“We knew not whether we were on heaven on on earth,

for surely there is no such splendor or beauty anywhere on earth.

We can not describe it to you; only this we know,

that God dwells there among people…

we can not forget that beauty.”

Report of the envoys to Prince Vladimir of Kiev (10th century) upon returning to the Ukraine

yet still completely overwhelmed by the beauty

of the Orthodox Christian worship at the Hagia Sophia – Constantinople.

God is a mystery

unable to be grasped

Otherwise God would not be God

Evagrius of Pontus (4th Century)