Victoria Clark has the mind of a historian and the eye for detail possessed by the best novelists. In Why Angels Fall, she combines her gifts to give the reader a look at the sometimes mysterious world of Eastern Europe"s Orthodox church. Majestic in their gilt encrusted robes and mitres, the Orthodox churchmen of Europe do convey a mysterious and arcane image. Combining history with contemporary detail, Clark traces the Orthodox faith through the embattled and fading world of late Byzantium to the present. Journeying through Greece, Russia, Macedonia, Romania, Cyprus, and the former Yugoslavia, Clark has met monks, nuns, bishops, and archbishops. Within a religion that traditionally has not accorded full status to women, Clark visits places that women have rarely been allowed to visit and asks questions that women have never before asked. Clark reveals an altogether different but equally engaging European legacy of worship with far-reaching consequences.