Greek Church Acts on Crucifix Ban

By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Athens
12 November 2009

The Greek Orthodox Church is urging Christians across Europe to unite in an appeal against a ban on crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled last week that the presence of crucifixes violated a child's right to freedom of religion.

Greece's Orthodox Church fears the Italian case will set a precedent.

It has called an emergency Holy Synod meeting for next week to devise an action plan.

Although the Greek Orthodox Church has been at odds with Roman Catholicism for 1,000 years, the judicial threat to Christian symbols has acted as a unifying force.

The European Court of Human Rights found that the compulsory display of crucifixes violated parents' rights to educate their children as they saw fit and restricted the right of children to believe or not to believe.


'Worthy symbols'

The head of the Greek Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, shares Catholic complaints that the court is ignoring the role of Christianity in forming Europe's identity.

It is not only minorities that have rights but majorities as well, said the archbishop.

One of his subordinates, Bishop Nicholas from central Greece, lamented that at this rate youngsters will not have any worthy symbols at all to inspire and protect them.

Football and pop idols are very poor substitutes, he said.

The Greek Church has ostensibly intervened in this case in response to an appeal by a Greek mother whose son is studying in Italy.

But without doubt it is concerned that its omnipotence in Greece is under threat.

A human rights group called Helsinki Monitor is seeking to use the Italian case as a precedent.

It has demanded that Greek courts remove icons of Jesus Christ from above the judge's bench and that the gospel no longer be used for swearing oaths in the witness box.

Helsinki Monitor is urging trade unions to challenge the presence of religious symbols in Greek schools.

The socialist government here is also considering imposing new taxes on the Church's vast fortune, but at the same time is urging it to do more to help immigrants and poor Greeks.

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St. John the Merciful on the Judgements of God and the Judgements of Men

St. John the Merciful or Almsgiver (Feast Day - November 12)

Life of St. John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria

John was born on the island of Cyprus. His father was Prince Epiphanius. John was raised as a true Christian from childhood. At the insistence of his parents, he married and had children. However, by God's providence, his wife and children passed from this world into the next. Renowned for his compassion and piety, John was chosen as Patriarch of Alexandria in the time of Emperor Heraclius. He governed the Church of Alexandria for ten years as a true shepherd, safeguarding it from pagans and heretics. He was a model of meekness, charity and love for his fellow men. He said: ``If you desire nobility, seek it not in blood but in virtues, for this is true nobility.'' All the saints have been distinguished by mercifulness, but St. John was completely dedicated to this wonderful virtue. Once, while celebrating the Liturgy, the patriarch remembered the words of Christ, "Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift" (Matthew 5:23-24), and he remembered that one of the clergy in that church had a grievance against him. He quickly left the Holy Gifts, approached that priest, fell before his feet and begged for forgiveness. And only when he had made peace with this man did he return to the table of oblation. Another time, as he was on his way to the Church of Saints Cyrus and John, it happened that he met a needy and unfortunate widow who spoke to him at length about her misfortune. The patriarch's escorts became bored by the woman's lengthy complaint, and urged the bishop to hurry to the church for the service, intimating that he could hear the woman's story afterward. John said to them: "And how will God listen to me, if I do not listen to her?'' He would not leave until he heard the widow's complaint to the end.

When the Persians attacked Egypt, Patriarch John boarded a boat to escape from danger. Along the way he fell ill and, when he arrived in Cyprus, he reposed at his birthplace, in the year 620. After he entered the Immortal Kingdom of his Lord, his miracle-working relics were translated to Constantinople, then to Budapest, and finally to Presburg.

(From The Prologue by Saint Nikolai Velimirovich)

The Judgements of God

The blessed man always used to talk much about the thought of death and the departure of the soul so that on several occasions those who went in to him with a haughty bearing and laughing face and bold eyes came out from his presence with humble demeanour and a contrite face and eyes filled with tears. He used to say: 'My humble opinion is that it suffices for our salvation to meditate continually and seriously about death and to think earnestly upon the fact that nobody will pity us in that hour nor will anyone travel with us out of this life except our good deeds. And when the angels come hastening down, in what a tumult will a soul then be if it is found unready! How it will beg that it may be allowed a further short span of life, only to hear the words: "What about the time you have lived, have you spent it well?" '

And again he used to say as though speaking of himself, 'Humble John, how will you have the strength to "pass the wild beasts of the thicket", [Ps. 68:30 = LXX 67:31, which reads "epitimeson tois theriois tou kalamou"] when they meet you like tax collectors? Woe is me, what fears and tremors will encompass the soul when it is called to account by so many keen and pitiless accountants?' And indeed the saintly man had especially noted that which was made known through revelation by St. Simeon the Stylite; the words were: 'When the soul goes forth from the body, as it rises from the earth to heaven there meet it troops of demons, each in his own regiment. A band of demons of arrogance meet it, they feel it all over to see whether the soul possesses their works. A band of the spirits of slander meets it; they inspect it to see whether it has ever uttered slanders and not repented. Again higher up the demons of harlotry meet it; they investigate whether they can recognize their pursuits in it. And while the wretched soul is being brought to account on its way from earth to heaven the holy angels stand on one side and do not help it, only its own virtues can do that.'

Pondering on these things the glorious Patriarch would grow fearful and troubled about such an hour, for he also bore in mind the saying of St. Hilarion who, as he was on the point of leaving this life, lost courage and said to his soul: 'For eighty years, O humble soul, you have been serving Christ and are you afraid to go forth? Go forth, for He is merciful.' And the Patriarch would say to himself: 'If he, after serving Christ for eighty years and raising men from the dead and doing signs and wonders, was yet afraid of that bitter hour, what can you, humble John, do or say when you come to face those cruel and pitiless exactors of taxes and tributes? To which will you have the strength to make your defence? To the demons of falsehood, to those of slander, to those of unmercifulness, to those of avarice, to those of malice, to those of hatred, to those of perjury?' And with new doubts rising in his mind he would say: 'Oh God, do Thou rebuke them, for the whole strength of man is of no avail against them; do Thou, Lord, give us as guides the holy angels who protect and pilot us. For great is the fury of the demons against us, great is the fear, great the trembling, great the peril of the voyage through this sea of air. For if, when travelling from city to city on this earth, we require a guide to lead us lest we fall into crevasses, or into the haunts of wild beasts, or into impassable rivers, or into pathless and inaccessible mountains, or into the hands of brigands, or into some boundless and waterless desert and be lost, how many strong guides and divine guardians do we not need when we start on this long journey which is everlasting, I mean the exodus from the body and the journey up to heaven?' These were the teachings, full of God's wisdom, that the blessed man gave to himself and to all; these were his daily thoughts and meditations.

The Judgements of Men

Amongst his wonderful achievements the blessed man attained unto this also, I mean never to judge his neighbour without good reason, or to listen to those who condemned him. Here let me give his teaching on this point from which all may profit.

A young man eloped with a nun and fled to Constantinople. On hearing this the just man almost died of grief. But some time later when sitting in his sacristy with some of the clergy and enjoying a profitable conversation someone happened to speak of the young man who had carried off the nun. Those who were sitting with the Saint began cursing the youth for having destroyed two souls, his own and the nun's. But the blessed man interrupted and stopped them saying: 'No, my children, do not speak like that! For I can prove to you that you yourselves are committing two sins, one because you are transgressing the commandment of Him who said: "Judge not that ye be not judged'', [Matt 7:1] and the second because you do not know for certain whether they are still living in sin, and have not repented.

