule it out. Yeah.
But... the the core of the story is there then it's easy to tell that same thing in whatever in whatever format the hard work comes into actually um sitting down writing that script or drawing the day -to -day a lot a lot of making these things come together comes in like showing up every day and it's really hard to carve out that time and even even now more so that that i have a baby daughter it's um it's it's hard and i have to be purposeful and at times actually at
the end of every project and you can you can ask my wife my my entire family actively sacrifices to get these things out the door so when when there is a release i start sleeping later i can't help in the morning so my wife has to do more my my son has to forego an activity or two. All of us have to sacrifice to kind of put that thing, get that project to an end. And so I think the hard part isn't actually in taking a story and telling it in different formats. I think the
hard part is show up and do that every day. And to me, oddly enough, I feel like the content actually helps me get through it where in some of the fathers, it's just water the tree. Show up and water the dead stick, like as in Abba John's life. And so I think a lot of these things, it's not about the grand, what's the great idea. Ideas are easy. Ideas are quick. Ideas come all
the time. It's like, are you watering that dead stick without really, without having anything to show for it for six years, for two years, for whatever, how long a project takes? Are you showing up and doing that little bit of work
to move it? forward kind of thing and you know having a family with young children it must be difficult of course to find that time and motivation any sort of time you're conflicted like do I spend time on this or with the kids and how much of this is for the people within the church and how much of it is consumed by people who are just like maybe seekers or people who are just getting exposed to the orthodox faith have you seen your work being used this way have you considered
your work being as a sort of like a missionary tool or something using like missionary efforts absolutely and people have reached out in that capacity and such i try not to think about it it is so easy especially in the realm of social media um to first of all harm harm a ton of people but harm myself like it's so easy to just obsess about the wrong things and and i i have at times and that's why i i i try to put um i try to put guardrails for myself to kind of just stay within
their own i'll just tell the story and nothing else matters um from how many people are watching this oh the funnier stuff gets a lot more engagement i should do more funny stuff um people like this don't really like that i should do more of this than that i should do more for converts rather than believers i try not to think about any of that some sometimes it's it screams at me and i it's just a very dangerous place it's also why i try not to use my first name last name
so i don't trick myself into thinking that it's the person So I try to separate myself from the platform. That's funny. Sometimes people come after me. It's like you're being subversive on purpose. Like, why are you hiding? I'm trying to separate myself from it. Some sort of conspiracy theory. He's putting this stuff out there. Exactly. But I try as much as possible not to let myself get distracted with all of the things that an ego can feed off of on social media. So I don't
think about it much. But I know for sure that the saints are the saints. Saint Anthony is going to continue drawing millions of people over the ages. It's Saint Anthony. His story, it's so funny. When you start looking into the history of Saint Anthony and how it started with Saint Athanasius writing the story in the early... Third century, late third century. And it caught like wildfire. Went to Europe and they did the Golden Legend. Caught like wildfire. You see
St. Augustine. St. Augustine reads it and says, I am compelled. He uses the same words that we use today. That myself and my group of friends, we felt the same way. Like you read St. Augustine's reading of it. And that was shortly after. Same
thing. and it doesn't matter ever since then till today the same story someone reads it oh my god what is in that story it's a story like any other story but for some reason this one stayed centuries this egyptian peasant in the middle of nowhere there is no reason why we should be talking about him today but we are yeah and so that's why i think it's not really about it's not really about the The vehicle, it's the content. The content itself is St. Anthony, St. Moses
the Strong, St. Mary of Egypt. And I see the same thing with St. Macarius the Great in the intro to the 50s spiritual homilies about how his impact in post -reformation West is... great to the extent that there are some pastors who have memorized large chunks of these and again like in your mind you think like what does east have to do with west what does city have to do with desert but the connection is there and it deep it's much deeper you know than than just
the words it's in a connection in the heart essentially and it draws people in but i wonder if the Elements you draw on obviously come from your own background, from your own tradition, growing up in a Coptic Orthodox church. Have you considered doing something, drawing on a different tradition? Elements from South America, from a different culture, essentially to do the same illustrations, to tell the same
story, right? It has, absolutely. I've illustrated saints like St. Olga of Alaska, who was recently canonized in the Eastern Church. Saints like St. Morwina, who is a European saint. So absolutely. At the same time, I just feel who's going to tell their story? Who's going to tell the story of the cots? Right. And I feel such allegiance to the... The father of my father's father's
father. I feel like for this small population of people, again, said that, lived centuries ago, have been persecuted their entire life. Our iconography completely wiped out under that persecution. Manuscripts gone with the different raids. Who's going to tell our story? But at the same time, again, in terms of the content that I choose to do, I go to the early centuries.
