Big in Heaven
A Collection of Stories About Life in an American Orthodox Parish
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Siniari
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By:
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Stephen Siniari
About this listen
"[These] stories begin to paint a new kind of icon, that of a truly American Orthodox Christian, of regular people simply trying to be or tragically rejecting being regular human beings, the kind of people, perhaps, never even imagined by most American readers. The stories break the mold of what a religious or nonreligious story ought to be. They are not moralistic, nor are they irreverent in their honest portrayal of the realities of life in the Church. Rather, they are just good, honest stories, and in being this they are sacramental, conveying and holding together elements of life that are seemingly disparate." (from the Foreword)
Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes convicting, these stories of life in an inner-city immigrant Orthodox parish are guaranteed to shake your assumptions and make you see your life and faith in a new way.
They are not for the faint of heart, but they are very much for all who want to embrace the truth more fully!
©2020 Stephen Siniari (P)2020 Stephen SiniariListeners also enjoyed...
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Story4 out of 5 stars 68
When Frankie’s mother died and her father left her and her siblings at an orphanage in Chicago, it was supposed to be only temporary - just long enough for him to get back on his feet and be able to provide for them once again. That’s why Frankie's not prepared for the day that he arrives for his weekend visit with a new woman on his arm and out-of-state train tickets in his pocket. Now, Frankie and her sister, Toni, are abandoned alongside so many other orphans - two young, unwanted women doing everything they can to survive.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Boring, boring, boring
- By Marie J. on 08-20-21
By: Laura Ruby
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Church Folk
- By: Michele Andrea Bowen
- Narrated by: Denise Burse
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 163
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 138
Weaving together the turbulent 1960s Civil Rights movement with the chaos within the Greater Hope Gospel United Church, Bowen carries a message of hope that transcends human failings. Young, handsome Rev. Theophilus Simmons and his new bride Essie settle into pastoral life as the "first couple" of the congregation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Clean, Christian nostalgia
- By Alisha on 03-22-16
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Mercy House
- A Novel
- By: Alena Dillon
- Narrated by: Dawn Harvey, Catherine Ho, Scarlette Hayes, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 884
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 788
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 787
Inside a century-old row house in Brooklyn, renegade Sister Evelyn and her fellow nuns preside over a safe haven for the abused and abandoned. Gruff and indomitable on the surface, warm and wry underneath, little daunts Evelyn, until she receives word that Mercy House will be investigated by Bishop Hawkins, a man with whom she shares a dark history. In order to protect everything they’ve built, the nuns must conceal many of their methods, which are forbidden by the Catholic Church.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good story but trigger warning
- By Lynne H. Mock on 05-18-20
By: Alena Dillon
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Agatha of Little Neon
- By: Claire Luchette
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 7 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 83
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Story4 out of 5 stars 84
Agatha has lived every day of the last seven years with her sisters: They work together, laugh together, pray together. Their world is contained within the little house they share. The four of them are devoted to Mother Roberta and to their quiet, purposeful life. But when the parish goes broke, the sisters are forced to move. They land in Woonsocket, a former mill town now dotted with wind turbines.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Xceptional!
- By Bebe Guill on 08-11-21
By: Claire Luchette
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Two Crosses
- Secrets of the Cross, Book 1
- By: Elizabeth Musser
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 59
The glimmering Huguenot cross she so innocently wears leads her deep into the shadows. When Gabriella Madison arrives in the French village of Castelnau in 1961 to continue her university studies, she doesn’t anticipate being drawn into the secretive world behind the Algerian war for independence from France. And the further she delves into the war efforts, the more her faith is challenged. The people who surround her bring a whirlwind of transforming forces.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Faith, Romance, Spies, and Fascinating History
- By Amazon Customer on 05-02-19
By: Elizabeth Musser
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Say I'm Dead
- A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love
- By: E. Dolores Johnson
- Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
- Length: 7 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Fearful of prison time - or lynching - for violating Indiana’s anti-miscegenation laws in the 1940s, E. Dolores Johnson's Black father and White mother fled Indianapolis to secretly marry in Buffalo. Her mother simply vanished, evading an FBI and police search that ended with the declaration to her family that she was the victim of foul play, either dead or sold into white slavery.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Deeply meaningful important read
- By A.M.Rousseau on 12-21-21
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Black Sunday
- A Novel
- By: Tola Rotimi Abraham
- Narrated by: Liz Femi, Dele Ogundiran, Miebaka Yohannes, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 39
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Story4 out of 5 stars 39
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife, and the family, facing poverty, is drawn into the New Church, an institution led by a charismatic pastor who is not shy about worshipping earthly wealth. Soon Bibike and Ariyike's father wagers the family home on a sure bet that evaporates like smoke.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good Story - Awful accents
- By Tamara C-J on 02-15-21
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Take This Bread
- A Radical Conversion
- By: Sara Miles
- Narrated by: Nicole Poole
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 66
Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. "I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian," she writes, "or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut." But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful! A fresh look at being a Christ follower!
