Nicholas Hughes is an Antiochan Orthodox monk living as a hermit in West Virginia. He has been a monk for over 40 years he tells me. He contacted me because he had questions about a traditional story about the time spent by the Holy Family in Egypt, perhaps apocryphal, about the miraculous wheat. He wanted to know if there was an original source for the story, which appears in many books of hours from the Middle Ages. He wanted to produce a series of contemporary illuminations of the story and sent me images of his work so far.

I had never even heard of the miraculous story before and couldn’t help him (if any readers can supply some details, please do contact him at monkworksmanuscriptsandicons@gmail.com) but was so taken with his work that I asked if I could feature it here. Nicholas is taking commissions and can be contacted at the same email address: monkworksmanuscriptsandicons@gmail.com.

He is a calligrapher, illuminator and icon painter.