If not, then if there's a recent Orthodox saint that their life touches my own, and I find that they fit within the paradigm of our beliefs and our church. Absolutely. There's no hard line in that way. And again, I do see an advantage to what I do is being outside of the paradigm of iconography for good reason. I mean, iconographers are great at what they do and they're necessary and credible for that specific place they fulfill.
The same thing with me. in terms of those light illustration accessible and and it can it can veer on more contemporary saints older saints it's a it's a more nimble format and so i do play i if there is a if i feel like there's a story that needs selling there and a role for me to play i absolutely yeah more nimble there's more flexibility with you know with your medium right so now let's move into you know your magnus opal mirror uh anastasis how did that come about
this was actually a two -month project two months wow yeah and it it was so fast that published before um saint john the short where it was just a year before the six year like the sixth year where i finished that work um the story i was told years and years ago by a dear friend of mine who told me this story of a play she saw in egypt And I promised her and I promised her husband I will illustrate this story. And then
she passed away from cancer. And then years and years later into Creative Orthodox, it started gnawing at me. And so I got together with her husband, Deacon John, and he... And he managed to whip me into shape within two months to do it. It was this collaborative flowing work every night, sending drawings and then getting feedback, the script. I think we hit kind of a state of flow for the two months and then out came that work. But that story is the story of stories.
We can talk for hours about just that story. It's funny because some people look at the descent and think, oh, this is just copying the same story that are in other cultures with Osiris, the god of the dead, and how he goes with Eurydice from the Greek, where Orpheus goes into the dead and brings her back. Every culture has this. But what people aren't seeing is that every culture... is trying and straining to tell the story of
Christ's descent into Hades. And even when you take a look at narrative, the hero's journey, it is that story. Whenever I encounter the story of Christ's descent into Hades from even a slightly different angle, I get overtaken with so much
emotion at how powerful. that story is it it's yeah and and i love i love saint macarius's commentary on it where he says when you read the story of the descent don't think that this is a tale that happened thousands of years ago christ is descending into your heart if you let him and he will harrow the hades of your heart and that to me again like you can experience the story as as this um As the story that transcends culture, it is all of humanity. It includes the patriarchs.
And then you pause and you start looking at what the church is trying to tell you. And you're like, wait a minute. Hades is my heart. The darkness that I'm in is me. And Christ comes into that darkness. and raises and extends his hand and I grasp it. It's funny, I do come bearing gifts. I brought you one of the Prince of St. Anthony. And that sort of, that was the summation of the
documentary work on St. Anthony. But for me... thinking of the story of Antony being fought by, actually beaten by the demons and him at his lowest point, it tells you that he started seeing Christ as a light and then he had that moment. And to me, it's exactly that moment of Anastasis. He's experiencing Christ's descent into Hades and Christ raises him like Adam. And to me, that moment of Christ raising the fallen like Adam is a big part. It is a big point of
spiritual transformation. Right. And so I think that's, again, the personal part of it, the part that really hits home for me is that the human heart and how... And St. Macarius is all about the heart. The heart is where everything happens. The dragons are there, the angels are there, the fights, everything is happening in the heart.
