Books for Orthodox Christian children

The Gift

A story of Saint Onuphrius the Great

In a desert monastery, a little boy shares his bread each day with the Christ-child in an icon — until the morning he is given a far greater loaf in return. A true story, told for the youngest hearts.

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☦  The Story

The boy who shared his bread

Onuphrius was a king's son — saved from the fire as a newborn and carried across Egypt to a monastery in the wilderness, where a hundred monks raised him in the love of God. By the time he was seven he wandered the courtyard freely, a little carved red horse tucked under his arm.

Whenever he was hungry he would fetch a loaf from the kitchen, eat a small piece, and carry the rest into the church — to the icon of the Mother of God. “You are little, like I am,” he would tell the Christ-child, “yet You never eat. Here, take some of my bread.” And the Child would reach down from the icon and take it from his hand.

One day the cook gave him no bread, and sent him to the One he had been feeding. Onuphrius ran to the icon in tears — and the Christ-child leaned down and placed in his arms a great, warm, golden loaf, so large he could hardly carry it. He brought it to the monks, who wept and gave thanks. It was bread, they said, “kneaded and baked in the oven of the true faith” — and they had never tasted any sweeter.

A small boy in a white tunic offering bread up toward an icon of the Mother of God and the Christ-child in a sunlit chapel
“The birth of each and every child is truly a blessed miracle and a gift. May we always cherish the children, and lead them in the ways of the Lord.”
Ștefania Carmen Bray
☦  The Book
The cover of The Gift by Ștefania Carmen Bray, illustrated by Masha Lobastov — a young boy holding a golden loaf of bread

A first life of the saints, for the very young

Panagia Press makes books that place the treasures of the Orthodox Church — its saints, its feasts, its quiet miracles — into hands small enough to hold them. The Gift is the first: the childhood of Saint Onuphrius, hand-illustrated with warmth and reverence.

The books are given, not sold for gain — passed from the press, through the Church, to your family.

Dedicated to all those children who grew up without parents, or without tenderness in their lives — that they may find the never-ending love of the Heavenly Father. For God is love. (1 John 4:8)

Ștefania Carmen Bray
Ștefania Carmen BrayAuthor · Panagia Press
Many years later
“I feed and quench my thirst on the sweet words of God.”

The little boy grew up to spend more than sixty years alone in the desert, in unceasing prayer. The Orthodox Church keeps the feast of Saint Onuphrius the Great on June 12th.

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