'For I read the life of an abbot which has the following story. In a certain city two monks were starting on an errand, and as one of the two passed through a square a harlot called out to him: "Save me, Father, as Christ saved the harlot." And he, without a thought of men's censure, said to her: "Follow me!" and taking her by the hand he went out of the city openly in full view of everyone. Thus the rumour spread that the abbot had taken the woman, Porphyria, (for that was her name) to wife. As the two travelled on so that he might put her into a convent, the woman found a baby which had been exposed and was lying on the ground near a church and took it with her intending to bring it up. A year later some of the citizens came to the country where the abbot and Porphyria (she who had been a harlot) were staying, and seeing her with the child said to her, "You have certainly got a fine chick by the abbot", for she had not yet adopted the monastic robe. The men who had seen her spread abroad the report when they got back to Tyre (for that was the city from which the abbot had taken her) that Porphyria had had a fine son by the abbot. "We saw him with our own eyes," they said, "and he is like his father."

'Now when the abbot knew beforehand by revelation from God that he would shortly die, he said to the nun, Pelagia, for so he named her when he gave her the holy habit of a nun, "Let us go to Tyre for I have business there and I want you to come with me." She did not like to refuse, so she followed him and they both came to Tyre with the boy who was now seven years old.

'When the abbot fell ill with a mortal sickness about a hundred people from the city came to visit him, and he said to them: "Bring hot coals!" When the censer arrived full of hot coals he took it and poured all the hot coals on to his robe and said: "Now be assured, brethren, that as God preserved the bush unburnt from the fire, and as the live coals have not even singed my robe, so, too, I have never committed sin with a woman from the day I was born." And all were struck dumb with amazement that his robe was not burnt by the fire and they glorified God who has such servants, though they are unrecognized by men. From the example of the nun Pelagia who had once been a harlot several other harlots followed her and renounced the world and went with her into her convent. For after the monk, the servant of the Lord, who had received her profession, had fully satisfied everybody of his innocence, he surrendered his soul to the Lord in peace. For this reason', the Patriarch continued, 'I warn you, my children, not to be so ready to mock at, or judge, the acts of other people.

'For we have often seen the sin of the fornicator, but his repentance, which he made in secret, we did not see, and we may have seen somebody steal, but we know nothing of the groanings and tears which he has offered to God. We still think of him as we saw him, a thief, a fornicator or a perjuror, but in the sight of God his secret repentance and confession have been accepted, and in His eyes he is honourable.'

Thus all were astonished at the teaching of this virtuous shepherd and teacher.

(From "The Life of Saint John the Almsgiver" by Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis in the island of Cyprus)

Apolytikion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
In patiently enduring, you obtained your reward, O venerable father. You persevered in your prayers without ceasing; and you loved the impoverished and you satisfied them. We entreat you, intercede with Christ God, O blessed John the Merciful, for the salvation of our souls.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
Thy riches and wealth didst thou disperse unto the poor; thou now hast received the Heavens' riches in return. For this cause, O all-wise John, we all honour thee with our songs of praise as we keep thy memorial, O namesake of almsgiving and of mercy.

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Why Fundamentalism Will Fail

A seemingly unstoppable force is being undone from the inside

By Harvey Cox
November 8, 2009
The Boston Globe

IN 1910, A COHORT of ultra-conservative American Protestants drew up a list of non-negotiable beliefs they insisted any genuine Christian must subscribe to. They published these “fundamentals” in a series of widely distributed pamphlets over the next five years. Their catalog featured doctrines such as the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ, and his imminent second coming. The cornerstone, though, was a belief in the literal inerrancy of every syllable of the Bible, including in matters of geology, paleontology, and secular history. They called these beliefs fundamentals, and proudly styled themselves “fundamentalists” - true believers who feared that liberal movements like the social gospel and openness to other faiths were eroding the foundation of their religion.

Protestant fundamentalism was not an isolated impulse. The same tendency had already appeared in Catholicism; beginning with Pius IX, who issued his famous “Syllabus of Errors” in 1864, most popes severely condemned all liberal Catholic efforts. Muslims hate having the word “fundamentalist” applied to them, considering it a foreign term. Nonetheless, when some 19th-century Koran scholars sought to rethink their faith in the light of science and democracy, an angry opposition resisted these new ideas. Then, as European colonial powers tightened their grip on the region, other thinkers, like the Egyptian Sayyed Qutb, scorned any such reform efforts as imperialist pollution.

The expansion of religious fundamentalism in recent decades has been notable, as people around the world have sought certainty in the face of dizzying change. In the second half of the 20th century, old-time religion drew Americans jarred by their country’s setbacks in Korea and Vietnam, or disoriented by the civil rights movement and youth revolt of the 1960s. In Europe, American-style fundamentalism failed to make much progress, but highly conservative Catholic parties and groups, sometimes called “integralist,” gained strength in some countries. In the Muslim sphere, as oil funneled immense riches to the elite, it also drove hordes of village people into angry urban poverty. When secular solutions failed them, many were attracted to the promise of a more equal society based strictly on the Koran.

As the 20th century ended and a new one began, fundamentalism has taken on more formidable shapes, both politically and religiously. Though most of its adherents work through spiritual and educational channels, the small minority that turn to violence have caught the media’s attention. If some seem ready to die for faith, others are ready to kill for it, gunning down abortion doctors in church, hijacking planes, and exploding bombs at weddings. For plenty of thoughtful people, fundamentalism has come to represent the most dangerous threat to open societies since the fall of communism.

However, the truth is that for all its apparent strength, the fundamentalist sun is setting on all horizons. Throughout the Muslim world growing numbers of people are becoming impatient with violent groups that, in the name of Allah, seem capable of killing but incapable of producing jobs, food, or health care. Observers on the ground report that popular support for the jihadist wing of the Taliban is falling off as it fails to address the real life problems that afflict people in Afghanistan. (The other parts of the Taliban are inspired less by fundamentalism than by tribal loyalties and a traditional aversion to foreigners.) Al Qaeda faces a similar dismal prospect. Dr. Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at the National War College in Washington and author of a new book, “How Terrorism Ends,” says, “I think Al Qaeda is in the process of imploding. That is not necessarily the end. But the trends are in a good direction.” In Iran, the fact that the clerics have resorted to beating and imprisoning their critics reveals the shakiness of their hold.

In America, the religious right, which started as a crusade, is becoming a niche. Randall Terry’s Operation Rescue, which stages demonstrations at abortion clinics, has just announced that it is nearly bankrupt. The shrillest TV evangelists are losing audiences to more moderate “evangelical-lite” preachers. Fundamentalist congregations are ceding ground to Pentecostals and mega-churches, which embrace a wider social agenda and teach the spiritual authority - not the literal inerrancy - of the Bible.

Surveys have shown that the rapid growth of Evangelical Protestantism in Latin America has not produced a replication of the American religious right, but rather a moderate leftward tilt. A majority of Brazilian evangelicals, for example, voted for President Lula, who ran as a Workers Party candidate. In South Korea, Christianity has grown faster than anywhere in the world and now accounts for over a third of the population. But its theology tends toward moderate evangelicalism with an ecumenical bent.

The fading of fundamentalism marks a decisive change in global society. It has already freed Christians, Muslims, and Jews to explore what all three have in common as they now begin to cooperate in confronting nuclear weapons, poverty, and climate change. Thus, when a hundred Muslim scholars invited Christians two years ago to join in a quest for what they called a “Common Word’ on issues of justice, Christians from a wide spectrum of denominations responded favorably. Four important “Common Word” conferences have been held so far, involving hundreds of scholars and religious leaders. The king of Morocco has hosted a series of gatherings for mullahs, rabbis, and Christian clerics.

In the international political sphere, where our obsession with fundamentalism once prevented us from recognizing other developments, we can now begin to see the picture more clearly. With the more fanatical wings of their populations dwindling, countries where fundamentalists once wielded undue influence might become a bit easier to negotiate with. As the ranks of fundamentalists thin in the Muslim world, Western policy makers will be able to address insurgencies and terrorism as products of nationalist and tribal loyalties, amenable to political solutions, rather than as violent outgrowths of religion.

