St. Gerasimos of Kefallonia and the Demon Possessed

St. Gerasimos of Kefallonia (Feast Day - August 16 and October 20)

St. Gerasimos the New Ascetic of Kefallonia (+1579) is known as a renowned healer of the demon possessed. The demon possessed and the mentally ill flock to his holy shrine which contain his incorrupt relics on a daily basis to receive healing. He became a grace-filled exorcist because of his great discipline for fasting and prayer.

The Saint lived as an ascetic on Mount Athos for five years in the Cell of St. Vasilios in the desolate place known as Kapsala. Throughout this time he survived only on boiled zucchini with no oil. It was here that he gained many spiritual experiences and received the monastic tonsure. The demons had no power over him, but rather he acquired the power to cast them out. His nickname became "Kapsalis" ("the burning one"), after the desolate place of Kapsala. The demons would cry out: "Kapsalis, you have burned us."

He acquired such power over the demons that later when he travelled to the Holy Land he desired to imitate the forty day fast of the Lord in the same wilderness that He faced the trials of the devil. For forty days he ate nothing in the wilderness and gave the devil his final blow. He would later go to Kefallonia and establish the monastery which today bears his name and has become a refuge for those battling and possessed by demons.

"The insane are the Saint's expertise" according to Father Ioannis Mesoloras, "which is why there are special quarters for them to do their 'forties' (40 days of fasting and prayer) in order to be absolved of the demons that had conquered them." The possessed and the mentally challenged are all called to imitate St. Gerasimos as much as possible during these forty days to receive their freedom from demonic power and find favor with the Lord to bestow His mercy and grace upon them. On the two major feasts of St. Gerasimos (August 16 and October 20) there is a procession with his incorrupt relics, during which time many of these seek to secure a position to lay down anywhere along the procession's way so that the Saint may pass over them - some cooperate, others resist and require help from family or even the police if they get unruly.

Many reported miracles of healing have taken place over the years at the Monastery of St. Gerasimos in Kefallonia. Below are some famous ones that relate specifically to demon possession:

1. A few years after the death of the Saint, a nun in the monastery where he was enshrined, became possessed and during the night had fallen into the well. The other nuns heard the voice of Saint Gerasimos telling them, "Go quickly, the possessed one is in danger and needs your help." They all went forth with torches and found their sister in the well, not sinking, but floating on the surface of the water as if someone was holding her up. She called to them, "Throw me a rope reverend mothers, so that I may be saved." When she was lifted out of the well, she was cleansed of her possession. Together, the sisters went into the shrine and thanked God and Saint Gerasimos for the miracle.

2. In 1923, two girls (ten year old Elaine Stephanatou, from the village Kalavathi, and twelve year old Elpiniki Vaslatou, from the village Razaton) became possessed. They were brought to the monastery by their parents hoping that their children would be cured. All the nuns pitied them and helped pray for the children. On August 16, 1923, during the Liturgy, both girls were cured.

3. Once, there was a monk from the Monastery of Saint Paul on Mount Athos who had gone to the Church of Saint Gerasimos on the island of Kefallonia. During the Divine Liturgy, he stood in the Altar and was praying with his komboskini the Prayer of the Heart - "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us" - while outside they were chanting. They had also brought a possessed person into the church to be cured by Saint Gerasimos.

While the monk was saying the Prayer in the altar, the demon was being seared outside and was shouting: "Stop working that string, will you, monk, it is burning me."

The priest heard it, too, and said to the monk: "Pray with our komboskini as much as you can, my brother, so that God's creature can be freed of the demon."

The demon then shouted in great anger: "You, rotten priest, you. What are you telling him to pull that string for? It is burning me!"

The monk then prayed with his komboskini with even greater effort and the possessed man was delivered from the demon.

4. This is from an eye-witness: "A woman had a demon and the demons tremble at only hearing of the name of the Saint [Gerasimos]. The woman remained at the monastery for a period of time, given hospitality by the nuns and at a Divine Liturgy the demon could not bear it, and later she herself recounted that she felt something with power leave her body. I must say that a few days before I arrived and when the priest was performing the Holy Unction, and when the time came for the priest to anoint this woman with the demon, she got up and said a phrase that I remembered characteristically, 'Is it not enough that the old priest that stays here doesn’t leave me in peace day or night, and today you with the oil, the two of you will burn me?' and as soon as she was anointed, the demon was so shaken that the woman fell down unconscious and after a few days by the grace of the Saint she was freed."

5. One young man relates how he happened to be traveling in Kefallonia during the feast of St. Gerasimos. When he arrived at the monastery he says that loud screams were coming from the demon possessed in the church, saying: "You are burning me, Gerasimos. You are burning me Kapsali." Everyone understood in the church that there was a spiritual battle going on around them at that moment that they could hear but not see.

6. Recently a young fashionable woman who was possessed and seeking healing from St. Gerasimos was in the monastery and for about an hour was screaming. She then ran over to a young man and grabbed his jacket viciously (this man, it was later discovered, had just come from Australia two days prior). She said to him:

"Hey John, you left your fiance in Kambera and have now come to Kapsali...and you had that other married woman...why? What have you found better here? And on the way your aeroplane almost fell over Singapore...that was me who would have dropped the plane, but the Nazarene and Gerasimos would not let me, so you were saved...."

She then began to say names of people unknown to her that lived thousands of miles away that he knew and would talk about instances of doing things to them but prevented from going further by "the Nazarene and Gerasimos".

The priest then told some in the crowd: "The things you heard are nothing compared to what really happens. This girl was brought here from Xanthi. With some fellow students she had gone to two men named Christos and Gazoro to be told about their future. After this she became possessed and now her family takes her from one monastery to another. For hours on end she tells people the secrets of their lives as she told the young man in the jacket. You must beware however. The Holy Fathers say to not put our trust in the demon possessed. Sometimes they say secrets, but only as much as Christ allows them to say, and other times they say lies. If they tell you five truths and see you believe them, the sixth time they will lie to get you to enter into a dispute with a neighbor. Only those who have gone to Confession are prevented from being called out by the demon possessed...they are blocked. They reveal the sins of the unconfessed, even from among the priests."

7. Reported in the newspaper Peloponnisos on October 16, 1949 titled "The Healing of a Demonically Possessed At St. Gerasimos":

A 17 year old boy from last May has been troubled by an unclean spirit. He attends High School in Leukada and is from the village of Vathy. In the last days of September, during the time in the Liturgy when Fr. Spyridon Linardatos was chanting in the monastery, the young boy was in the church and suddenly began to scream in a frightened manner: "Gerasimos you burned me, where will you drop me? What will your Lord do? Where will he put me? I am Legion who the Lord ordered to go into the wild swine." During this time the priest was trying to exorcize the unclean spirits with the Precious Cross. The unfortunate young man was continuously biting on the Precious Cross saying that it was a great weapon that cuts like a knife. The following day during the Divine Liturgy the young man fell before the larnax which holds the relics of the Saint screaming: "Gerasimos you have silenced me. I am the demon of demons. You silenced me, you beat me up. Open the window that I may leave." After a little while the young boy got up and was healthy.

This young boy eventually grew up to become a priest and always prayed to St. Gerasimos.

[I also wanted to refer the reader to two previous posts I made during my travels to the Monastery of St. Gerasimos when I was 15 years old. The first involves a few words about a woman that showed some signs of demon possession that sat next to me during the Divine Liturgy, and the second concerns some angry dogs I encountered one late night at the monastery. - J.S.]

Apolytikion in the First Tone
O believers, let us praise the protector of the Orthodox, the God-bearing miracle-worker lately appearing to us, the incarnate angel, divine Gerasimos. For he has rightly received from God the ever-flowing grace of performing healing. He strengthens those with diseases and he heals those with demons. And therefore he pours out healings to those who honor him.

(The video below is in Greek, but shows excellent footage of the procession with the relics of the Saint along with the demon possessed screaming and lining up under the holy relics. It also goes down briefly into the cave where St. Gerasimos lived in asceticism underneath the katholikon of the monastery. The priest also speaks of the many miracles St. Gerasimos has performed for the demon possessed. For example, the priest speaks of a woman from Patras who five years prior was possessed and came to the feast of the Saint on October 20. Through the power of the Saint she became like dead when the demon left her and when she awoke she was healed and completely well. At the end it shows the faithful singing in the newly built church the epitaphios (funerary) hymns to St. Gerasimos.)


There is also a video in English about St. Gerasimos here.

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Icon of St. Kyriaki Wept in Nauplion

An icon of St. Kyriaki at the Monastery of the Transfiguration of our Savior located in Nauplion, Greece has wept. It wept five millimeters.

The icon of St. Kyriaki is a portable icon offered by the faithful of the village of Tselou, where also the monastery is located and stopped operating in 1835 except on the feast of Saint Kyriaki annually (July 7).