And to speak to the flexibility of your medium, you know this motif is applied like perfectly with saint anthony we we only see this you know in an iconography uh with adam and eve and and how you use that and apply that and took it and and incorporated in the story of saint anthony right and at the same time saint micarius's words are like the whole universe is in our heart right like we're on the microcosm like everything is happening there and it doesn't take away from
the story that all of these things happen on a different level but at the same time they're still happening in your heart that christ is descending to the depth of your heart and raising you know your your dead soul from the depth of hades from the chains and and and setting you free and Then breaking down all those chains. So Anastasis, it's a beautiful story, beautifully illustrated. There's different kinds of illustrations. There are things there that are, you know, like
conversational. And then you go into like different kinds of illustrations. How did you bring all this together? Yeah, so it started with the manuscript. This one is... chiefly from the Gospel of Nicodemus, not to say that that specific piece of work is 100 % accepted and it's not 100 % right, but the fact that it's there and so many of our fathers corroborate the same language, the same story, it tells that there is a source for these things, that there is a very early tradition for that
story. And so I had to be careful with... adding visuals to that. I had to make a lot of decisions. Even while the graphic novel seven years ago was the start of it, but recently, a few months ago, I made it into an audio drama. And so even when we translated it to the audio format, we had to have really interesting questions around,
okay, so Hades, are people in anguish? are the good is there there is a separation between the good and the bad are the bad people being tortured do they their spirits are they feeling that torture do they walk around do they have so many questions that you now have to answer because you're putting it in a narrative format right and there is i'd say the easy way out which is kind of taking a look at all the interpretations by the european artists the medieval artists but there's so much
noise that happened in these and there's a lot of the imagination that goes into that right exactly and the harrowing of hades specifically artists loved it because of how um how how vivid of a story it is and it allows them to like do whatever they want license just do yeah exactly as imaginative as creative as you can Absolutely. You have Dante's Inferno, another piece of work structured around the story of the descent. But I had to be very careful. I didn't want to put
too much of an interpretation. And that's why actually I look back at that book and I see it kind of empty. Like when you look at behind, like in the back of the panels, the backgrounds. It's actually kind of sparse. I didn't really put too much form to Hades. In the audio format, I tried to add a little bit with the screams and such to kind of paint a picture. But generally, I was just very careful not to make assumptions. But then some of the fathers actually got creative
with the story. You have Santa Fran, who has hilarious poems where the devil and death personified are having the conversation. And it's such a funny conversation where death is like, Listen, I trusted you. Are you sure this isn't Jesus? And Satan is like, 100%. This is not Jesus. I saw him. I tempted him. He bleeds. There's no problem. And then death is like, Satan, you're easily tricked. And then Satan's like, death, you're just a brute. You're a blunt instrument.
You're not cunning. And so this back and forth.
and it's incredibly creative and it's from one of the fathers so i took that and then made it again both into the audio drama and the graphic novel um and so wherever i tried to put that to to kind of illustrate that world i tried not to veer too much from existing um existing manuscripts and media you don't want to go too much into like speculative theology and go beyond right but again like because of how you tell your story the medium kind of affords you a bit of flexibility
in how you tell it and gives you the ability kind of to go and you know focus in as much as you want or zoom out and put as much detail or as little as you want and at the end of the day the story is doing what it's supposed to do like it's drawing you in it's taking you into what's into the events right and the nature of that story too it's sort of it's kind of like the avengers of biblical stories except it's true it's truth but when you start hearing of what
happened with these um saints what about the prophets king david he wrote the songs he did this he did that he's in hades And then what is he thinking? He wrote all of these things. They have prophecies. What are they thinking? And it's so incredible to think, oh, we're sitting in darkness. We've been waiting for so many years, kind of like us living our life. And we've been
waiting and we're done. like god hasn't really come and appeared and and whatever where is the salvation we were promised we're in hades this is not how is this a loving god and then someone comes and it's like oh i saw the messiah another person comes saying john the forerunner he was the forerunner on earth he is the forerunner in hades goes and he's like there's one coming after me and so taking these stories it is actually like the avengers it has these incredible characters
that we know and we we grow up learning about learning their stories moses david and then just thinking and trying to continue their story to say, okay, well, how are they dealing with this?