*

THE VARIOUS MOVEMENTS we lump together as “fundamentalist” differ from one another, but they bear some family resemblances. Each reaches back selectively into its own tradition and exhumes some text or rite or pattern, declaring it to be the bedrock of faith. For Protestant fundamentalists, it was a righteous society in which, they believed, a verbally inspired Bible had held sway. For Catholics, especially after Vatican II, it was the Latin Mass, the symbol of a changeless authoritative tradition. For Muslims it was the short era of the “rightly guided caliphs” who led Islam immediately after the death of the Prophet, before disunity shattered their community and outsiders warped their civilization.

But fundamentalist movements share another quality. They are inherently fractious, and this is one reason for their broad decline. When your view of reality is the only acceptable one, you cannot compromise. Almost from its inception, American Protestant fundamentalism split into warring factions. Its bellicosity toward “liberals and modernists” was quickly turned on fellow fundamentalists who were seen as not tough enough on the enemy. Since the Bible told them not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” the question of with whom one could properly associate became deeply vexed. The most ardent partisans seceded from their denominations, and soon began to quarrel about whether they should even fraternize with their fellow fundamentalists who wanted to remain in their previous churches to fight the “liberals.” The fundamentalists organized new seminaries to protest the older ones they thought had become “modernist,” but soon these new institutions split over fine points of doctrine.

Similarly, the modern religious right, the political arm of fundamentalism, foundered on its inability to compromise or build coalitions. Local branches of the Christian Coalition became furious with national office staffers for cooperating with others in order to pass legislation.

The same fragmenting logic eats away at Jewish “land fundamentalists,” who base their claims to the West Bank on a literal reading of the biblical book of Joshua (“conquer and settle”). They despise the Jews who disagree with them even more than the Palestinians whose terrain they claim. Some ultra-orthodox Jews still refuse to accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel, since only the Messiah is supposed to reclaim the Promised Land.

In Islam, a tendency to fractiousness appeared in the first years of its history when a dispute arose over who was to succeed the Prophet, who died without a male heir. This division between Shiites and Sunnis simmered for centuries, and burst into flames with the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism. The Wahabist sect, now centered in Saudi Arabia, and the rise of political Islam reopened old wounds. Today this internal strife fractures the Muslim world, and the vehemence it generates is directed first of all against fellow Muslims, and only secondarily against the West.

This tendency toward factionalism exists in other religious movements, of course, as it does in political, artistic, and cultural ones. But in religious fundamentalism such breakups become especially lethal because the stakes are so high: eternal salvation or damnation hang in the balance.

*

ANOTHER REASON WHY fundamentalists are faltering today has to do with the world outside. The fundamentalist world view is unbending and monochrome, but today’s world is variable and multi-hued, and the plurality is more and more visible. Thanks to the increase of immigrants from Asia and the Middle East, mosques and pagodas now share streets with churches and synagogues in Europe and America. People of the previous generation could retreat into a culturally isolated community and pull down the shades, but their children live every day with a heightened, web-enhanced awareness of a diverse world.

Their college roommates and office colleagues represent a range of religious backgrounds, and inherited prejudices can soften and melt when confronted with good, morally upright people from different belief systems. Virtually anywhere on the planet, it is hard to imagine the grandchildren of fundamentalists reconciling themselves to their tightly constricted spiritual world.

Fundamentalism is defined by its one-way-only exclusivism. But today spiritually inclined people view the once-high walls between religious traditions as porous. They borrow freely. Synagogues and churches incorporate Asian meditation practices into their services. Instead of a single churchly allegiance, people now assemble “repertories” of elements from a number of sources. They may attend Mass, take a yoga class, and keep a Buddhist devotional book on their bedside table. Clerics often denounce this as “cafeteria style” religion, but the current of religious history is flowing against them.

Father Thomas Merton, the leading Catholic contemplative writer of the 20th century, died while staying at a Buddhist monastery in Bangkok. Martin Luther King attributed his commitment to non-violence to Gandhi, who in turn said he learned it from Jesus and Tolstoy. The Dalai Lama has written a reverent biography of Jesus. For none of these profoundly religious men did the appreciation of other faiths weaken their anchoring in their own. In fact each said that it enhanced it.

The very nature of human religiousness is changing in a way inimical to fundamentalist thought. The most rapidly growing spiritual groups today focus not on someone else’s authority, but on a direct encounter with the divine. Whatever else it may mean that so many people call themselves “spiritual but not religious,” it suggests they still yearn for contact with the sacred, but are suspicious of the scaffolding, the doctrines, and hierarchies through which it has often been conveyed.

In Christianity, the fastest-growing wing of the church is the Pentecostal/Charismatic wave, which is spreading swiftly around the world, even in mainland China. It now numbers about 600 million, accounting for one in every four Christians. One writer has called them “main street mystics.” Young Jews have a growing interest in their Hasidic and mystical heritage. Among Muslims, it is the gentle but ecstatic Sufi version that is growing fastest, not the suicide bomber cults. All these movements, especially since they seem particularly attractive to the young, represent a fatal threat to fundamentalism.

The plethora of emerging new spiritualities has its own problems, of course. They are often intellectually incoherent or melt into a self-centered narcissism. They can become vacuous and faddish. (Madonna and other Hollywood celebrities are now “into Kabala,” the ancient Jewish mystical tradition.) They can become highly individualistic, lacking any vision of social justice. Esoteric and snobbish at times, they often fail to reach the poor and dispossessed people for whom Jesus, the Buddha, and the Jewish prophets had such concern.

But a tectonic shift in religion is underway, and the fundamentalist moment is ending. A new and promising chapter in the long story of human faith is beginning. Its untidiness often reminds me of the exuberant earliest years of Christianity. Maturity comes with time. Future historians may look back on the 20th century as a time when something called “fundamentalism” interrupted, but only briefly, the age-old human search for a way to live in the face of mystery, and to envision what Martin Luther King called a “beloved community.”

Harvey Cox, Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard University, is author of “The Future of Faith (HarperOne).”

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Hindu Absurdity of the Week: Rare Turtle Is Lord Jagannath

Villagers Confine Rare Turtle, Say It Is God

BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) 10 November 2009 - Hundreds of poor Hindu villagers in eastern India have refused to hand over a rare turtle to authorities, saying it is an incarnation of God, officials said on Tuesday.

Villagers chanting hymns and carrying garlands, bowls of rice and fruits are pouring in from remote villages to a temple in Kendrapara, a coastal district in eastern Orissa state.

Policemen have struggled to control the gathering and have failed to persuade the villagers to give up the sea turtle.

"We have asked the villagers to hand it over as it is illegal to confine a turtle, but they are refusing," said P.K. Behera, a senior government wildlife official.

The turtle is protected in India and anyone found keeping one without permission can be jailed for a year or more and fined.

But adamant villagers have refused to give up the reptile, saying the turtle bears holy symbols on its back and is an incarnation of Lord Jagannath, a popular Hindu deity.

"Lord Jagannath has visited our village in the form of a turtle. We will not allow anybody to take the turtle away," said Ramesh Mishra, a priest of the temple.

Lord Jagannath

(Reporting by Jatindra Dash; Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Getting Over Our Love for Darwin

By William A. Dembski
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Texas Online

Charles Darwin published his “Origin of Species” in 1859. There he presented the classic formulation of his theory of evolution. Lady Ashley, reacting to the theory at the time, remarked, “Let’s hope that it’s not true; but if it is true, let’s hope that it doesn’t become widely known.” Lady Ashley’s second hope has failed: Darwin’s theory is everywhere and has now become textbook orthodoxy. This year, universities around the globe are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” as well as the 200th anniversary of his birth.

