"Hope in God, but don’t be careless yourself." That’s how the Old Believers settled it in a labor cooperative after suffering yet another persecution of their faith. And they assigned two desperate men to go rescue their most precious—an angelic icon.
A detailed look into the everyday and religious life of Russia of the late nineteenth century, bringing the reader into the secrets of strict, “God-inspired” icon painting art, along with the depiction of still-urgent problems with power—together with an almost detective-adventure storyline—ultimately results in a wonderful example of “decadent prose.”