Jonathan Pageau is a renowned liturgical artist, writer, and public speaker. Through his popular YouTube channel The Symbolic World, he has become a sought-out interpreter of the deep patterns in stories. With his 2022 publication of God's'Dog: Monster, a graphic novel invented with his brother Matthieu Pageau and artist Cord Nielson, Jonathan proved himself a powerful storyteller in his own right. The project’s successful crowdfunding encouraged him to continue his efforts to reclaim the storytelling landscape by starting a publishing company called Symbolic World Press (SWP).

SWP’s maiden publication is The Tale of Snow White and the Widow Queen, the first of an eight-book series of fairy tales in which Pageau explores a new way of telling fairy tales: one which is both aware of our cultural moment and simultaneously committed to honoring the deeply celebratory of the roots these stories have planted in our common imagination.  

Jonathan’s YouTube channel, The Symbolic World, now has nearly 200k subscribers, and the community that has developed around his listenership is an active, supportive, and talented collection of artists and thinkers from around the globe. He recently launched a new Symbolic World Website, where people can sign up to access exclusive content unavailable on the regular channel, and to engage in the Symbolic World Community for timely discussions around symbolism, literature, religion, art, and culture. The site has also begun hosting paid courses, where people can sign up for an interactive deep dive into specific works, such as Beowulf, C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, and the rebirth of Christian Metaphysics.

The Very Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of the Whole Counsel Blog, as well as co-host of the Lord of Spirits podcast. Fr. Stephen holds master’s degrees in theology, philosophy, humanities and social sciences, and a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from Amridge University.

AFP publications include: The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century, The Whole Counsel of God: An Introduction to Your Bible, Apocrypha: An Introduction to Extra-Biblical Literature, God Is a Man of War, and Paul the Pharisee: Jewish Apostle to All Nations.

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Ancient Faith page

Amazon author page

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Dr. Martin Shaw is a mythologist, poet, and wilderness rites-of-passage guide who has spent thirty years walking the hidden paths between ancient stories and modern life. He founded the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University and is author of the acclaimed Mythteller trilogy. He also holds a visiting position at the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University. Robert Bly called him "one of the very greatest storytellers we have." There is woodsmoke and fox fur in his thinking, and when he tells a story, unexpected doors open in your heart.

His newest book, Liturgies of the Wild: Myths that Make Us, arrives from Penguin Random House in February 2026. In it, Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age, vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well. Drawing on a thirty-year journey and a 101-night vigil in the Dartmoor forest, he shares how the ancient technologies of myth led him—unexpectedly—to Christ, the “True Myth.”

Deacon Seraphim Richard Rohlin is a software developer, Germanic philologist, and now ordained deacon in the Orthodox Church of America (OCA), living in Texas with his wife and children. He speaks and publishes on Germanic poetry, the Inklings, and the Sacramental Imagination. He regularly contributes to Jonathan Pageau’s The Symbolic World YouTube channel through the Universal History series. Along with Jonathan Pageau he has co-presented a 6-week course studying the epic poem Beowulf, as well as several courses on Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso). He has also hosted his own course on this platform, Tolkien and Universal History.

Richard co-hosts The Amon Sul Podcast, and has published several works of fiction and non-fiction. He’s currently working on a collection of essays called Finding the Golden Key: Essays Toward a Recovery of the Sacramental Imagination. His superhero pulp novel Guardians: The Eye of Horus is currently under development as a graphic novel. Richard is also a life-long tabletop gamer and wrapped up a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign to produce Amboria: Roleplaying in the World Under Starlight.

Deacon Nicholas Kotar is an author of epic fantasy inspired by Russian fairy tales, a writing instructor and speaker, a freelance translator from Russian to English, the resident conductor of a men’s choir at a Russian monastery in the middle of cow country, and a Grammy-nominated vocalist. He has written several wonderful books including the Raven Son series, Cantos of Arcadia, and several translations and retellings of Russian texts and stories. He has hosted a successful podcast called In a Certain Land. He is also involved at St. Basil’s Writer’s Workshop and writes regularly on Substack.