But what about Lady Ashley’s hope that Darwin’s theory is false? Darwin presented a bleak picture of ourselves: we are mere modified apes; we are the “winners” in a brutal competitive evolutionary process, most of whose players are “losers,” wiped off the evolutionary scene before they could leave a legacy; the traditional Christian view that we are made in God’s image is simply a story we tell to convince ourselves that we’re special.

Intelligent design supporters like me view Darwin’s theory as untrue and even as laughable: The theory purports to give a materialistic account of life’s development once life is already here, but it has a gaping hole at the start since matter gives no evidence of being able to organize itself from non-life into life. The fossil record, especially the sudden emergence of most animal body plans in the Cambrian explosion, sharply violates Darwinian expectations about the historical pattern of evolutionary change. The nano-engineering found in the DNA, RNA, and proteins of the cell far exceeds human engineering and remains completely unexplained in Darwinian terms.

Darwin lovers are quick to reject such complaints. After all, as novelist Barbara Kingsolver declares, Darwin’s idea of natural selection is “the greatest, simplest, most elegant logical construct ever to dawn across our curiosity about the workings of natural life. It is inarguable, and it explains everything.” Kingsolver is no fan of Christianity. Yet many Darwin lovers are Christian. Francis Collins, who directs the National Institutes of Health, is a Christian Darwinist. Leaving aside a healthy skepticism that regards every scientific theory as refutable in light of new evidence, Collins exempts Darwinian evolution from such skepticism: “evolution, as a mechanism, can be and must be true.”

Any theory that explains everything and that can and must be true is either the greatest thing since sliced bread or the greatest swindle ever foisted on gullible intellectuals. The intelligent design community takes the latter view, siding here with Malcolm Muggeridge, who wrote: “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”

Still, it’s easy to understand why so flimsily a supported theory garners such vast support. It provides the creation story for an atheistic worldview. If atheism is true, then something like Darwinian evolution must follow. Hence, any attack on Darwin becomes an attack on the atheistic secularism that pervades our culture. Nonetheless, even though atheism implies Darwinism, the reverse is not true: Darwinism does not imply atheism. Indeed, Christian theists who embrace Darwin abound.

The wedding between Darwinism and Christianity, however, is an uneasy one. To be sure, plenty of marriages are uneasy, and uneasy marriages are often endured because divorce can entail more difficulties than endurance. Thus, when I got involved with the evolution controversy 20 years ago, I naively thought that any Christian, given sufficient evidence against Darwinism, would immediately jump ship. Darwinian evolution, according to Cornell historian of biology Will Provine, is “the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.” Why should Christians stick with such an engine when it’s no longer needed?

Little did I realize how infatuated many Christians are with Darwin. Having convinced themselves that design is an outdated religious dogma, they embraced Darwinism as a form of enlightenment. And having accommodated their faith to Darwin, they became loath to reexamine whether Darwinism is true at all. Unlike Lady Ashley, Christian Darwinists hope that Darwinism is true. But is it really? In this year of Darwinian bacchanalias, let us soberly reassess whether Darwin’s theory is indeed true. And if the evidence goes against it, as the intelligent design community is successfully demonstrating, then let’s be done with it. In that case, reconciling Christianity with Darwinism becomes a vain exercise, solving a problem that no longer exists.

­William A. Dembski is research professor in philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of prominent books in the field of intelligent design, including The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems, written with biologist Jonathan Wells.

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Fr. John Romanides on Extraterrestrial Alien Life

[It was reported this week that the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church. The Director of the Vatican Observatory commented that the discovery of possible alien life would have "many philosophical and theological implications" for Catholics. In 1965 Fr. John Romanides offered a valuable resource on this topic for a series run by the Boston Globe in which he gives the unique Orthodox perspective. The full text is below: - J.S.]

All Planets the Same: Religion’s Response to Space Life V

Rev. John S. Romanides, PhD.,
The Boston Globe
April 8, 1965, page 18.

I can foresee no way in which the teachings of the Orthodox Christian tradition could be affected by the discovery of intelligent beings on another planet. Some of my colleagues feel that even a discussion of the consequences of such a possibility is in itself a waste of time for serious theology and borders on the fringes of foolishness.

I am tempted to agree with them for several reasons.

As I understand the problem, the discovery of intelligent life on another planet would raise questions concerning traditional Roman Catholic and Protestant teachings regarding creation, the fall, man as the image of God, redemption and Biblical inerrancy.

First one should point out that in contrast to the traditions deriving from Latin Christianity, Greek Christianity never had a fundamentalist or literalist understanding of Biblical inspiration and was never committed to the inerrancy of scripture in matters concerning the structure of the universe and life in it. In this regard some modern attempts at de-mything the Bible are interesting and at times amusing.

Since the very first centuries of Christianity, theologians of the Greek tradition did not believe, as did the Latins, that humanity was created in a state of perfection from which it fell. Rather the Orthodox always believed that man [was] created imperfect, or at a low level of perfection, with the destiny of evolving to higher levels of perfection.

The fall of each man, therefore, entails a failure to reach perfection, rather than any collective fall from perfection.

Also spiritual evolution does not end in a static beatific vision. It is a never ending process which will go on even into eternity.

Also Orthodox Christianity, like Judaism, never knew the Latin and Protestant doctrine of original sin as an inherited Adamic guilt putting all humanity under a divine wrath which was supposedly satisfied by the death of Christ.

Thus the solidarity of the human race in Adamic guilt and the need for satisfaction of divine justice in order to avoid hell are unknown in the Greek Fathers.

This means that the interdependence and solidarity of creation and its need for redemption and perfection are seen in a different light.

The Orthodox believe that all creation is destined to share in the glory of God. Both damned and glorified will be saved. In other words both will have vision of God in his uncreated glory, with the difference that for the unjust this same uncreated glory of God will be the eternal fires of hell.

God is light for those who learn to love Him and a consuming fire for those who will not. God has no positive intent to punish.

For those not properly prepared, to see God is a cleansing experience, but one which does not move eternally toward higher reaches of perfection.

In contrast, hell is a static state of perfection somewhat similar to Platonic bliss.

In view of this the Orthodox never saw in the Bible any three story universe with a hell of created fire underneath the earth and a heaven beyond the stars.

For the Orthodox discovery of intelligent life on another planet would raise the question of how far advanced these beings are in their love and preparation for divine glory.

As on this planet, so on any other, the fact that one may have not as yet learned about the Lord of Glory of the Old and New Testament, does not mean that he is automatically condemned to hell, just as one who believes in Christ is not automatically destined to be involved in the eternal movement toward perfection.

It is also important to bear in mind that the Greek Fathers of the Church maintain that the soul of man is part of material creation, although a high form of it, and by nature mortal.

Only God is purely immaterial.

Life beyond death is not due to the nature of man but to the will of God. Thus man is not strictly speaking the image of God. Only the Lord of Glory, or the Angel of the Lord of Old and New Testament revelation is the image of God.

Man was created according to the image of God, which means that his destiny is to become like Christ who is the Incarnate Image of God.

Thus the possibility of intelligent beings on another planet being images of God as men on earth are supposed to be is not even a valid question from an Orthodox point of view.

Finally one could point out that the Orthodox Fathers rejected the Platonic belief in immutable archetypes of which this world of change is a poor copy.

This universe and the forms in it are unique and change is of the very essence of creation and not a product of the fall.

Furthermore the categories of change, motion and history belong to the eternal dimensions of salvation-history and are not to be discarded in some kind of eternal bliss.

Thus the existence of intelligent life on another planet behind or way ahead of us in intellectual and spiritual attainment will change little in the traditional beliefs of Orthodox Christianity.

