Ancient Near Eastern texts such as The Baal Cycle portray the pagan god Baal as a rebel—the hero of a revolution, worshiped and glorified for his long string of victories. In The Baal Book: A Biography of the Devil, Fr. Stephen De Young shows that the Hebrew Scriptures consciously turn the Baal story on its head, depicting him as a failed and defeated rebel who nonetheless tries to steal the glory that belongs to Almighty God. From these Scriptures, the figure of the Devil emerged within Jewish and Christian Tradition. Father De Young works through the Old and New Testament passages that refer to various Baal stories, and he surveys Baal worship through followers’ beliefs, religious practices, and liturgical life. In these pages, we will see that the figures of Baal and the Devil—the prince of demons—are one and the same.

Poised between East and West, between Orthodox and Catholic, Lithuania, the last of Europe’s pagan nations, did not forget its ancient tales such as that of the giantess Neringa, Eglė Queen of Serpents, and the Iron Wolf. Rather, they fulfilled and enriched them with legends like the Hill of Crosses and the miracle-working icon of Our Lady of the Gate of the Dawn.

In The Wolf and the Cross, Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Dn. Seraphim Richard Rohlin take a very personal pilgrimage into a land where history and legend have met and fused. Where Orthodox Christians have lived as a minority for nearly seven centuries, their faith founded upon the blood of martyrs and the witness of dozens of saints.