This is the story of a family, a very extended and decidedly non-nuclear family with multiple explosive secrets. Family members interact with powerful governmental, financial, and religious forces at a time of seismic cultural shifts in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain are falling. Crises arise within and outside the family. Adam Thelen is the third son of the family patriarch, and he is a priest. He has a forbidden love affair and also responds to the evil acts of a fellow priest. Adam is shocked at his own actions. Is he any less malign then his family's adversaries? This saga of a family with strong ties to global, religious, and financial institutions will continue with volume 2—Epiphany: The Paraclete.