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Saint Menas the Great Martyr and Miracle Worker

St. Menas the Miracle Worker (Feast Day - November 11). This icon of his life is taken from the Cathedral of St. Menas in Herakleion, Crete.

Life of the Great Martyr Saint Menas
by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Menas was an Egyptian by birth and a soldier by profession. As a true Christian, he was not able to witness the abominable sacrificial offerings to the idols and left the army, the town, the people and everything else, and went to a deserted mountain, for it was easier for him to live among the wild beasts than with pagans. One day Menas clairvoyantly discerned a pagan celebration in the town of Cotyaeus. He descended into the town and openly declared his faith in Christ the Living God. He denounced idolatry and paganism as falsehood and darkness. Pyrrhus, eparch of that town, asked Menas who he was and where he was from. The saint replied: ``My fatherland is Egypt, my name is Menas. I was an officer, but witnessing the worship of idols, I renounced your honors. I now come before you all to proclaim my Christ as the true God, that He may proclaim me as His servant in the Heavenly Kingdom.'' Hearing this, Pyrrhus subjected St. Menas to severe tortures. They flogged him, scraped him with iron claws, burned him with torches, and tortured him by various other means, and finally beheaded him with the sword. They threw his body into a fire so that Christians would not be able to retrieve it, but Christians recovered several parts of his body from the fire nevertheless. They reverently buried those remains, which were later transferred to Alexandria and buried there, where a church was built over them. St. Menas suffered in about the year 304 and went to the Kingdom of Christ. He was and remains a great miracle-worker, both on earth and in heaven. Whoever glorifies St. Menas and invokes his help with faith, receives his help. The saint has often appeared as a warrior on horseback, arriving to help the faithful or punish the unfaithful.


Miracles

One of the most popular pilgrimage centers of the early Middle Ages was located in the Egyptian desert southwest of Alexandria and Lake Mareotis and consisted of a large complex of buildings whose full extent was brought to light by the excavations of Carl Maria Kauffmann in 1905. St. Sophronios of Jerusalem in the early seventh century described the saint's shrine as "the pride of all Lybia". The following five miracles are taken from the account of miracles gathered by Patriarch Timothy of Alexandria (380-384).

1. There was a man once who having gone to pray at the saint's church was given a place to stay by a certain individual. And because the man who received him realized that the guest was carrying gold on his person, he got up in the middle of the night and set upon him with a murderous hand. And cutting his body into pieces he put him in a basket, suspended it, and waited for morning. And then he was filled with anxiety about when and where he might take (the remains) to hide them in some remote place.

Now while his mind was preoccupied with these things, Christ's saintly martyr appeared on horseback dressed as a military man and began to inquire about the stranger who had spent the night there. And although the murderer assured him he knew nothing, the saint dismounted from his horse, went into the inner part of the building and bringing down the basket and fixing a fearsome stare on the murderer, he said: "What is this?" And the man, going into a state of shock from fright, cast himself at the feet of the saint like a wretched corpse.

The saint then reassembled the severed limbs and, having prayed, he raised up the dead man, saying: "Give glory to God." While he, rising as if from sleep and realizing the extent of his sufferings at the hands of the man who had given him lodging, praised God, and thanking the person dressed as a military officer he made obeissance to him. And when the murderer got up, the saint took the gold from him and gave it to the other saying: "Continue your journey." And turning to the murderer he chastised him as was fitting and lectured him as well, granting him pardon for the crime. Then he offered a prayer on the man's behalf, got on his horse and disappeared from his sight.

2. There was a man living in Alexandria named Eutropius who vowed to give a silver platter to the Church of Saint Menas. He summoned a smith and asked him to make two silver dishes and to inscribe on one, "the platter of the Holy Great Martyr Menas," and on the other, "the platter of Eutropius, a citizen of Alexandria." The silversmith did as he was told, and when he finished the work it could be seen that Saint Menas' platter was the more handsome and brilliant of the two. After inscribing the dishes, the smith gave them to Eutropius.

One day, while Eutropius was at sea, he took out both the new plates, wishing to eat. Seeing that the plate on which the name of Saint Menas was inscribed was more beautiful than his, he did not wish to give it away. Instead, he ordered his servant to serve his food on the martyr's plate, and he decided to send his own plate to the Church of Saint Menas. After he had eaten, the servant took the martyr's dish, went to the side of the boat, and began to wash it in the sea. As he was doing so, he saw a man emerge from the water, take the platter from his hand, and then disappear. The servant began to shake with fear and threw himself into the sea, hoping to retrieve the plate. The master saw him sink beneath the waves, and became terrified. He cried out, weeping, "Woe is me, the wretch! I desired the saint's platter, and now I have lost both the platter and my servant! Be not wroth with me until the end, O Lord my God, and have mercy upon my servant. I vow unto Thee that if I find the corpse of my servnt, I shall have another dish made as a gift for Thy favorite Menas, or else I shall give the price of the dish to the saint's church!"

When the ship reached harbor, Eutropius began to look about for the servant's body, hoping that the waves had brought it to land, for he wished to give it burial. He searched carefully, and lo, he beheld his servant washing ashore, holding the platter! Overcome by fear, he cried out, "Glory to God! Truly great is the Holy Martyr Menas!"

The people on the boat, now disembarking, also saw the servant holding the platter, and were amazed and glorified God. They asked the servant how he had remained alive in the sea and emerged unharmed, and he replied, "As soon as I cast myself into the sea, a man of commanding appearance, accompanied by two others, rescued me, and brought me here."

The man took the platter and his servant and went to the Church of Saint Menas. He worshipped there, and, in parting, donated the plate he had promised the saint, giving thanks unto God and glory to his favorite, Menas.

3. A certain woman, while she was on her way to venerate at the Church of Saint Menas, was forcibly seized by a man who wanted shameful intercourse with her. She asked the saint for help and he did not ignore her, but making an example of the rapist he kept her unharmed. For the man had tied his horse to his right foot while he was busy with the woman. But the horse grew enraged at his own master and thus not only interrupted the disgraceful act, but dragged the man along the ground and did not stop until he reached the shrine of the saint. And straightaway he began to neigh loudly and without interruption, drawing a crowd of onlookers, for since it happened to be a feastday, there were many people on hand.

And the man, having gone through this ordeal and seeing the crowd of people who had gathered, while the horse grew wilder and no one was coming to his aid, fearing that his horse might do him greater harm, he denounced without a blush before all his unlawful deed. And the horse immediately stopped and stood calm. Once untied, the rider approached the saint's church and, prostrating himself, he pleaded with him not to be subjected to further tribulation.

4. Once a crippled man and a mute woman were staying in the shrine of the saint with many others waiting to be cured. In the middle of the night, while all were busy sleeping, the saint appeared to the cripple and said: "Go while it is still quiet and take hold of the mute woman's cloak and you will be cured." And having gone over and taken hold of it, she, bereft of her covering, cried out blaming to all appearances the cripple. And the woman was cured when her tongue became untied; while the crippled man, feeling ashamed, immediately got up with the intention of fleeing. And when they both realized the miracle which had been brought about for them by the saint, they gave glory to God.

5. There was once a Jew who was close friends with a Christian and, as he travelled often to distant lands, he would leave behind considerable amounts of gold with him. On one occasion he entrusted to him a money-bag containing five hundred nomismata, and the Christian plotted in his heart to deny that it had been left in his care, which he in fact did. For when the Jew came and asked (for the money) in the usual manner, the Christian did not hand it over, saying: "You did not leave with me this time what you are asking for." The Jew, not expecting to hear this, was beside himself. When he regained his composure he said to the Christian: "An oath will resolve the issue, without any witnesses." And he asked that the one who was lying be refuted by Saint Menas.