- By A. Witt on 04-15-18
By: Sara Miles
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Amazing Grace
- The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
The children we meet through the deepening friendships that evolve between Janathan Kozol and their families defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented on TV and in newspapers. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with painful clarity about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them. "It's not like being in a jail," says 15-year-old Isabel. "It's more like being hidden."
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Roots of Change are in Education
- By T. C. Pile on 06-05-20
By: Jonathan Kozol
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All Manner of Things
- By: Susie Finkbeiner
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 60
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story5 out of 5 stars 55
When Annie Jacobson's brother Mike enlists as a medic in the Army in 1967, he hands her a piece of paper with the address of their long-estranged father. If anything should happen to him in Vietnam, Mike says, Annie must let their father know. In Mike's absence, their father returns to face tragedy at home, adding an extra measure of complication to an already tense time. As they work toward healing and pray fervently for Mike's safety overseas, letter by letter the Jacobsons must find a way to pull together as a family, regardless of past hurts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Real fiction
- By Katijanae on 01-19-23
By: Susie Finkbeiner
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Lone Stars
- By: Justin Deabler
- Narrated by: Michael Crouch
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 26
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Story4 out of 5 stars 26
Lone Stars follows the arc of four generations of a Texan family in a changing America. Julian Warner, a father at last, wrestles with a question his husband posed: what will you tell our son about the people you came from, now that they're gone? Finding the answers takes Julian back in time to Eisenhower's immigration border raids, an epistolary love affair during the Vietnam War, crumbling marriages, queer migrations to Cambridge and New York, up to the disorienting polarization of Obama's second term.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Read for bookclub but fell in Love
- By Ericka Lawson on 09-11-22
By: Justin Deabler
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The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted
- By: Robert Hillman
- Narrated by: Daniel Lapaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 94
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story4 out of 5 stars 81
It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Listener beware
- By Little old lady from Iowa on 06-11-23
By: Robert Hillman
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The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
- A Novel
- By: Juliet Grames
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 688
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 601
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 601
For Stella Fortuna, death has always been a part of life. Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents - moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted. When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and her sister, Tina, must come of age side by side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Misogyny at its worst
- By brenda on 01-15-20
By: Juliet Grames
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My Father's Paradise
- A Son's Search For His Family's Past
- By: Ariel Sabar
- Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
In a remote corner of the world, forgotten for nearly 3,000 years, lived an enclave of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers and humble peddlers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic and interesting story:-) Glad I read it.
- By Justin Hickman on 03-01-25
By: Ariel Sabar
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 739
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 647
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Story4 out of 5 stars 650
Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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3 out of 5 stars
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
What listeners say about Big in Heaven
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- andrea
- 08-20-22
soothing voice, enlightening stories
I'm so glad to have experienced these beautiful, well-written stories in Fr. Stephen's own voice.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mary Cantrell
- 04-21-22
Warm and charming, loved this!
Stephen Siniari gives us the sweetest glimpse into the life of an Othodox parish out East. The beautiful people with their stories about love, loss life, death, sin and redemption. Glory to God for this beautiful book. I’ve listened to it twice, and will continue to do so, it feeds me.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tanna Terrell
- 12-09-22
Loved this book
The stories are great by any standard. I think the mysteries of God, that letting go brings more, that embracing the fact that I have hurt people and sinned brings freedom from sin, those upside down truths, are brilliantly illuminated. Thank you!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 12-20-20
A Wonderful Book
I loved this book! It was touching, funny, real, and such a great description of the Orthodox Faith. I wept for most of the people described in the stories, especially for Father Nahum.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- E. Phillips
- 02-06-21
The spiritual of every day
Every day stories that give a glimpse into lives unknown. An Orthodox Christian priest shares beauty and pain with those around him. While he too shows his imperfect humanity he shares the love of Christ to others.
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