Missing Saints, Missing Miracles

The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Churchis drawn from hundreds of manuscripts from countries around the world from many centuries. After reading its 4,000 pages, James Perloff explores the question: What did Jesus mean by “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” Are miracles possible at a time when America and the West so greatly need them? The answer is a definite “yes.” Unknown to most people today, nearly all the miracles Jesus performed were duplicated by the Orthodox Church’s commemorated Saints—but all the miracle-workers had one thing in common.
Missing Saints, Missing Miraclesalso recounts many facts of early Christian history largely unknown in the West, mostly due to Martin Luther’s rule of sola scriptura (Scripture—Bible—only).
• How many know that the cross Christ was crucified on was discovered after an excavation ordered by the Emperor Constantine, how it was identified, and how it was finally lost more than 800 years later?
• Many have heard of Constantine’s “cross in the sky,” but how many know it was preceded by an almost identical experience of another Roman soldier, whose miraculous victory over Arabs attacking Jerusalem led to his martyrdom under the Emperor Diocletian, after the soldier attributed his victory to Christ instead of the pagan gods?
• How many know what country became the world’s first Christian nation (it wasn’t the Roman empire)?
• How many know that the 12 baskets which gathered the miraculous “fish and loaves” were preserved by Christians and finally brought to display in Constantinople some three centuries later?
• How many know the number of years Lazarus lived after Jesus raised him from the dead; or the name and fate of “the Samaritan woman at the well”; or where a hand of John the Baptist is preserved to this day?
Many details such as these are found in the Synaxarion’s pages.
Prior to publication, Missing Saints, Missing Miracles was reviewed for theological integrity by a theology instructor at a major Orthodox seminary, as well as by an Orthodox chaplain in the United States Army. Combined with other resources, it may help serve as an introductory book to Orthodoxy.