Both men went to the Church of Saint Menas, and the Christian swore to the Jew before God that he did not take the gold for safe-keeping. Both men then left the church and mounted their horses. Immediately the Christian's horse began to buck so violently that it could not be restrained. Breaking its reins, it began to gallop, and tossed its master to the ground. As the Christian fell from the horse, his ring slid from his hand and a key from his pouch.

He got up, pursued his horse, calmed it, and then rode off again with the Jew. When they had gone a way, the Christian said to the Jew, "Friend, this is a convenient place to dismount and eat."

They dismounted their horses and let them graze, and themselves began to eat. The Christian then looked up and saw his servant standing before him, holding the Jew's chest in one hand and the ring and the key in the other. He was overcome by terror and asked the servant, "What is the meaning of the this?"

The servant replied, "A fearsome soldier went to my lady [the Christian's wife] and giving her this key and ring, said to her, 'Return the chest to the Jew without delay, lest your husband fall into misfortune.' Therefore, she sent me to you with these things as the soldier commanded."

When the Jew saw this, he rejoiced, and together with the Christian, returned to the Church of Saint Menas. There he fell to the ground and asked for Holy Baptism, confessing that because he had witnessed this great miracle, he had come to believe. The Christian begged the saint to forgive him, acknowledging that he had transgressed God's commandment. Both received what they desired: one Holy Baptism and the other forgiveness of his sin, and they returned to their homes, rejoicing and glorifying God and exalting Saint Menas.

Two More Miracles

1. This miracle of Saint Menas took place in 1826 in Herakleion, Crete. Five years prior was the beginning of the Greek Revolution and the Turks had slaughtered a great number of Greeks in Crete, most noteworthy being the Metropolitan of Crete together with many of his bishops of various districts on June 24, 1821 in the Cathedral of Saint Menas, together with the officiating priest who was slaughtered on the very altar during the Divine Liturgy.

Five years later the Turks were devising another slaughter of the Christians on April 18, 1826, which was the Feast of Pascha when all Christians of the city would gather to celebrate the Feast of Feasts. To distract them they set fires on Pascha in various areas of the city and many gathered towards the church to celebrate the feast and sing "Christ is risen!"

As the gospel was being read proclaiming the Resurrection Feast suddenly a gray haired man appeared and began running around the church holding a sword, and the faithful saw him chase away the Turks who were devising the slaughter.

The Turks thought the man was a fellow Muslim who was sent by the governor of the city to call off the slaughter. However the governor assured them he had sent no one and in fact had not left his home that night. It was then that the Turks realized that this was a miracle of Saint Menas to save the Greeks. It is for this reason that Muslims began honoring Saint Menas and bringing gifts to the church.

This miracle is celebrated every year on Bright Tuesday following Pascha in the city of Herakleion. It is also during the Vespers Service of the feast that the relic of Saint Menas is displayed for veneration by the faithful.

2. One of Orthodoxy's modern saints is Elder Hadji-Georgis the Athonite (1809-1886). This great ascetic lived many years on the Holy Mountain in Kerasia in the large Cell of Saint Demetrios and Saint Menas. He began here as a novice under Papa-Neophytos and later as Elder of the brotherhood from 1848 and on.

One day as he was busy doing his handiwork, he placed a needle in his mouth and by mistake swallowed the needle. He prayed to Saint Menas. Saint Menas then appeared by the elders side and put his hand on his throat and the needle was removed.

This Egyptian icon from the Coptic Monastery of St. Menas depicts St. Menas with Jesus and is considered one of the oldest icons in existence dating to the 6th century.

The Discovery of the Ancient Shrine of Saint Menas

Though the Shrine of Saint Menas was one of the most popular pilgrimage sites of the early Middle Ages, it fell into oblivion over the centuries with the Muslim occupation and was even believed by many scholars to be a myth. Following its discovery in 1905, the ruins of the fabled city of St. Menas were placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 as one of the five most historically important sites in Egypt. The following is taken from an article published by Al-Ahram:

The city was thought to be legendary until 1905 when German archaeologist Carl Maria Kaufmann, travelling from Athens to North Africa through Alexandria and Maryut, made a scientific investigation of early Christian monasteries that had earlier been investigated only superficially, or not at all. The city -- described in glowing terms by the Arab geographer Al-Bakri in the early 11th century, and in accounts by numerous mediaeval historians and pilgrims who spoke of superb buildings decorated with statues and mosaics, situated in a fertile region with vineyards -- had totally disappeared. It was even thought to be a figment of the imagination.

When Kaufmann came upon extensive ruins near Maryut (formerly Lake Mareotis) southwest of Alexandria he was certain that he had discovered the famous place to which thousands of pilgrims reputedly flocked from all over the Christian world. Discovery of the actual tomb of St Menas dispelled all doubt. Thirty marble stairs led down to a crypt, and the tomb of the patron saint lay some 10 metres beneath the high altar of the ruins of a basilica constructed in the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine by Bishop Athanasius the Great. Kaufmann found baths and tiny pottery ampullae shaped like a flat, two-handled jar stamped with the figure of the saint between two camels. These the pilgrims filled with sacred water and took home as curative souvenirs.

No further excavations were carried out until 1951, when a team from the Coptic Museum found souvenir shops and evidence of glass and pottery manufacturing. Ten years later, in 1961, the German Archaeological Institute began serious excavation of the site under the direction of Peter Grossman, which continues until today. Over successive seasons the ancient religious community came to life. The team found a transept or T-shaped basilica with a domed roof supported by 56 marble columns, the sockets of which could still be seen, with the pillardrums scattered around. The basilica, built of limestone, was 34.7 metreslong and 20 wide. Above the saint's grave on the east side was the altar. On one aisle was a deep shaft leading down to the well where the sick were purportedly healed. In the tomb itself was found an icon of the saint, exactly as described by Al-Bakri. The mission also located a potter's workshop where souvenir objects including jugs, lamps and flasks had been fired some 1,500 years earlier for sale to pilgrims.

St Menas was one of the few Egyptian martyrs with an international reputation. The original church built over his grave soon became too small to accommodate the number of pilgrims, and the Emperor Arcadius (395-408) built another, to which the saint's relics were transferred. Subsequent Roman emperors erected the Great Basilica, to which thousands of pilgrims made the pilgrimage from as far afield as England, France, Germany, Spain and Turkey. Cures were attributed to the therapeutic effects of the water which came from springs in the limestone rocks, which have since dried up. Baths were built beside the church after Constantine's only daughter, who suffered from leprosy, was reputedly healed there. The number of little flasks stamped with the saint's image and filled with healing water became an industry to cater to the needs of the worshippers and have been found around the world. Indeed, they are familiar objects in many museums.

The German team also found evidence that shops and workshops lined a colonnaded route leading to the Church of the Martyr, which was rebuilt during the reign of Justinian (528-565). As excavations progressed, it was possible to deduce that pilgrims gathered in a great square where a semi-circular structure may have been a resting place for the sick. Discoveries included a double Roman bath for men and women, two hospitals and a building which may have been used for church administrators. Surrounding the square were hostels on the north, where the monks took care of the sick, bath houses and wells. Surrounding the labyrinthine ruins were cells and refectories.

This great place of pilgrimage, so threatened today from another cause, was destroyed on three earlier occasions. The first was during the Persian invasion in 619 when countless Christian churches and shrines were ravaged along the northern coast. The second was in 628 when the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius overthrew the Persians and himself destroyed religious buildings belonging to the Egyptian Church (later the Coptic Orthodox Church) who did not adhere to the dogma as laid down at the Council of Chalcedon in 451; and the third was after the Arab conquest when, following the withdrawal of the Melkite Patriarch from Alexandria, the monastery of St Menas became subject to dispute between the Greek Orthodox and the Coptic Orthodox churches on the question of jurisdiction. By the eighth century, when the government decreed that the shrine belonged to the Coptic Orthodox Church, the site had been ravaged by Bedouins. Stones had been usurped, including valuable marble, for reuse elsewhere. Bedouin attacks continued for 30 years, and earthquakes added to the final devastation. Yet so great was the religious community that even as late as the year 1000 Al-Bakry described lights burning in the shrine of the saint night and day and "the beautiful water of St Menas that drives away pain."