Metropolitan Iakovos of Argolida was informed immediately of this event and ordered the icon be placed in a protected area to be studied by specialists to find out what substance is emitting from the eyes of St. Kyriaki.

It should be noted that this monastery is frequently damaged by local Satanists and they have also burned icons in the past.



Source

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Metropolitan Zizoulas Takes Stance Against Critics of Ecumenism

10/19/2009
by NAT da Polis

A call to all from John Zizoulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon, tenacious advocate of the value of dialogue. The second meeting for dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox, taking place in Cyprus, sees strong protest and progress at a standstill for fear of "subjugating the Orthodox to the Pope in Rome." Even among Catholics there is dogmatic resistance.

Paphos, Cyprus (AsiaNews) - The 2nd round of dialogue between Catholics and Orthodox is being held in Paphos (Cyprus) from October 16 to 23. Progress, however, appears a distant goal. Two days ago, groups of traditionalist Orthodox monks and Orthodox priests from Larnaca interrupted the meeting of the Joint Commission, asking Archbishop Chrisostomos to stop it. They believe that dialogue between the two Churches is designed to "subjugate the Orthodox to the pope in Rome". Yet it is to this very island, a martyred land of ancient Christian traditions, divided by the last wall in Europe, the one between Greece and Turkey, that Benedict XVI will come on a papal visit in June 2010.

The dialogue of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches began in Ravenna in 2007 where a road map for process towards full unity was signed. The Ravenna document, of great importance, is based on the ecclesiology of the first millennium, when the two churches were in full communion, although even then differences arose from time to time.

The Ravenna document was not signed by the Russian Orthodox Church, which withdrew over differences with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on the question of the Church in Estonia. But these days it was involved in the work. Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople confirmed two days ago that "engaging in dialogue is our duty and obligation. Dialogue is a road of no return".

The issue of dialogue is the theme of an in depth interview that the Metropolitan of Pergamon, John Zizoulas, gave to Cypriot journalist Aris Viketos. Zizoulas is co-chairman - along with the Cardinal Walter Kasper - of the Joint Commission, an eminent theologian and a charismatic figure, as well as a strong supporter of dialogue.

In ecumenical circles it is said that with this interview Zizoulas is sending an important signal to certain areas of the Orthodox world. They, although a minority, are loudly contesting the dialogue, because they themselves are victims of a traditionalist narcissism bordering on infallibility. The interview also criticizes certain sectors of the Catholic Church who impose a disproportionate dogmatic rationalism, and who want nothing to change.

With acuity, the same Zizoulas, commenting to AsiaNews on the situation of the "Christian world" of today, said: "The Christian world today has many bishops, a few theologians and even less ecclesiological knowledge".

Dialogue and the Ecumenical Patriarchate

Returning to the interview, Zizoulas immediately clarifies that "the decision to participate in dialogue with the Catholic Church was unanimously made by all Orthodox churches. Therefore inveighing against dialogue, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and my person is unfair. All Orthodox churches were in agreement on the importance of dialogue and the fact that it must continue".

"The Ecumenical Patriarchate", he continues, "as in all other Orthodox matters, has only a coordinating role and we, like the other members of the Commission, are the engaged executors, according to our own conscience, of the mandate that was assigned to us. We are open to criticism because we are not infallible, just as our critics are not infallible. Those who do not want dialogue, are opposed to the common will of all Orthodox churches. "

Regarding the positions of the monks of Mount Athos - staunchly opposed to dialogue - the Metropolitan of Pergamon is explicit: "I respect their opinion and their feelings on matters of faith. But why should they have the monopoly of truth on matters of faith? Are the other leaders of the churches perhaps lacking this sensitivity? All the faithful of the Church have the right to express their thoughts. But all opinions should be subject to scrutiny of the synods. If the great Father of the Church St. Basil put his opinion to the judgement of synods, we can do no less!".

Petrine primacy

The monks of Mount Athos and some conservative sectors of the Orthodox world accuse the Ecumenical Patriarchate of yielding to Rome on the question of Petrine primacy. Called upon to answer this question, Zizoulas says, "To the monks, whom I consider no less infallible than my own modest self, I would like to reply that the question of primacy is an ecclesiological one. And ecclesiology as we know, is part of dogma, part of faith. When we dialogue on this issue, we look at our own dogmatic divergence. There is no intention of neglecting other matters of dogma ... Quite simply, our experience has shown us that we must first agree on basic issues of ecclesiology, because the question of primacy has been fatal and tragic in relations between the Catholic and Orthodox world. "

"The Ravenna text", continues Zizoulas, "is very important, but unfortunately it has not received due attention and disclosure. It was agreed that the primacy at any level it is exercised, should be understood in its synodal character. This is what the Orthodox Church maintains and applies and it has its roots in the 34th Apostolic Canon ... The Orthodox Church also has its primus, but they can not decide without the synod, nor the synod without them. This focal point was accepted at the Ravenna meeting, although it does not agree with [the concept of] the primate, as monarch. The second point of the Ravenna document is that the primate is linked to the concept of the pentarchy of the patriarchates [1]. This was true during the first millennium, and this should apply even if the remaining assumptions of the first millennium will retain their validity. Which is why their [the monks of Mount Athos] opposition to dialogue is incomprehensible. We all have to accept [these findings] and where the pope accepts the canonical structure of the Church as it was configured in the first millennium, we should all be happy ... The Ravenna text adopts the basic principles of the Church of the first millennium".

The Uniates

Regarding the Uniate question and the resulting differences that emerged with the Catholic Church, the Metropolitan of Pergamon responds that the Uniate question "has never ceased to be a serious issue for us Orthodox. There has been much discussion in the context of dialogue and we agree with the Catholic Church not to take uniatism as a model towards unity and not to use it as a model of proselytism. The Uniate issue will be taken into account when the issue of the primacy in the 2nd millennium is addressed, when in fact the phenomenon was born".

Ecumenism: Heresy?

Asked whether ecumenism is a heresy, Zizoulas replied: "In defining someone as a heretic, one must consider if that person rejects the principles endorsed by Ecumenical Synods. Among those Orthodox participating in the ecumenical dialogue I have not found any deviation from the principles of faith. Moreover knowing how to dialogue with those who oppose your beliefs does not make you a heretic. Ecumenical dialogue has nothing to hide and our journey is still a long one".

On the prospects of dialogue, Zizoulas concludes by saying: "History is guided by God. Those who proclaim that the Church's unity is impossible, are trying to take the place of God. Who are we to predetermine the future? We are called to tirelessly work so we all may be one. If we do not enact this, or we do so at the expense of the faith of our fathers, then we will be called to answer to God. The final outcome is in His hands. He will find a way to see His will is done, so we may all be one. We simply have to work for unity".

[1] The Church of the first millennium was administered by 5 Patriarchs: Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch. Rome held primacy.

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Quran Inscriptions Appear on Little Boy's Body

[I found this a bit odd, as most claimed Islamic miracles tend to be. There are possible natural explanations for this, but on the supernatural level usually body writing is associated with demonic possession or influence. - J.S.]

Quran Inscriptions Appear on Little Boy's Body - New Show for the Masses?

October 19, 2009
Pravda

Inscriptions of the Prophet Muhammed regarded with the same reverence as the Quran appear and then disappear on the body of a nine-month-old child born in a small village of Krasno-Oktyabrskoye, the Republic of Dagestan, RIA Novosti news agency reports.

According to a representative of a local mosque, the signs in Arab first appeared on the body of the new-born Ali Yakubov a few days after his birth.

The child’s mother, Madina Yakubova, said that the boy was born with a hematoma on his chin, and when the bruise healed, the word 'Allah' written in Arab appeared.

“The inscriptions appear on Mondays and Fridays, the boy runs very high temperature and cries. The inscriptions gradually disappear after three days and then new ones appear,” the mother said.

The parents did not tell anyone about this until they saw the inscription saying 'Show these signs to people.' The woman added that Ali was her second child, and this never happened to her daughter.

A representative of Dagestan Spiritual Governance for Muslims did not provide any comments. He said he was surprised like everyone else.

The imam of the village mosque believes that these signs are “God’s signs.”

Medics do not believe in religious miracles, of course. Ludmila Luss, a local doctor, believes that the story with the inscriptions is masterminded by the boy’s parents, Utro.ru website wrote.

“They might have treated his skin with irritants, such as pepper and salt, or medications, which trigger skin inflammation and leave red traces in the shape of Arabic characters,” she said.


The parents may not have used any substances or medications, if the child suffers from urticarial dermographism, also known as skin writing, – a skin disorder that occurs with five percent of the nation’s population. It is one of the most common types of urticaria, in which the skin becomes raised and inflamed when stroked or rubbed with a dull object. Therefore, if the child has such a disorder, writing anything on his skin is a piece of cake.

