Why Angels Fall, by Victoria Clark

Victoria Clark sets out to discover the mystical heart of Eastern Orthodoxy. In this learned and incisive book, the author clubs her way through prejudice and misogyny as she travels through Eastern Europe and softens the hearts of some of the most cantankerous old Pharisees one could hope to avoid. Sometimes she meets genuine saints, and, drawn into their inner silence, is awed. This book is, however, crippled by her unshakeable view that Eastern Christianity has lost its mind, Western Christianity its heart. Seductive as this notion may be, it is historically suspect and prevents her from truly entering the Orthodox cosmos; the premise becomes a prejudice.