Apolytikion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
With great valour of soul, thou didst strive in martyrdom, and having fought the good fight, O divine Great Martyr Menas, thou from Heaven hast received the gift of miracles; for God hath shown thee to the world as a worker of great signs, and He made thee our protector and a swift help in afflictions and ever-vigilant defence from harm.

Kontakion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
As godly-minded athletes and Martyrs who strove for piety, the Church doth honour and glorify this day the godly contests and travails of Menas the prizewinner, noble Victor, brave Vincent, and valiant Stephanie, and lovingly doth cry out and glorify Christ, the Friend of man.

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Marine Reservist Attacked Greek Priest He Mistook for Terrorist

Priest's Plea for Help Nets Beating

By Alexandra Zayas and Demorris A. Lee
Published Tuesday, November 10, 2009
St. Petersburg Times

TAMPA — Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.

That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions:

The man tried to rob him.

The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.

The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.

"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them.

Bruce ended up in jail, accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was released Tuesday on $7,500 bail. Marakis ended up at the hospital with stitches. He told the police he didn't want to press charges, espousing biblical forgiveness.

But Tuesday, Bruce wasn't saying sorry.


The two men are a year apart in age, and a world apart in life experiences.

Father Michael Eaccarino of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Tarpon Springs says Marakis, 29, entered a Greek monastery as a teenager and became a priest nine years ago. He is studying theology at Holy Cross, a Greek Orthodox school in Massachusetts, and traveled to Tarpon Springs two months ago to work on his master's thesis. He has taken a vow of celibacy.

Eaccarino says the visiting priest got lost Monday after ministering to the elderly in a nursing home.

Jasen Bruce, 28, enlisted as a reserve Marine as a teenager, was discharged honorably when he finished his contract, and enlisted again this March. He has never been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, a Marine Corps spokesman said. He got married last month in full dress uniform.

Bruce is a sales manager for APS Pharmacy in Palm Harbor. His blog entries tout the benefits of increasing testosterone and human growth hormones. He was charged with misdemeanor battery in 2007 for hopping over the bed of a tow truck and shoving its driver. He pleaded no contest.

Online photo galleries depict him flexing big muscles wearing little clothing.

An exterior surveillance video of Tuesday's chase captured the two men in motion, said Tampa Police Department spokeswoman Laura McElroy:

"You see a very short, small man running, and an enormous, large muscular man chasing after him."

This is what police say happened at 6:35 p.m. Monday:

The priest's GPS gave him the wrong directions, leading him off Interstate 275 and into downtown Tampa. He followed a line of cars into a garage at the Seaport Channelside condominium to ask for help.

He found Bruce, whose back was turned, bending over the trunk of his car, and he tapped his shoulder before saying, in broken English, "please" and "help."

That's when Bruce reached for the tire iron. Police say that by the end of the chase, he had hit the priest four times.

Hours after his release from Orient Road Jail on Tuesday, Bruce stood silently as his attorney, Jeff Brown, told his version:

The bearded man wearing a robe and sandals was clearly trespassing in the garage. In a sudden move, the stranger made a verbal sexual advance and grabbed Bruce's genitals. The Marine defended himself. And immediately, he called 911 as he chased him.

Brown said the police initially called the Marine a "hero" and said the priest was "mentally ill."

He called the police's account "one-sided" and said the department should investigate a sergeant he said made derogatory comments about the Marine's military background.

Police said that sergeant is, himself, a veteran. They say that the priest was disoriented when they found him at the corner of Madison and Meridian avenues, but a translator at Tampa General Hospital helped him communicate. And that the GPS corroborates the priest's story.

When police arrived at Bruce's apartment at 1:30 a.m., before they had mentioned charges, he had already called an attorney.

Television news stations showed the priest's photo on Tuesday and mentioned what the Marine said he did. If the priest had watched, he wouldn't have understood it.

He'd spent the day in great spirits, his fellow priest said. His main worry was that he inconvenienced the others who had to care for him. Then, a man named Jerry Theophilopoulos got in touch with him. He's a lawyer, speaks Greek and served as a former board member of the church. The lawyer said he told the priest what the Marine said. Marakis was stunned. His eyes grew wide. He said it was a lie.

Times researcher John Martin and staff writer Jamal Thalji contributed to this report.

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Saint Orestes' Revelation to Saint Dimitri Rostov

Life of St. Orestes (Feast Day - November 10)
by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Orestes was from the town of Tyana in Cappadocia. He was a Christian from birth and a physician by profession. He was harshly tortured by a certain wicked eparch Maximus during the reign of Diocletian. When the eparch at first advised him to deny Christ and worship idols, Orestes replied: "If you knew the power of the Crucified One, you would reject idolatrous falsehoods and worship the true God.'' For this, he was savagely beaten, scraped, pulled apart on the rack, burned with a red-hot iron, and cast into prison to die of starvation. The young Orestes spent seven days without bread or water. On the eighth day, he was again brought before the eparch who threatened him with frightening tortures. Orestes answered: "I am prepared to endure every pain, having the sign of my Lord Jesus Christ inscribed on my heart.'' The governor condemned him, and the torturers hammered twenty iron nails into his feet and tied him to a horse, dragging him over thorns and rocks until the martyr of God breathed his last. On the place where they discarded Orestes's body, a man bright as the sun appeared, gathered Orestes's relics, and carried them to a hill near the town of Tyana, honorably burying them there. This wonderful saint appeared to St. Dimitri of Rostov after his repose, and showed him all the wounds on his body.


The Revelation of St. Orestes the Martyr to St. Dimitri Rostov
By St. Dimitry Rostov

In the year 1685, the author of this Life was preparing it to be printed at the Holy and Great Lavra of the Kiev Caves. One night, during the holy fast before the feast of the Nativity of Christ, when he had already completed this account, he fell asleep for a short while before the beginning of Matins and learned that the saint suffered still more torments than those described in his Life. The Holy Martyr Orestes appeared to him in a dream, and looking upon him with joyful countenance, said, "I suffered more torments for Christ than these!" Then the martyr bared his breast and showed the author of his Life a great wound on his left side which penetrated to his bowels. He said, "Here they pierced me with a spear."

The saint also showed the wound at his right elbow, and said, "Here they cut off my arm!" The sinews in the wound had all been severed.

Next he showed his left arm, which bore a similar wound at the same place, and said, "They cut off this arm here." After this he bent over, bared one leg, and showed a wound behind the knee, and then uncovered the other leg, which was wounded at the same place. He said, "My legs were cut off with a scythe."

Having said this, the martyr stood up, looked the writer in the face, and declared, "You now see that I suffered more torments for Christ than you described!"

The writer began to wonder which Orestes the saint was, and thought that perhaps he was the soldier Orestes, one of the Five Martyrs of Sebaste [celebrated December 13]. As if to answer his thought, the holy martyr said, "I am not the Orestes who was one of the Five Martyrs, but he whose life you have just completed."

With that, the bells rang for Matins, and the vision came to an end.