“Some people suffering from gastric pathologies have extremely sensitive skin. If you draw something on their skin with a little stick, for example, the drawing will later appear,” Ludmila Luss said.

In the meantime, the clergy of the Northern Caucasus do not doubt that the boy is a divine phenomenon.

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Yulia Tymoshenko Receives the Highest Award of Jerusalem Orthodox Church

Sunday, October 18, 2009
Offial Site

Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilus III presented the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko the highest award of Jerusalem Orthodox Church - The Order of the Svyatohrobskoho Brotherhood. This award is given to chapters of churches and for outstanding services to the Orthodox Church.

"We know your a positive role in the political and ecclesiastical spheres, so we celebrate your achievements in the unification of churches and prominent role in combating anti-Semitism" - said His Holiness Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilus III Presenting Yulia Tymoshenko order.

Gratefully accepting the award, Yulia Tymoshenko said that this is an extremely high award for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, believers who desire peace and tranquility.

Yulia Tymoshenko told the patriarch Teófilo III, that with a difficult challenge, which is the presidential election, she decided to visit the holy places and pray that God give Ukraine and the Ukrainian people peace, and association of churches so that Ukraine will feel like a united nation.

Besides, Yulia Tymoshenko has invited the Patriarch of Jerusalem to soon visit Ukraine. "This will be an historic event for our country", she said. The invitation of the Ukrainian Prime Minister was graciously accepted by Theophilus III .

During the meeting the Patriarch of Jerusalem, at the request of Yulia Tymoshenko, blessed Ukraine and the Ukrainian people for happiness and prosperity. In turn, the chairman of the Ukrainian government has expressed hope that all trials of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people will proceed with dignity.

- See my earlier posting: Ukrainian Prime Minister on Orthodox Pilgrimage

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Take Me Back to Constantinople

[An interesting article, though I do have a couple of problems. First, the "Byzantines" were in fact Romans and this article seems to seperate the two. When Rome fell in the 5th century, it was only a segment of a much larger Roman Empire that fell whose capital was in Constantinople. It would be a little more historically accurate maybe to distinguish between the Pagan Roman Empire and the Christian Roman Empire, the latter being the "Byzantines" he writes of. Second, the Roman (or Byzantine) strategy he speaks of is only a small part of the survival of the Roman Empire. An honest Roman of the time would have ascribed the success and longevity of the Empire to God who they believed preserved the Empire to bring nations to the Orthodox faith. Therefore, the main strategy of the Romans was their preservation of Orthodoxy. If it was not for countless miraculous interventions of the Mother of God, who was the patroness of the Empire, the Roman Empire would not have survived. - J.S.]

How Byzantium, not Rome, can help preserve Pax Americana.

BY EDWARD LUTTWAK NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009
Foreign Policy

Economic crisis, mounting national debt, excessive foreign commitments -- this is no way to run an empire. America needs serious strategic counseling. And fast. It has never been Rome, and to adopt its strategies no -- its ruthless expansion of empire, domination of foreign peoples, and bone-crushing brand of total war -- would only hasten America's decline. Better instead to look to the empire's eastern incarnation: Byzantium, which outlasted its Roman predecessor by eight centuries. It is the lessons of Byzantine grand strategy that America must rediscover today.

Fortunately, the Byzantines are far easier to learn from than the Romans, who left virtually no written legacy of their strategy and tactics, just textual fragments and one bookish compilation by Vegetius, who knew little about statecraft or war. The Byzantines, however, wrote it all down -- their techniques of persuasion, intelligence gathering, strategic thinking, tactical doctrines, and operational methods. All of this is laid out clearly in a series of surviving Byzantine military manuals and a major guidebook on statecraft.

I've spent the past two decades poring over these texts to compile a study of Byzantine grand strategy. The United States would do well to heed the following seven lessons if it wishes to remain a great power:

I. Avoid war by every possible means, in all possible circumstances, but always act as if war might start at any time. Train intensively and be ready for battle at all times -- but do not be eager to fight. The highest purpose of combat readiness is to reduce the probability of having to fight.

II. Gather intelligence on the enemy and his mentality, and monitor his actions continuously. Efforts to do so by all possible means might not be very productive, but they are seldom wasted.

III. Campaign vigorously, both offensively and defensively, but avoid battles, especially large-scale battles, except in very favorable circumstances. Don't think like the Romans, who viewed persuasion as just an adjunct to force. Instead, employ force in the smallest possible doses to help persuade the persuadable and harm those not yet amenable to persuasion.

IV. Replace the battle of attrition and occupation of countries with maneuver warfare -- lightning strikes and offensive raids to disrupt enemies, followed by rapid withdrawals. The object is not to destroy your enemies, because they can become tomorrow's allies. A multiplicity of enemies can be less of a threat than just one, so long as they can be persuaded to attack one another.

V. Strive to end wars successfully by recruiting allies to change the balance of power. Diplomacy is even more important during war than peace. Reject, as the Byzantines did, the foolish aphorism that when the guns speak, diplomats fall silent. The most useful allies are those nearest to the enemy, for they know how best to fight his forces.

VI. Subversion is the cheapest path to victory. So cheap, in fact, as compared with the costs and risks of battle, that it must always be attempted, even with the most seemingly irreconcilable enemies. Remember: Even religious fanatics can be bribed, as the Byzantines were some of the first to discover, because zealots can be quite creative in inventing religious justifications for betraying their own cause ("since the ultimate victory of Islam is inevitable anyway …").

VII. When diplomacy and subversion are not enough and fighting is unavoidable, use methods and tactics that exploit enemy weaknesses, avoid consuming combat forces, and patiently whittle down the enemy's strength. This might require much time. But there is no urgency because as soon as one enemy is no more, another will surely take his place. All is constantly changing as rulers and nations rise and fall. Only the empire is eternal -- if, that is, it does not exhaust itself.

Edward Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire.

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Did the Kosovan Army Harvest Serbian Organs?

Former War Crimes Prosecutor Alleges Kosovan Army Harvested Organs From Serb Prisoners

Ian Traynor, Europe editor
The Guardian
Saturday 12 April 2008

Carla Del Ponte, the ex-chief prosecutor for war crimes in former Yugoslavia, has unleashed a storm of recrimination with allegations of a trade in human body parts in Kosovo and Albania after Nato bombed Serbia in 1999.

Del Ponte claims, based on what she describes as credible reports and witnesses, that Kosovan Albanian guerrillas transported hundreds of Serbian prisoners into northern Albania where they were killed, and their organs "harvested" and trafficked out of Tirana airport.

The Kosovan government, now headed by the former guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, dismisses the claims as untrue, while Serbia and Russia are demanding a war crimes investigation into the allegations. Del Ponte, now a Swiss ambassador, has been ordered to keep silent by the Swiss government.

The allegations are aired in Del Ponte's just published memoirs of her eight years as chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia, based in The Hague.

The Hunt: Me and War Criminals, which is published in Italian and was launched last week, has triggered controversy and added to the tensions between Kosovo and Serbia two months after the Albanian-majority province declared independence from Serbia.

In the book, Del Ponte writes that her investigators visited a house in the remote mountainous region outside Burrel, Albania, which was allegedly being used as an impromptu clinic for the butchering of 300 young Serbs captured by the Kosovo Liberation Army and transported in lorries across the border from Kosovo to Albania.

According to witnesses - including one who said he had driven some of the organs to Tirana airport, and a team of unnamed journalists who investigated the allegations - the victims had their kidneys removed before being killed later and having other organs taken.

"Prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately," Del Ponte writes.

The "house-clinic" was visited by UN officials from Kosovo and tribunal investigators. "The team was shocked by what they saw," said Chuck Sudetic, a former tribunal official who is joint author of the book. "They found gauze and vials of medicines, including a muscle relaxer used during surgery."

Witness accounts, indirectly provided to Del Ponte, indicated that some of the victims were buried near the house and at a nearby cemetery. Forensic tests in the house revealed traces of blood, but investigators were unable to establish whether it was human blood. The victims were said to include Albanians and trafficked women from Russia and eastern Europe forced to work as prostitutes.

Del Ponte has long complained that the UN authorities in Kosovo blocked her attempts to investigate war crimes by Kosovan Albanians and she says that the authorities in Albania were also unhelpful. The most senior Kosovan Albanian to be tried for war crimes in The Hague, Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister of Kosovo and ex-guerrilla commander, was acquitted last week, sparking bitter protests in Serbia.

According to Del Ponte, a local Albanian prosecutor, who visited the house with the UN team, told her: "No Serbs are buried here. But if they did bring Serbs over the border from Kosovo and killed them, they did a good thing."

The alleged organ harvesting is said to have been uncovered by journalists who called in the UN in Kosovo and provided information to the tribunal.

"There were credible accounts of abductions and an organ harvesting operation provided to reputable journalists who have had many years of experience in the region," said Sudetic.

