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It has been almost 25 years since I read this and I really ought to re-read it, for I SO loved it the first time encountered it. Two stories... I recommended it to a friend of long standing who is a devout Orthodox Christian, thinking he might enjoy the "mind-game" Kazantzakis played. But he declined because his priest disapproved of the author and because of the brouhaha in Kazantzakis' native Greece involving the Orthodox clergy. Pity - My friend's loss. Just after I finished reading it, I received a visit from an acquaintance who was an Orthodox rabbi. He saw the book on my desk and went over and picked it up. "I wonder what he is going to say," I asked myself. The rabbi turned to me and with his eyes brimming he choked out the words, "Is this not one of the the most incredibly beautiful books you have ever read?" I remember the controversy surrounding the movie based on the novel made only a few years later, and I felt sorry for those who felt their sense of "orthodoxy" precluded spiritual fantasy. I never saw the movie. I felt then - and still do - that the book was self-sufficient As I said, this is a book I need to re-visit.