My name is Thomas Raptis. I was born in 1980 in Katerini Pieria, a town near Thessaloniki. I was blessed to grow up in a village, so from my childhood I got in touch with the Greek Orthodox tradition as reflected in sacred icons and murals. My studies in hagiography began in 1992 near  Konstantinos Xenopoulos, from whom I taught the sketching and the application of color . In 1998 I started my studies in History and Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where I attended courses of Byzantine Art and History of Western Art. Then I studied and worked near the mural Vlasios Tsotsonis in churches and monasteries. An important milestone in my apprenticeship of painting portable icons, was the perennial teaching of the bishop Agathonikos Nikolaidis (Arusha and central Tanzania in Africa), who introduced me into the secrets of Palaiologan style of painting and the spiritual ethos of the Byzantine tradition. Lately I am learning the technique of fresco near the great painter, father Ilie Bobaianu. I live and work in Thessaloniki