The journalists refused to identify their witnesses. Other sources claim the body parts were flown to Istanbul where they were transplanted into wealthy Arab patients.

Del Ponte's account is the first time such allegations have come from such an authoritative source. But officials and analysts are surprised that she should choose to air them now, five years after her investigators went to the alleged scene of the crime. Del Ponte writes that it proved impossible at the time to pursue a full investigation of the claims.

"I am surprised at the extraordinary serious allegations," said one senior tribunal official. "These allegations have formed no part of any investigation by the prosecution at the tribunal."

Mirko Klarin, an authority on the tribunal and Balkan war crimes at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, described Del Ponte's allegations as "irresponsible and appalling ... This is more journalistic than prosecutorial. She shouldn't put rumours in her book."

The Swiss foreign ministry barred Del Ponte, now its ambassador to Argentina, from attending her book launch and ordered her to keep quiet. Senior Swiss figures are calling for her resignation.

"All I know is that she was eager to talk about the book after its publication," said Sudetic.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which mediates confidential talks between Serbia and Kosovo to try to locate and identify those who vanished in the 1998-99 war, there are still 1,967 people missing. The majority are believed to be Kosovan Albanians. The 300 Serbs said to have been transported to Burrel would constitute a large part of the missing Serbs.

While there is widespread scepticism about the veracity of the claims, Human Rights Watch said Del Ponte had supplied "sufficiently grave evidence" to warrant an investigation by the Kosovo and Albanian authorities.

"Perhaps by bringing this story out now, the witnesses will step forward," said Sudetic. "Perhaps the persons who are responsible for the abductions will worry about the law catching up with them. Any persons who may have taken part in the alleged organ harvesting will sleep a little less soundly."

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Autobiographical Writings of St. John of Kronstadt

St. John of Kronstadt (Feast Day - October 19 and December 20)

There exists a short autobiographical sketch — the only one — composed by St. John of Kronstadt which appeared in 1888 in the magazine Sever (North). We will reproduce it in full:

"I am the son of a churchman from the village of Soursk, district of Pinezhsk, province of Archangelsk. From very early childhood, as early as I can remember, at the age of four or five, perhaps even earlier, my parents taught me to pray and by their religious frame of mind made me a religiously-minded boy. At home, in my sixth year, Father brought be a primer, and Mother began to teach me the alphabet; but reading and writing came to me with great difficulty, which was the cause of no little sorrow to me. I just couldn’t master the identity between our speech and writing; in my time reading and writing were not taught as it is now: we were all taught ‘Az’ (for ‘A’), ‘Boukee’ (for ‘B’), Vedi,’ etc., as if ‘A’ were one thing and ‘Az’ a different thing. For a long time did this wisdom elude me, but having been taught by Father and Mother to pray, grieving over my failures in studies, I prayed fervently to God, so that He would grant me understanding — and I remember how, suddenly, it was as if a veil were lifted from my mind, and I began to comprehend studies well. When I was ten I was taken to the Archangelsk parish school. My father, naturally, received a very small salary, so that it must have been terribly difficult to live. I already understood the real position of my parents, and for this reason my inability at school was indeed a calamity. I thought little of the significance my studies would have on my future, and grieved especially over how Father was needlessly spending his last means to support me.

"Left in Archangelsk completely alone, I was deprived of my parents and had to arrive at everything myself. Among the boys of my age group in class, I did not find, nor did I seek, support or assistance; they were all more able than I, and I was the last pupil. Anguish took hold of me. Then it was that I turned for help to the Almighty, and a change took place in me. In a short time I moved forward to such an extent that I ceased to be the last pupil. The further I went, the better and better I became in my studies, and by the end of the courses was among the first transferred to the seminary, which I finished first in 1851 and was sent to the Petersburg Academy on a full scholarship. While still in the seminary, I lost my dearly beloved father, and my old mother remained without any means of support. Right after seminary I wanted to take up the position of deacon or psalmist so as to have the means of supporting her, but she passionately opposed this, and I set out for the Academy. In the Academy’s board of administration, the position of clerks was then filled by students for the most insignificant salary (about ten roubles a month), and I gladly agreed to accept the offer of the Academy’s secretary to take this position, so as to send this money to Mother. Having completed my course of studies as a candidate in theology in 1855, I went as a priest to Kronstadt, having married Elizabeth, the daughter of Archpriest K.N. Nesvitsky, who is alive even to this day; I do not have and have never had any children. From the very first day of my high service to the Church, I set myself the rule: to regard my task of pastorship and priesthood as conscientiously as possible, to pay strict attention to myself and to my inner life. With this aim I, first of all, began to read the Holy Writ of the Old and New Testaments, extracting from it all that was edifying to myself, as a man generally and as a priest in particular. Later I began to keep a diary, where I wrote down my battle with thoughts, with passions, my penitent feelings, my silent prayers to God and my grateful emotions for having been delivered from temptations, woes and tribulations. Every Sunday and Holy Day I would deliver sermons and discourses in church, either prepared by myself, or from the sermons of Metropolitan Gregory. Some of my discourses have been published: On the Blessed Trinity, On the Creation of the World, and On the Gospel’s Beatitudes. Apart from preaching I came to take care of the poor like myself and - about twenty years ago, in 1874 — conceived the idea of setting up in Kronstadt a 'Working House for the poor', and which the Lord helped to bring about fifteen years ago. — That’s all."

That’s all! All of St. John is in this concluding exclamation — similar to those with which he would, now and again, express the "simplicity" of his heart during reading in church, wholly engrossing himself into what became the subject of his attention. St. John does not see himself as separate and apart from his life’s vocation — he is wholly in it, and for this reason he is able to regard himself "simply" even from the outside and to speak about himself: he is an obedient tool, and it is the Lord’s business to employ this tool for this or that, himself being nothing more than a most ordinary servant.

Let us look at another document which will show how St. John sees himself — precisely in the image of a priest. This is his first sermon, delivered by him at his first Liturgy in St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Kronstadt on the Savior’s words: "Feed my lambs."

"These words of the supreme Chief Pastor Christ are familiar to all of us, my brethren, because you have not infrequently heard them during the reading of the Gospel at all-night vigils on Saturday evenings; you also know to whom they were said: I will repeat them as they were said to the Apostle Peter, and were said thrice, as a sign of the threefold reinstatement of the Apostle, who had thrice renounced his Lord. The Lord mystically addresses these same words to us also, unworthy pastors of His spiritual flock, when He calls us, through the medium of a bishop, to the pastoral service. The Lord’s words reached also the ears of my own heart: 'Feed my lambs,’ commanding me to feed you, His spiritual lambs.

"I am aware of the exaltedness of the office and the responsibilities attached to it; I can feel my frailty and unworthiness in carrying out the highest calling on earth, that of a priest; but I am relying on the grace and mercy of God, healing the weak and replenishing the failing. I know what is capable of making me more or less worthy of this office and able to carry out this calling: it is love toward Christ and you, my beloved brethren. This is why the Lord also, in reinstating the disciple who had renounced Him in the rank of Apostle, thrice asked him: ‘Lovest thou Me?’ and after each one of his answers: ‘I love Thee,’ repeated to him: ‘Feed My lambs, feed My sheep.’

"Love is a great force: it makes even the weak strong, and the small great, and the insignificant worthy of deep respect, and the hitherto unknown and strange, it soon makes close and amiable. Such is the nature of pure, evangelical love. May the Lord Who is full of love toward all grant also to me a spark of that love; may he inflame it in me with His Holy Spirit.

"Exalted, I said, is the calling of a priest. For whose office is it? It is Christ’s office. He is the only High Priest, the first and the last, offering a sacrifice and being brought in sacrifice for all; He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; we are arrayed with the grace of His priesthood, He Himself officiates in us and through us. Consequently, we ourselves must also deeply honor our office, and you, brethren, must for your own worthiness and salvation deeply honor this office and submit to the bearers of it, being indulgent towards their frailties and deficiencies. For although we are exalted by our office, our nature is the same as yours, weak and subject to stumbling. And what mortal human can fully measure up to the height and holiness of the office of priesthood? If we are to take into consideration only one thing, that a priest, standing before the very throne of God in an earthly church, must so often perform the life-endowing awesome Mysteries of Christ, must intercede for the instruction and guidance of the Church, on behalf of the whole world, for the welfare of God’s churches in the whole universe and the unification of all dissenters; to bring an offering of gratitude for all the saints: forefathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, the ascetics and for all blessed souls; to pray for the living and the dead — then what an angelic worthiness is required for that? Is this a task for our frailty, when we, on account of our sins, would not dare open our mouths even for ourselves, so as to implore heavenly justice and mercy for our own sins? No, this is the work of the highest grace, this is the work of the countless good things which Christ has done for us. He is the Interceder and the One Who accepts intercessions. While if we are to take into consideration also the performance of the rest of the mysteries, particularly baptism, confession, marriage, extreme unction: what holiness is required, what a wealth of Christ’s love, from the priest performing these sacraments. For in all prayers and officiations, belonging to the content of the sacraments, there breathes the spirit of God’s infinite love toward the human race, (the spirit) of mercy, extreme condescension, sanctity and incorruptibility.