And then, oh goodness, the moment where Christ... goes down and descends into hades this place of darkness and i love the way that our church again the the church being an incredible storyteller um christ trampling death by death and and for those in the tombs bestowing life he shattered the iron gates even the both in the eastern church and and and now we do it as well like the the drama um but more so the the patristic reflection of that story it's such a it's such a strong
victorious reflection of the story of christ that i think it just takes that story and and no matter how it's told i i think that that tale kind of it's this it really is the story of stories but a little a little bit that i actually want to make obvious and bring to the forefront is i was careful to continue drawing christ not just as a victor but as a wounded a wounded christ and Um, I, I even corrected that further in the audio drama where Eve sees our mother, Eve sees
him and she says like, like you're, what have they done to you? My son and my Lord, like they
bruised you, they, they scourged you. what what happened and i i think this is a healthier and that's the kind of the the way that the church likes to look at atonement it's not just this victorious superhero coming down and destroying everything the it's it's the wounded christ our victory is through the sacrifice and so i didn't want to lose the sacrifice too much they don't want the comic book medium to kind of it's funny there are parallel stories in superman where
he's almost you know dying and dead and such and through his death he goes near the sun gets empowered and that's but it's not that it's it's victory through brokenness victory through sacrifice and through his death and so i wanted to keep a little bit of that and i'm actually starting the process of working on a deluxe whatever it is version of the graphic novel where i take the redone script for the audio drama and kind of bolster the original graphic novel and reprint
it reprint it do volume printing instead because right now it's print on demand which as a self -published author it's the way to make it available cheaply but you'll see that the ink is faded the print the paper isn't great so not the same quality exactly so i want to give that book new life but also take that redone script and it's actually very different than like if you listen to the audio drama it's a very different script than the than the graphic novel and i want to
bring that back to the graphic novel and make sure i i believe it's a stronger story so did that take you longer to kind of put together in terms of script and planning no i most of my projects take years to think about and then I put immense pressure on myself, on my family and everyone around me and just get it done in several months. It's the way that I work. I work really well under pressure and almost not at all without the pressure. And so this is usually
how it happens. It's thinking Easter and then being Easter six weeks away. I need to reach out to voice actors, that kind of thing. And then finally, you know, a few days or a few weeks and then, you know, everything starts action. The illustration that you have, if you were to say how much of it is from extra biblical sources, like you mentioned the Gospel of Nicodemus. What kind of elements did you choose to include and
how did you make that choice? So at the end of the book, there's a page with all the references. I would go to say almost 80 % of every word in that book is sourced from a patristic source. Which is really impressive given that sometimes it sounds so casual and conversational. That's Santa Fran. And I love that. I feel like younger me would have loved that. I wasn't one to sit down and read the manuscripts and read the poetry Santa Fran. I would have just read the comic
book and loved it and consumed it. And to think that... Making the fathers conversational is definitely a plus. Exactly. And you would have no idea. And even near the end, in the narration, it says Christ became the first fruit and he became the door. These are the words of Saint Cyril. You're reading a comic book, it's fitting, it's flowing, and it's the words of Saint Cyril.
And I think I would have loved to give younger me that gift of having... access to these manuscripts in a way that engaged me because i i love i love i've always loved stories i would have loved to have something like this that let me into the wealth of the fathers without the challenge of of having to read something that was written for an audience in like hundreds of years ago right in in a way that you're not accustomed to you're not used to like trained in a different
way of thinking and that's beautiful and how did you structure that composition to like the actual illustrations like I'm very visual and I'm very obsessive. And so when there's a story, I usually watch it or continue experiencing it.
