In the late 1960s a young English composer, John Tavener, released some cantatas on the Beatles’ Apple record label. In 1977, in his early 30s, Tavener converted to Orthodox Christianity. He started attending St Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral in London’s Bayswater, and embarked on studies of the early Church Fathers. The iconography, theology and ancient liturgies of the Orthodox Church became a dominant influence on Tavener. A little over a decade later, his work The Prot