"Yet again, there is the preaching of God’s Word, the proclaiming of the eternal truths of the Gospel in a language readily understandable by all, imbued with the spirit of evangelical love, so as to teach, enlighten, correct, confirm, guide along the path leading to eternity: what a lofty and difficult duty this is! Without a doubt, the grace of God will help us in everything, if we will be worthy of it, and if you will try to walk in, or to live worthily of, your lofty Christian calling. And so, here, brothers and sisters, is my first word to you in church, with which I make your acquaintance. Accept it with an open, straightforward and kind heart, accept me into your love, and remember me before the Lord in your prayers, which you daily raise up to Him. I will conclude it with an apostolic blessing: 'The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.’"

After twenty-five years, St. John was greeted in the same church, when a precious cross was given to him. He replied to his flock thus:

"Thank you for having regarded my frailties with benevolence. Yes, I am replete with frailties; I know my frailties, but the power of God is perfected in weakness, and it was wonderfully perfected in me during my twenty-five years service in the priesthood, and, I dare say — for I’ll be telling the truth — through me it was perfected in many simple believers in an evident, palpable manner. Glory be to grace! Glory be to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who has granted us grace upon grace! I am telling you about this power of God in me so that you will, together with me, praise our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, Whose grace and mercy has not grown weaker even now, as it will not grow weaker until the end of time, which was performed within me every day and many times a day by Christ’s grace. I cannot estimate the countless multitude of snares of the prince of the world and attacks of passions, destroyed by the grace and power of Christ within me, by my silent prayer of faith, on account of heartfelt confession and especially through the power of Divine Communion! What angelic, all-embracing mind will count all of God’s mysterious gifts to my soul — the blessed gifts of mercy, cleanliness, blessedness, enlightenment, peace, tender emotion, freedom and spiritual breadth, joy in the Holy Spirit, the audacity and strength and multifarious aid, which I invisibly received throughout all the days of my service. I cannot count the innumerable blessed healings — spiritual and physical, performed by the Lord within me through the heartfelt calling of His wonderful name. Glory be to God our Savior! He sees that I am not falsely sending up to Him this glory. Only by Him and of His Name am I glorious, while without Him — dishonorable; only by Him powerful, while without Him — infirm; with Him holy, without Him — replete with sins; with Him I dare, without Him I am cowardly; with Him I am meek and humble, without Him I am irritable and not blessed. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His Name together..."

Considerably later, on his seventieth birthday on October 19, 1899, St. John, casting his mind back and again recalling the words of the Apostle that the power of God is perfected in weakness, said:

"Who of those who knew me in childhood could have thought that I would live to be over seventy, which (age), according to the Prophet, represents the extreme limit of the life of man, this earthly wanderer? I grew up sickly, weak, and in my very infancy a severe illness, smallpox, almost brought me to the grave — I was a hair’s breadth away from death, to use the apt expression. The Lord preserved my life — I recovered and began to grow. When the time was ripe for me to begin my schooling — I was brought to school, studies were unintelligible to me — I had not been prepared for them at home; I had to arrive at understanding and learning by myself; I was aware of and felt my helplessness, jealousy regarding the successes of my classmates — and began to ask for help and understanding from God, Who gives to all men liberally and upbraideth not (James 1:5), in the words of St. James the Apostle — and the Lord opened my mind: I was enlightened by Divine Light, reading and writing became clear to me, and I began to advance in my studies in proportion to my age and the educational aim. But even then, during studies, how many illnesses I had to experience!

"In poor physical health, I completed three educational and instructional schools: lower, middle and high, gradually forming and developing three spiritual forces: the mind, heart and will, as the image of a tripartite soul, created in the image of the Holy, Life-creating Trinity. The highest Church school, which is known as the Theological Academy, had a salutary influence upon me. Theological, philosophical, historical and various other studies, widely and deeply taught, clarified and widened my contemplation of the world, and I, by the grace of God, began to delve into the depths of theological contemplation, coming to know more and more the depth of God’s grace, which has created all things wisely, beautifully, beneficently, having subjected all creatures to firm, vital harmonic laws; my mind and heart were especially captivated by the wise and wonderful plan for the salvation of the perishing human race through the Divine Lamb of Jesus Christ, which toketh away the sin of the world (St. John 1:29); the religious feeling, which was instilled within me by my devout parents, developed and grew stronger. Having read the Bible with the Gospel and many works of Chrysostom and other ancient Fathers, as well as the Russian Chrysostom, Philaret of Moscow, and other Church orators, I felt a special attraction to the calling of a priest and began to implore the Lord that He would grant me the grace of priesthood and pastorship of His human flock. Contemplating the wonderful plan of God for the salvation of the human race, so full of love, I wept ample and hot tears, burning with the desire to assist in the salvation of perishing humanity. And the Lord fulfilled my desire. Soon after completing my formal education I was elevated to the height of the priesthood.

"And thus I have passed forty years in this calling, offering up to God supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority (II Timothy 2:1-2) and offering, almost daily, the bloodless Sacrifice, reconciling creatures with their Creator, for the Lord has given priests the ministry of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:18), through which I also reconcile myself daily with the Just Judge Who is daily angered by me, and reconcile people, averting His just anger, which moves against us as a result of our sins, turning men away from crooked, pernicious ways and indicating the true paths. I thank the Lord for having given me the opportunity and faculty, through frequent Divine Services, to learn the whole round of Church service-books, to master their wise contents and richness of subject, their images of the greatest, saving confession of sinners and God’s mercy toward penitents, the whole depth of theology, the full sweetness of the hymns of praise to God and wonderful praises to the Mother of God, love toward God and various feasts of countless saints.

"I thank the Lord for having favored me with being born and raised in, and being a priest of, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, to be Her member, though an unworthy one, and to have been favored with intercession for Her before God, for I do not depend upon my own works, which I do not have, but upon all that the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us, redeeming me from sin, the curse and death with His Blood, upon the prayers of the Mother of God, the Holy Angels and all the Saints. They will entreat the Lord for me, and He will lead me into His heavenly kingdom."

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The Last Testament of St. John of Rila with Biography

St. John of Rila (Feast Day - October 19)

Venerable St. John of Rila, a great spirit-filled ascetic struggler of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, is the heavenly patron of the Bulgarian People. He was born in the year 876 in the village of Skrino in Sardica Province (which today is Sofia). Orphaned at an early age, the boy hired himself out to strangers as a shepherd.

It happened that a rich man beat him because a cow and its calf had gotten lost. For a long time, the little boy wept and prayed that God help him. At the time he located the cow and the calf, the water level of the Sturma River had risen sharply. The young shepherd prayed, made the sign of the cross over his outer clothing, laid it on the surface of the water, picked up the calf and carried it across, as if on dry land, to the other shore, where the cow was waiting for them. The rich man, who had been hiding in the woods, was terrified upon witnessing this miracle; giving the boy a generous reward, he released him from service.

The boy gave away his fortune, and went off to his native village. When and where he received monastic tonsure is unknown. At first he took up his struggle on a high, barren hill, where he his only sustenance was drawn from plants that grew in the wilderness. His hut was made of brushwood. One night soon after he settled there, he was attacked by bandits, was beaten, and was driven away. He then made his dwelling in a deep cave.

Soon thereafter, his nephew, St. Luke, moved in as well. The place was so bereft of people that when Luke appeared, St. John at first thought that it was a machination of the demons. On realizing that the youth was in fact seeking salvation of his soul, he lovingly accepted him. However, they were not to live together for very long. St. John’s brother located the spiritual strugglers and forcibly took away his son. Along the way home, the youth was bitten by a snake and died. The brother repented of what he had done, and asked forgiveness of the Venerable One. The desert dweller would often visit the righteous youth’s grave; it was his favorite place to rest.

The Venerable One spent eleven years in the cave in the wilderness. After that, he moved to the wilderness of Rila, where he took up residence in the hollow of a tree. He fasted a great deal, prayed, and constantly wept; he ate only grass. Taking note of the Saint’s patient suffering, God had bean plants spring up to provide him with sustenance for a long time. It was the appearance of those beans that caused people to learn of his spiritual struggles.

It happened that a flock of sheep was startled by something, and ran off along the mountain ridges. They stopped at the place where the Saint lived. The shepherds following after their flock were stunned to see a hermit tenderly feeding the sheep. He said to them, “You have come here hungry. Pluck some of my beans for yourselves, and eat.” All ate until they were full. One of them hid away a lot of beans for later. Along the way home, he offered them to his companions. However, not a single bean was to be found in the stolen bean pods. In repentance, the shepherds contritely returned to the Elder. He forgave them, and with a smile said, “You see, children, God provided those beans for sustenance in the wilderness.”