for a long time before i put pen to paper and so it's the same i've watched this the the film of saint moses the strong in my head for years same with anastasis it's just i kind of do the research and start piecing it together in my mind in the way that i want to watch it in an exciting way and then i start um i do start with the script with saint john the short i actually started drawing right away i feel like that was my inexperience at the time um whereas i was
writing and drawing the pages as they're going uh and that's saint john yeah saint john and i had to do go back and do a lot of rework because it didn't fit right now my process is to start with story and story story is easy to learn Like there are rules of story where, yeah. And it's the same thing in visuals where contrast is really important. That's why you were gravitating towards the image of St. Anthony in the middle because
he's contrasting with everything else. There's a bit of space between him and everything else. Same thing with the audio drama, same thing with the graphic novel. I try to, if I put up a big paragraph and it's a bit of a heavier thing, I try to contrast it with like action or a lighter
sentence. right after to kind of give it room to breathe so that's how I kind of figure figure out pacing and such and then it's the same process of editing over and over again trying to just like like putting on different hats it's funny because there's a way of teaching it in art where you literally make different different eyeglasses and title them differently to be like composition glasses and actually to teach yourself you put on the different glasses and and look at your
work from that different perspective and that perspective only like not to get lost in all the different applications and so that's what i did to say okay well is your theme coming through is is your what about the emotion yes a lot of things i adjusted were came from that place of thinking um you started the story with isaiah and you have king david coming here and then you ended with christ coming down and that's it where is the rest of their story you need
to finish their arcs and so a lot of that stuff i came back and and redid it from that angle of okay let's edit it with that in mind this in mind um and then yeah then if it's a if it's in a visual format that's when i start sketching little thumbnails and then from that i start drawing the bigger the bigger pieces and and getting it getting it done that way wow that's beautiful i respect how much effort you put into making sure that the way you're telling this
you're not being carried away like you're very careful illustrator you're very careful storyteller like you take your work with a lot of responsibility that this is something that's going to influence the thinking and the faith of someone who's going to read this and i want to make sure i'm on the right track you know cross my t's and dot my eyes and make sure that what i'm saying fits there's so much room for error with this stuff it is especially with such a like an illustrative
or uh interpretive medium right like it's a lot of it is with the reader yep right the second you're done the piece out of your hand piece of work is not even yours it's the readers you have very little control of any right yeah yeah and um with that i mean you're in the same kind of ballpark as the iconographer because you you produce something you make something and then you step back and it's the the person the worshiper who approaches the icon and the icon is used
in prayer in worship it's used along with other icons it's used along you know with the hymns it's like it has its place in the liturgical space right and i think that digital illustration it's got so much potential it's able to step in all of these different places right it's accessible it's very accessible right like someone can pick this up who is not theologically trained who's not very familiar with the stories of the saints of the background with the tradition and be able
to pick up like 80 90 percent of what you're trying to say in a way you want it to be told right or understood and that's why it's such a powerful media and i um i know of another digital illustrator his name is mina uh mina anton i believe but his work and his style very unique and definitely uh different than yours He also combines elements, but I feel like the storytelling that approach that where you come from, what you bring is something that has all this potential.
And, you know, I'm looking forward to more work from you and to see what else your mind produces. And, you know, I remember every week I would have to go to like the newsstand. in Alexandria and just pick up the latest comic book. It's not even a question of... To me, it was more important than food. My parents would tell me, would you rather have this or food? I'm like, no, this. And the reason this was the case is because I was able to connect with it and I was
able to... The ideas that it portrayed... It made sense to me, right? Even though, you know, I didn't know what the illustrator was. I didn't know who the storyteller was. I didn't know anything about the storyteller, but it's such a powerful medium that it was so effective and I just, I had to have it. Today, we have a lot more offerings. We have, you know, a lot of digital stuff out there. A lot of, like you mentioned before, a
lot of noise. And with something like this coming along, kind of like, A voice in the wilderness and just there's all this stuff coming along and all this stuff happening and all these things bombarding us and our children and our youth. What I want to see is more of this kind of presence of these kind of stories on our bookshelves, you know, in our homes, in our bookstores, because where you might have, you know, kind of like
an obstacle reading from reading San Siro. this is very accessible this makes it so that anyone from anywhere can pick it up and just understand what's being said what they're trying to say and on that note i really want to thank you for your time and i want to encourage everyone uh if you are interested in following michael's
work it's creativeorthodox .com pick up a copy for yourself it's available on amazon and be on the lookout for his upcoming works be following your work with great interest and it's i've been following it for a while and please keep up the great work thank you so much for the encouragement abuna and thank you so much for having me i guess an extension of that is if you draw if you write if you make music then go and draw and write and make music you don't need to be good at it
you don't it's it's if you have these stories if you're raised on these stories if you find these stories We need people to tell them in the faith without St. Athanasius sitting down to write, without Zacharias sitting down to write the story, without the iconographers in the caves.
sitting down to draw these drawings that they were almost sure no one is going to see we wouldn't have had these stories and so if you're anywhere close to to that that creative realm in the realm of storytelling pick up the pen or go to your computer any means necessary start start telling these stories because that's the way that our church has lived and that's the way that the spirit talks to us and that's the way that we pass down the faith I hope you enjoyed listening
to this episode for questions, comments, feedback, or if you'd like to make a suggestion on a topic for a future episode, please feel free to reach out to the email in the bio. And don't forget to subscribe to get a notification when new episodes drop. God bless you and have a great day.