It is one of the most extraordinary stories of forgiveness in the midst of unspeakable evil.
On Christmas Eve 2012 Alan Greaves, 68, was brutally murdered on his way to play the organ at his local parish church for midnight mass. Two men Jonathan Bowling and Ashley Foster, both 22, were later jailed for the killing in which they battered Alan to death with a pick axe in an unprovoked attack.
But Alan's bereaved wife Maureen, spoke courageously about her "real and true forgiveness" of the killers. She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "When you are a Christian and you live your life with God, you have an enormous sense of wonder that God forgives you for your sins.
"Of course I haven't murdered anybody but I have done wrong in my life. One of the wonderful things about Christianity is you have a God who truly forgives you.
"Therefore it's through God's forgiveness and mercy that I have been able to extend true forgiveness to Ashley and Jonathan."
Maureen has became an icon of forgiveness. The BBC's Sarah Montague and others expressed incredulity that Maureen could genuinely forgive her husband's killers. She now features as one of "22 stories of God love changing lives today" that make up the Archbishop of York's latest book Agape Love Stories.
But she told Christian Today her ability to forgive had not come easily.
"I am afraid I was a person who grew up not forgiving people all that easily," she said.
"When I became a Christian I really did recognise the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. It was huge part of my life because I wasn't someone who forgave easily."
For Alan, forgiveness came more easily, she said. In her extract for Sentamu's book she says it was after they were first married when Alan first noticed her difficulty in forgiving.
"He told me: 'Maureen we mustn't give ourselves permission to behave like this. It's not honouring to God.'
"And so my wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ when Jesus forgave me my sins and also Alan's love for me has enabled me to walk the journey where forgiveness became easy."
When it came to that awful Christmas morning in 2012, standing over Alan's brutalised body on the hospital bed, Maureen's thoughts turned to the church service she would ordinarily have led.
"If I had led the service on Christmas Day morning I would have recited the Lord's Prayer: 'Father forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.'
"It came to me as I was holding Alan's hands and I knew I could never speak to him or him to me. I said to God: 'Please give me the grace to totally and utterly forgive the people who have murdered Alan
"'But also will you please take them from me: look after them and deal with them in your love and mercy and judgement so I can move on to deal with all I have to deal with now.'
Since then she has not felt anger at either Jonathan or Ashley. "I think I don't feel anger because I put them in God's hands, she said simply. "And they can't be in any better hands because God will deal with them how He knows they need to be dealt with."
In the days and weeks after the attack friends said to her, 'I hope whoever did it hangs in hell' or 'I hope the people who murdered Alan know misery every day of their lives'.
But Maureen told Christian Today: "I was able to say to them 'that is not what I wish for'. I have so known God's forgiveness and such a release has come upon me in forgiving those two men."
"Alan died on our street so when I walk past the railings where he died I always pray for Jonathan and Ashley and their family. When I meet members of their family it is now very easy for me to welcome them and show love to them."