From that time on, people would bring to the Venerable One those who were sick or possessed by evil spirits, and he would heal them through prayer. To avoid fame, the spiritual struggler left his beloved tree-hollow and settled onto a high and almost inaccessible cliff, where he spent seven years under the open sky. Word of the great desert-dweller reached King Peter of Bulgaria (927-969), who wanted to meet him. However, St. John wrote him a letter, humbly declining the meeting.

Later, the desert-dweller took under his care monastics who established a monastery and a church in the cave where St. John had previously lived. He wisely shepherded his flock until his repose, at the age of 69, on August 18, 946. Five years before his death, he wrote his Testament to Disciples, one of the finest compositions in the body of ancient Bulgarian literature. The spiritual struggler’s life and the signs of God’s mercy shown as the result of his prayers were the best possible testimony regarding the Christian Faith in the newly-Baptized Bulgarian land.

In the troubled time of war between Bulgaria and Byzantium – during the reign of King Samuel (976-1014), St. John of Rila appeared to his disciples, and directed that they move his relics to Sardica (Sofia), where Patriarch Damian of Bulgaria (927-972) had taken refuge. It is thought that the translation of the relics took place in the year 980. Some time later St. John of Rila’s right hand was taken to Rus’, after it first was taken to Rila, where the Church of Venerable St. John of Rila, and a side-chapel of the Holy Martyrs Flor and Laurus was erected. Those Martyrs are celebrated on August 18, the day of St. John’s repose.

Since antiquity, Russian people have known of and loved St. John of Rila. It was in Russian source materials (the 12th Century Mazurinsky Chronicle) that the date of the Venerable Saint’s repose was recorded. In 1183, among the treasures of Serdets seized by King Bela II of Hungary (1174-1196) during his campaign against the Greeks was the reliquary containing the relics of St. John. They were taken to Esztergom. In 1187, after richly decorating the reliquary, he returned the Holy Relics with great solemnity and honor. On October 19, 1238, St. John’s relics were translated with great solemnity to the new capital, Veliko Tarnovo, and were installed in a church dedicated to the Saint. On July 1, 1469, the Holy Relics of St. John of Rila were returned to the Rila Monastery, where they remain today, and where they afford grace-filled help to all of the Faithful.

The Testament of St. John of Rila to His Disciples

[1.] I, John, the humble and sinful, who has never done anything good on earth, when I came into this wilderness of Rila, I found no man over here, but only wild animals and impenetrable thickets. I settled alone in it among the wild animals, without food nor shelter, but the sky was my shelter and the earth my bed and the herbs my food. But the good Lord, for the love of whom I disregarded everything and endured hunger and thirst, frost, the heat of the sun, and corporal nakedness, did not abandon me, but like a merciful and child-loving father he lavishly satisfied all my needs. What shall I contribute to the Lord for all he has given me? Many are his benefactions to me, for he looked from his holy height at my humbleness (cf. Luke 1:48) and lent his support to me to go through everything — not I, but the might of Christ, which is in me — because every good gift and every perfect gift is from him (James 1:17).

[2.] Seeing you today gathered together in the Lord here, where, as I told you, no man has dwelled until now, but only wild animals, and foreseeing that the end of my life here is soon coming on, because of this I made up my mind, before my departure (II Tim. 4:6) from life here, to leave you the present fatherly testament of mine, just as carnal fathers leave their children an earthly inheritance of silver and gold and other property, so that when you commemorate your father in the Holy Spirit, you do not forget his testament.

[3.] I know, my beloved children in God, I know you very well, that you, being beginners, are not confirmed yet in the monk’s life, but fear not, for the Lord’s "power is made perfect in weakness" (II Cor. 12:9). Just because of this I made up my mind to write for you this rough and ignorant testament of mine, so that you will keep it always in your minds to become stronger in body and soul, in the Lord, and go forward through the virtues in fear of God. Because I believe in my God, whom I have served since my youth and to whom I submitted zealously, after my departure, this wilderness, which until now was terrible and uninhabited, will be inhabited by a multitude of desert-citizens. What was written about it will be fulfilled: "The desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband" (Is. 54:1; Gal. 4:27).

[4.] Because of this I beg you, my children, whom I have gathered in the Lord, I beg of you, my flesh and blood, do not neglect your father’s admonition and together with the apostle I say: "I am in travail again until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). I beg you and make you swear on the dread name of God not to violate or abandon anything after my death, but everything I have written let be carried out, as it is written and as you have promised before God. Whosoever oversteps or violates something of it, let him be damned and separated from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to have no share with the saints, who were pleasing to God ages ago, but let his share be with those who had crucified the Lord of Glory (Acts 7:2) and with his betrayer Judas, to be erased from "the book of life" (Phil. 4:3) and not to be inscribed [in it] with the righteous.

[5.] First of all, I bequeath to you the obligation to preserve the holy faith immaculate and unaffected by any false teaching, just as we received it from the holy fathers, without "being led away with diverse and strange teachings" (Heb. 13:9). Hold fast and keep the traditions you have heard and seen from me. Do not deviate either to the right, or to the left, but walk along the royal road. Keep yourselves carefully away from worldly fascinations and always remember why you have come out of the world, and why you have despised it and worldly things.

[6.] Now again, keep yourselves away from the avaricious snake, "for the love of money is the root of all evil" (I Tim. 6:10), according to the apostle, who calls it a second idolatry. Because for the hermit wealth consists not in silver and gold,5 but in perfect poverty, in the denial of his personal will, and in lofty humbleness. I am not telling you this as my commandments, but [I am] recalling for you the commandments of Christ. For he told his holy disciples and through them everybody who had renounced the world: "Take no gold, nor silver, nor a bag, nor copper in your belts" (Matt. 10:9) and so on. For gold and silver are great enemies of the monk and bite those who have them like a snake.

[7.] If we, however, have undoubted hope in God, he will not leave us deprived of anything, for he himself says: "A woman may forget her children, yet will I not forget thee" (Is. 49:15). Also in another place: "But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be yours as well" (Matt. 6:33). For in the beginning, when I came to this wilderness, the sly enemy attempted to allure me, for the pious king sent to me a lot of gold. For the sake of God I refused to see him, for I understood that it was a perfidy of the devil. I did not accept it, but returned it to those who sent it, for I thought to myself: "If I wished to have gold and silver, and suchlike things, why came I into this terrible and impenetrable wilderness, where I found no man, but wild animals?" So I saved myself from the intrigues of the sly tempter, who endeavors to trip us up in those things, which we renounced willfully. That is why you are not to look for any of these things, "for your heavenly Father knows that you need them all" (Matt. 6:32) before your prayer [is offered].

[8.] Nor look to be recognized and beloved by earthly kings and princes, nor put your hope in them, leaving the heavenly King, with whom you enlisted to be soldiers and "wrestle not against flesh and blood," but "against the ruler of the darkness of this world" (Eph. 6:12). For the prophet Jeremiah also threatens us speaking so: "Cursed be the man that hopeth in man" and the rest. Enumerating the evils, he adds that "blessed is the man that hopeth in the Lord" (Jer. 17:5-8). Do not say: "What shall we eat, or drink, or in what shall we be dressed?" for the gentiles seek after these things. "Look at the birds of the air: for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26). As soon as you have come out of the world, do not go back, neither with your body, nor with your mind, for, as it is said, "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven" (Luke 9:62).

[9.] The Apostle [Paul] too, however, teaches us to "forget what lies behind and strain froward to what lies ahead" (Phil. 3:13). What does "forgetting those things which are behind" mean, my children? Nothing else except to deliver to oblivion all those things which, coming out of the world for God’s sake, we have left and despised, and to strive towards the feat which lies before us, to which we were called by our taskmaster, our most gracious God and Lord Jesus Christ, who has enabled us to endure his gentle yoke, "For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).

[10.] As the grace of the Holy Spirit brought you together, so must you endeavor to live with one heart and one mind and one spirit, directing your eyes only towards the eternal reward, which God has prepared for those who have loved him. The communal life is in every way more useful for monks than the solitary one, for solitude is not suitable for the many, but only for a few who are perfect in all monastic virtues. The common life, on the other hand, is useful in general for everybody, about which the patristic books tell us and teach us sufficiently. The spirit-speaking prophet David glorified it saying: "See now what is so good and so pleasant as for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Ps. 133:1). In addition to this, one spirit-moved ecclesiastical hymn writes in this way: "Because in this the Lord promised eternal life." But also our good Master Lord God Jesus Christ, does he not say to us himself, by his immaculate lips: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them"? (Matt. 18:20). Our God-bearing fathers say for the solitary life: "Woe to him that is alone when he falls; and there is not a second to lift him up" (Eccl. 4:10).

