This is another one of those stories about finding a long lost gospel that nobody knew existed and that will change the Christian world, possibly destroy it.  Or, in this case, the Catholic world.  It deals with the split between Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox.

What is now the Greek Orthodox church began as the Eastern church to Rome’s Western church.  They severed ties due to differences of opinion about worship.  This happened in 1054, but they are still Catholic and, since the split, there has been talk on both sides of reunion.  Or at least burying the hatchet.

Simon and Alex Andreou are raised Greek Orthodox and both become priests.  However, for reasons we are not given yet, Simon converts to Roman Catholicism, even though he insists his younger brother remain a Greek Orthodox.  The latter have long beards, and can marry and have children, despite being Catholic.  Alex does have a wife and a 5-year-old son.  But for reasons you can read the book to learn, she leaves shortly after the baby is born.  No explanation, no good-bye, no contact, nothing.  She’s just gone one day and never returns.  But Alex maintains the hope that she will someday soon.

Meanwhile, Ugolina Nogara, who has been studying the holy relic, the shroud Turin, has found the Diatessaron, the gospel mentioned in the first line.  He is setting up an exhibit on the shroud and this gospel makes such a difference that – you guessed it – certain forces try to “silence” him.

This is a looonng story, much too long.  And unlike most books of its kind, it’s not a fast read.  The history is interesting, I’ll say that.  But everything just took too long.  I kept waiting and waiting for resolution and it just took forever to arrive.

And there were some things that stretched credibility too far.  For instance, just when he needs her most, who should come back into his life but his wife!  That part I’ll go along with.  But she fits almost seamlessly into the family.  The little boy immediately adores her.  I didn’t buy that.  He didn’t even know her.  Okay, maybe he fell in love with his image of the mother he never had, but you can’t miss what you never had, and don’t even know you were supposed to have.

And Alex has almost no qualms about letting her back into his and his son’s lives.  She left them!  Without a word.  Never contacted them again.  You don’t just pick up where you left off after that.

The story has some interesting premises.  For one thing, it says that in 1204, the Roman Catholics stole the shroud from Turin.  And while there has always been controversy about whether the shroud is real, this has a very different take on that.

It’s not a waste of time, but I didn’t think it was a great book.