[11.] That is why, children, as the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophet glorifies the communal life, do you not neglect it either, but on the contrary, confirm it and be like "one body in the Lord" (Rom. 12:5), which has different members. Some of them form, however, the head which governs, others the feet which toil and bear, so that there is formed from all a single spiritual body in the Lord, created with a single mind and logical spirit, and directed by spiritual reasoning, in no wise having divisions. When such a dwelling and life in God is arranged, then he himself will be in the midst of you, governing you invisibly.

[12.] Do not seek the first place and authority, but remember those who have said: "If one would be first, he must be last of all, and servant of all" (Mark 9:35). Elect for yourselves preceptors and appoint superiors, whom God will show you, that is, men "of good report" (Acts 10:22) among everybody in spiritual matters and surpassing everybody in intelligence and spiritual discernment, and able to pasture well and comfortably the flock entrusted to them down the meadows of piety and of the life-giving commands of Christ. For these men it is proper to seek confirmation more from God than from our opinion.

[13.] If, as our great father and monastic preceptor, the reverend Ephraim the Syrian says, all of you begin to desire authority and presidencies, and all of you to be abbots, and all of you preceptors, and interpreters, and teachers, and among you spring up rivalries, quarrels, disputes, zealousness, calumnies, haughtinesses, envy and other passions indecorous for monks, then certainly be aware that Christ is not among you, for Christ is not the teacher of discord and dissent, but of peace and unity. For he prays to God the father for his holy disciples to be united, that is, of one mind—they themselves and everybody who believes in him through them, and says as follows: "Holy Father, keep them in thy name that they may be one, as we are" (John 17:11). In another place: "I do not pray for them only but also for those who believe in me through their word that all may be one" (John 17:20–21). If you will be one, be at peace one with another. For he said to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you." (John 14: 27) For such is this peace of Christ, children, that again he speaks, saying, "Not as the world gives, do I give to you" (John 14:27). But this peace of Christ surpasses every mind. This is the peace, about which the prophet talks: "And his peace has no bounds." But also the apostle teaches us saying: "Strive for peace with all men and for the holiness, without which no man shall see God" (Heb. 12:14). May you have such a peace, now, among you, and let you arrange everything for God with great unity of mind and heart, so as not to enrage your own God and master.

[14.] If somebody is found among you who sows weeds, discords and other temptations, you have to eliminate at once such a man from your assembly, so that this will not be transfigured into a devouring canker, according to the apostle, and not to spread the evil among the good ones, and "lest any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble by it, and the many be defiled" (Heb. 12:5); and the wicked wolf not trouble the peaceful flock of Christ, because this sort [of men] will appear. For of them Christ prophesies saying: "For it is necessary that temptations come; but woe to the world for temptations to sin!" (Matt. 16:7). For this and you, children, keep away from these things and do not allow them to live among you, but divert them away from yourselves as the shepherd chases away the scabby sheep from the pure flock.

[15.] Living together for the Lord’s sake and bearing the burdens of one another, do not neglect those who live in solitude and "wandering over deserts and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:38), but supply them as much as you can, in order to hold them as your petitioners before God, for the prayer of the pious may achieve much.

[16.] Instruct yourselves in the Lord’s law day and night (Ps. 1:2). Read often the patristic books and try to be imitators of our holy fathers Anthony, Theodosios and the others, who shone like lamps in the world with their good deeds. Hold firmly to the church rule, leaving or neglecting nothing of this, which is established by the holy fathers.

[17.] Manual labor must not be neglected by you, however, but work must be in your hands, and the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" must be permanently on your lips, as well as the memory of death in your mind. This was the practice of the ancient desert fathers. They did not eat their bread in vain, and they not only lived themselves by labor of their own hands, but they gave to the needy too, and so they were not disappointed in their hope. "For," says the apostle [Paul], "it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace; not with foods which have not benefited their adherents" (Heb. 13:9). He says too: "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Heb. 13:1–2).

[18.] Establish the newly enlightened from your own race in the faith and instruct them to abandon the indecent pagan rites and the evil customs which they keep even after the acceptance of the holy faith. But they do this because of ignorance, and thus they need to be brought to their senses.

[19.] I had much more to say to you, my beloved children in the Lord, but it is impossible to write everything. I deliver you to him who is the source of all wisdom and reason, and the true Comforter— to the Holy and life-giving Spirit, in order that he himself gives you wisdom, to bring you to your senses, to enlighten you, to teach and instruct you in every good deed.

[20.] Now I leave you our beloved brother Gregory for instructor and superior in place of me, about whom all of you testify that he is able to govern you well and according to God, and you elect him by consensus as superior, even though he does not want it, but because of obedience and humility he acquiesces to your request. After him, [choose] whomever God will show you. As for myself, I wish henceforth to live in quiet and silence, to repent my sins and to beg mercy of God. Have mercy on me, your sinful father, always in your prayers that I may receive mercy on judgment day, for I have done nothing good on earth and fear that judgment and torment prepared for sinners like me. So may the blessing of God be with you all, guarding and protecting you from all evils. Amen.

I have written this in the year from the creation of the world 6449 ( = A.D. 941) on the twenty-fifth day of the month of March.

I, the humble and most sinful John, first inhabitant of the wilderness of Rila, sign with my own hand and confirm the above-written [testament].

Source For Biography

Source For Testament

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The Holy Monastery of Mega Spelaion in Kalavryta (1)

On the Feast of the Holy Apostle Luke (October 18) we also celebrate the founders of the Sacred Monastery of Mega Spelaion, one of the most renowned monasteries in all of Greece. These founders are Saints Symeon, Theodore and Efrosyne. Mega Spelaion (Great Cave) is so renowned precisely because it has connections with the Apostle Luke. There is a firm tradition that the Apostle Luke founded churches in the region of Achaia, which is the exact region Mega Spelaion Monastery is located in Greece. It was revealed later on that in the Great Cave where the Monastery is located today, the Holy Apostle celebrated the Divine Liturgy and the faithful of the region would gather to receive Holy Communion from the Apostle's hands. Essentially therefore, the site where the Mega Spelaion Monastery is located today is a church with apostolic foundations dating to the first century and likely the oldest church in the world. Also, though it is not clear who the "Theophilus" is to whom the Apostle Luke's Gospel and Acts is addressed to, many believe he possibly held some high office in the region of Achaia. Both Julius Africanus and Jerome tell us, among others, that Luke lived in Achaia for a while converting many, and that he wrote the Gospel beariing his name in Achaia. In fact, it was revealed that the Gospel was written in the Great Cave itself, leading us to believe that it was a central location of the Apostle's ministry. There is also a firm tradition that the Holy Apostle Luke painted the first icons beginning with those of the mother of Jesus, the Holy Virgin Mary. Later revelation records that one of these wonder-working icons was discovered in the Great Cave by the three founders, and it is still housed in Mega Spelaion today. For all these reasons, this Monastery is renowned throughout the Orthodox world and bears a fascinating history which continues into our times.

When I visited Mega Spelaion in 1991 I was given a little booklet about the Monastery which was an updated version of a book published in 1957 written by Metropolitan Agathonikos. This series is a translation of this short book which covers the most important historical facts of this Monastery. It was already translated into English, but I have edited this translation a little bit for better readability. It is my goal to make this Monastery more well-known in English-speaking lands and encourage pilgrimage to this Holy Shrine of the Orthodox Church.

Below is the introduction written by Metropolitan Ambrose of Kalavryta and Aigialeia:


For the sake of the numerous, pious pilgrims to the historical Patriarchal and Royal Sacred Monastery of Mega Spelaion, who throng here from the ends of the world to venerate the sacred icon of the Most Holy Theotokos and Virgin Mary in order to receive her strength and grace and the health of soul and body, we undertake the publishing of this brief history of the founding of the Monastery for the following reason. Modern man needs brief narrations of the historic, sacred sites and religious monuments and shrines of our beloved fatherland, because on the one hand, he is daily flooded with masses of printed matter, and on the other hand, he no longer sets aside sufficient time for study.

Since we wished to remedy this need, we decided not to write a new history, but to publish a modern Greek translation of the well-known "Brief History of the Sacred Royal Monastery of Mega Spelaion" which was first published in 1957 under the auspices of our ever-memorable predecessor, the Metropolitan Agathonikos, and has had eleven successive editions, the latest in 1977. The tone of this little work is churchly, unaffected, and simple. Its purpose is to benefit the soul of the pilgrim and not to impress his intellect. Since we are of the opinion that modern man has a great need for precisely such a spirit of simplicity and evangelical innocense in order with humility to draw near to God in the heavens and to find his salvation, we decided to re-issue this already well-known text, translated by our esteemed associate, Mr. Evangelos Lekkos, a theologian and jurist. In addition, we are giving to this edition a more aesthetic form, in order to adjoin charm to edification.

We hereby deliver this text in English, for the sake of the foreign visitors to the Monastery. The translation is owed to the diligence and the labor of Mr. Peter Botsis, a writer, whom we cordially thank for his unselfish offer.

From what we have noted above, it becomes obvious this publication is not directed at researchers and archeoligists. It is offered only to those who arrive at the sacred cliff of the Great Cave as pilgrims to the sacred icon of the Most holy Theotokos and Virgin Mary, which was revealed miraculously centuries ago in this sacred Cave and which is named Speliotissa.

Turning our mind and heart piously towards Mary the Mother of God, we beseech in the words of our fathers: "O Lady, accept the petitions of your servants and deliver us from every necessity and distress."

+ Ambrose
Metropolitan of Kalavryta and Aigialeia

In the Sacred Monastery of Mega Spelaion,
August 15, 1988

To be continued...Part 2

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Movie: Mario Bavas' "The Wurdalak" Based on the Short Tale of Alexis Tolstoy

In 2001 a local independent theatre here in Boston was featuring a midnight movie marathon every weekend of October on the films of Italian horror director Mario Bava. I attended every one of these screenings as I'm a big fan of Mario Bava, but one film stood out for me and that was Black Sabbath. Released in 1963 it is a film of three short stories, one more frightening than the next ("The Telephone", "The Drop of Water" and "The Wurdalak"). Most people know of this movie because it inspired the naming of the rock group Black Sabbath, which was the first heavy metal band.

The last and longest is based on a short story of Alexis Tolstoy titled "The Wurdalak". It is a Russian vampire tale starring the great Boris Karloff. Since I will be posting other old vampire tales which originated in traditionally Orthodox countries like Greece and Romania, a Russian tale of Tolstoy will begin my series. Enjoy!

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A Russian Priest Also A Surgeon

Giouri Leonintovitch Sevtsenko was born in 1947 in Giakoutsk. He is a heart surgeon, a professor of medicine, and was the head doctor of the Russian army. He is now also an Orthodox priest.

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Oprah Winfrey Should Apologize for Promoting Dangerous Fraud James Arthur Ray

by Dr. Al Carroll
Wednesday October 14th, 2009
Indybay

Two people died in a distorted New Age version of a Native sweatlodge in Sedona. Dozens more were badly injured. They each paid over $9000 for a bastardized version of a ceremony which by tradition must never be charged for. Natives don't believe in "pay to pray," but apparently the New Age movement does. It is far more of a consumerist phenomena than a genuine spiritual movement. Many lost, misguided, and genuinely sincere seekers get caught up in the idea of paying cash for shortcuts to salvation, and Oprah Winfrey seems to be among them.

Winfrey promoted New Age leader James Arthur Ray on her program a number of times. It was Ray who jammed over sixty people into a "sweatbox." Traditionally perhaps a dozen people are in a sweatlodge. The lodge is made from natural materials so the heat will not be too intense. But not Ray's "sweatbox." It was sealed with heavy plastic tarp to deliberately make the heat as intense as possible. People even competed to see who could withstand the highest temperatures, making it a bizarre contest rather than a ceremony to heal. Traditionally most of those in a sweatlodge have been through it before so they could guide novices, but seemingly the clients/victims of Ray's outnumbered those conducting it by at least twenty to one.

Traditionally, you don't charge for spiritual ceremony. You also don't do it out of curiosity, because you think it would be "cool," or for any reason except to heal. Survivors of alcoholism or PTSD are often healed by a sweatlodge. Thrill seekers should go elsewhere, hopefully to some self examination.

Spiritual exploiters like James Arthur Ray should be ashamed of themselves, but rarely are. After all, they get rich and have cult followings of the naïve or lost. Ray may belong in prison for negligent homicide, along with others who conduct extremely dangerous false versions of a sweatlodge. Ray's operation likely knew that a sweatlodge, when run by anyone other than an extensively trained Native traditionalist, routinely results in deaths or injuries. There are deaths from phony New Age sweatlodges in Texas, Britain, Australia, and in California multiple times. The Australian Medical Association issued a warning about phony sweatlodges, something that American and European medical associations should do.

A sweatlodge that is not properly run can result in death from asphyxiation, heart attack, or dehydration. Hapless New Agers routinely get burned or scalded. There are also many cases of psychological damage. You can relive traumas in a sweatlodge, such as child molestation or rape, as well as manic episodes. The rocks heated in a sweatlodge, if not properly chosen, can explode. Finally, many of the worst exploiters sexually abuse their followers. It's easy to pass out in the heat of a sweatlodge. Many women (and men) are molested or raped. No one should trust any operator who insists on a sweatlodge alone or in the nude.

Don't trust anyone who advertises or charges for ceremony. There's a simple standard that non-Natives should use when thinking about going to an alleged "Native" ceremony: If the operators seek out non-Native peoples, they are frauds looking to take your money. Actual Native traditionalists neither seek nor want converts. Native ceremonies are intended for Native communities, always. They lose their power and meaning once taken outside that context.

For her part in promoting the dangerous fraud James Arthur Ray, Oprah Winfrey should publicly apologize and vow to be more careful about who she endorses in the future. How many of the victims in Sedona would never have gone there had they not seen Winfrey's program? How wealthy did Ray become off of his victims because of Winfrey's repeated endorsement of Ray, both on her show and online? Why didn't her show's researchers take the time to look carefully and see what they should have known, that Ray was potentially dangerous to his followers?

Winfrey, I believe, is a good hearted person who sincerely wants to help her audience. She apologized for promoting an author who lied about the life he described in his books and strongly criticized him on her own show. Why can't she do the same to James Arthur Ray and confront him also? She should do the right thing and retract all endorsements of Ray and vow to take greater care in the future and never promote New Age exploiters again.

Bio: Al Carroll is a historian, Fulbright Scholar, and one of the founders of New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans (NAFPS) an activist group dedicated to warning the public about exploiters and imposters who pose as Native medicine people, located online at http://www.newagefraud.org/. His first book is Medicine Bags and Dog Tags: Native Veterans from Colonial Times to the Second Iraq War from University of Nebraska Press.

Two Die at US Spiritual Retreat

Third Person in Sweat Lodge Case Dies

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Why Did I Leave the Jehovah's Witnesses?

10/09/2009
The Jakarta Post

Referring to a letter titled "Protect rights of minority religions," (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 5), I would say that Jehovah's Witnesses (JWs) shun people that are still Christians (like me) and JWs who leave them after learning about the entire JW picture. This policy is not found anywhere in any scripture.

They forced JWs to avoid vaccinations for 19 years, calling it an abomination that causes cancers, syphilis etc. They forced JWs to avoid organ transplants for 13 years, calling it "cannibalism". They forced JWs to go to prison rather than accept alternative options to doing the military service for over 50 years.

Yet, all along, they claimed they were providing the "food at the proper time", from God Himself. Their predictions of the actual end of the world, many times, in writing; every one of these predictions, in writing, has proved false.

People sold homes, gave up opportunities to start families, secure employment, lost opportunities for an education and instead spread a message of doom that was simply untrue with each prediction made.

All of these failed. If this is God's true and only channel, how then can they be so wrong so often, on doctrine, medical issues, end of the world predictions, and yet still demand complete obedience from their members who otherwise face risk of complete shunning?

If any baptized Witness "expresses" thoughts (even if only as opinions) contrary to what is taught in the JW society's publication right now, they will be counseled, and if their opinions are not accepted, they will lose their fellowship for disrupting unity.

This "squelching mechanism", as people like to call it, instigates fear among regular members to make sure they stay in line. Losing all contact with friends and family is just too much to bear for many. Life as you know it is gone.

In addition, JWs are also told repeatedly not to even consider looking at outside sources. All of this "outside material" is called "apostate literature." The term "apostate" is based on one simple criterion. Is it critical of the organization? Most sources critical of the organization are not apostate. They are secular. And they are often simply stating the facts about this organization. Facts, that the society does not want its members to know anything about.

Examining the society can only be done, they are told, if it is done within the organization. So, by not being allowed to examine their own faith through outside sources, and by having the ever-present threat of losing their fellowship hovering over them if they were to speak critically of the organization, most JWs do not even know about these many issues that I have just posted above.

As a member for nearly 20 years, I too never knew many of these things (because we are told not to read anything from the "outside") until I finally decided to read an article on a national news website that allowed critical comments about the organization. Comments that shook my faith in the JWs so much I decided to investigate things further. Comments that I was not supposed to look at, not even think about, because they are called "apostate". So, in the end, we have what many would consider as extremely damaging, impossible to refute facts, which undermine the Watchtower Society's claim that it alone is God's one true faith on earth today.

That core belief is, in my opinion, the glue that keeps everything else together.

Vinny
Washington

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