HYMN OF PRAISE: The Holy Martyr Orestes
By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

The young Orestes did not spare his youth,
But boasted of Christ before the judge,
The Living God, One and Holy,
Crucified on the Cross for mankind.
They flogged St. Orestes's back,
As he mocked the lifeless idols;
And they burned wondrous Orestes in the fire,
Which was cooled by the dew of God's Spirit.
They drove nails into his feet,
And covered his whole body with wounds.
Strengthened by the Spirit, Orestes prayed,
And gave thanks to God
That he was made worthy of such sufferings,
That God had adopted him as a son.
O Orestes, the God-pleaser,
Courageous martyr for Christ,
Help us unto the last day-
By your prayers, come to our aid-
That we may honorably end our lives,
And be made worthy of Paradise with you.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
Thy Martyr, O Lord, in his courageous contest for Thee received the prize of the crowns of incorruption and life from Thee, our immortal God. For since he possessed Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and wholly destroyed the demons' strengthless presumption. O Christ God, by his prayers, save our souls, since Thou art merciful.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
Thine invincibility in contest, O Martyr, was accepted and rewarded by Christ, the Prize-bestower; and He hath granted thee the crown of life and the divine power to work healings, O Orestes, since He is the Friend of man.

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The Apologetic Methods of Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos

Elder Epiphanios Theodoropoulos (Reposed on November 10, 1989)

Apologetic Method

- "When you write, my child, do not present all your arguments at first. Keep a few in reserve, so that, if there is someone who answers, you can implement the golden 'law of reserves'. Thus, you support your positions better."


Religious Seekers

- Once, a lawyer who met the Elder for the first time asked him about reincarnation. Father Epiphanios answered him. After a lengthy period of discussion, the lawyer insisted on continuing on the same subject. So the Elder said to him:

"All right, but don't you pity your time dealing with these things?"

"Is it evil, Father?"

"No, my little child, it is not evil in the sense that you are researching a topic, but you are wasting your time in vain."

"I like searching."

"How old are you?"

"About forty."

"So, you are forty years old and you are still searching? And when will you settle? And after you settle, will you then have years before you in which to regulate your life in accordance with your settled convictions? Life is very short and leaves quickly! You can't make the search the aim of your life. You must, of course, settle somewhere."

"Father, I don't accept the approach 'believe and don't research'."

"But I am not telling you not to research. I am simply telling you that sometime you have to settle somewhere. You are already late."

After a little while, the lawyer departed and the Elder commented:

"Do you know what it is for your tongue to have dried up from thirst, to have a little spring next to you and yet not approach it to be refreshed, but instead settle for swampy waters? Do you know what it is to tremble from the cold, for the fire to be next to you and for you not to extend your hands to get warm? Miserable people!"


Atheism and Skepticism

- For an excellent dialogue the Elder had with an atheist, please read here.

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- "Sin is that which prevents us from believing. Not logic. For this reason, if you tell an unbeliever to live for six months according to the ethics of the Gospel, and he does it, he will become a believer without even realizing it."

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- "'God does not exist' is usually said by people who are lewd and unethical. There has not been found nor will there be found an ethical, continent, virtuous, etc. man who will rather easily say: 'God does not exist!'"

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- Once, Father mentioned the following anecdote:

A certain scholar, after quite a bit of argumentation to prove that God does not exist, said:

"If God exists, let him kill me this instant!"

And because, of course, nothing happened, he continued:

"You see? If He existed He would have killed me."

Then, an elderly lady told him:

"Do you have children?"

"Yes", he answered.

"How many?"

"Three."

"Are they well behaved?"

"Well, not all of them...the two listen to me, but the third...."

"In other words?" asked the lady.

"Well", said the scholar, "he talks back to me, he doesn't listen to what I tell him, he acts wayward...."

"Well then, you should kill him!" the lady told him.

"My child?" the scholar said, amazed.

"Oh, so if you don't want to kill your child, how then do you imagine God would kill you, Who loves you incomparably more than you love your child?"

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- Once, a certain father (who was strongly materialistic) of one of the Elder's spiritual children visited him to complain that he was exerting an "unacceptable" influence upοn his son. At one moment, furthermore, he said, smiling mock­ingly at the Elder:

"And don't tell me, Father Epiphanios, that you, such a smart man, believe the things about Christ, Paradise, Hell, etc."

Then, the Elder got up automatically, set his politeness and meekness aside and, with a loud voice, told him:

"Listen, Mister! If Ι did not believe all these things, Ι would prefer to be selling lemons at Omonia Square, rather than to be fooling you! Ι would prefer to be a completely illiterate la­borer, rather than a lettered liar!"

After this, the visitor departed with his head bowed . . . .

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- Once, the Elder visited a certain spiritual child of his who was ill. There were also some other visitors, among whom was also a certain atheist doctor. After a little while, the conversation turned to religious topics and lasted quite a while. Ιn the end, the Elder addressed the doctor:

"Μy doctor, despite your objections, Ι discern in the depth of your soul a good will and disposition. Without being a prophet, Ι believe that God will not leave you. Ι would like to submit to you one request. Would it be diffi­cult, once a day, to say the following small expression: 'God, if you exist, come to find me.' Ι think it will not cost you anything nor does it clash with your conscience."

He accepted.

Α few months later, the doctor diagnosed in himself neo­plasm of the bones, in other words: cancer. He departed abroad. There, the doctors advised him to return to Greece, because it was a rapidly spreading form of cancer and he was quickly approaching his end.

Before taking the return road home, he asked to confess and commune. He died in repentance a little while after his return to Greece.


Critics of Christianity

- Once, when he was studying in the School of Theology, his fellow students sought him out to help them in a dialogue which they had opened with students of another school during a certain break. As soon as Eteoklis (the later Father Epiphanios) arrived at the place of discussion, a handicapped student happened to be accusing Christianity of being useless. Eteoklis presented a multitude of arguments, but the student would not retreat for anything. So finally Eteoklis told him:

"Don't continue because you will put me in a difficult position. I specialize in this subject."

The student insisted. And Eteoklis continued:

"Especially to you, Christianity has offered life itself! If Christianity did not exist, you being handicapped, would have been thrown into some Kaiada! [Note: a pit or underground cavern where corpses were thrown in ancient times.]

And the conversation ended.

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- "For all the foolishness to be refuted, which is written against Christianity, the mountains would have to be minds, the trees to be pen holders, the sea to be ink, and the fields, paper!"

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- "Many people write as they smoke and smoke as they write and write whatever the smoke blows."


Miracles

- Once he was asked:

"Elder, have you ever seen a vision?"

"No, my child. Nor do I wish to see any. The only thing I want to see are my sins."

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- A strange, religious person once asked the Elder:

"Father, have you seen miracles in your life?"

And the Elder replied:

"Miracles? Nothing but!"

Curious and with intense interest, he then asked him:

"Will you relate to me the greatest miracle you have ever seen?"

"The greatest miracle which I have seen is that God came to earth to save me, the most sinful of people."

The curious man, frustrated, said:

"Is that all you have to tell me?"

And the Elder answered:

"But is there, my dear child, a greater miracle than that?"

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- On account of all those who have difficulties with the matter of the Lord's miracles, Father stressed: "When someone accepts the Resurrection of Christ - in other words, that Christ is God - then he can easily explain all the miracles."

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- "With miracles, the Lord does not give a certificate of correctness of people's faith. He does them out of love for His creatures."


Heresy

- Once he was asked:

"Elder, it is known that peace reigns only in the soul of the people of God. However, the Evangelicals also maintain that they feel a permanent calmness in their hearts. How is it possible for this to occur, since they are in delusion?"

And he responded:

"In the villages, my child, when the villagers wish to tie their donkey for grazing, it is not necessary to tie it by all four feet. It suffices to tie it by one.

"The devil does the same thing with the Evangelicals. Since he has tied them by the foot of heresy, he does not attack them with other temptations. Thus, it is explained why they feel peace, as they maintain. However, this peace is superficial and temporal."

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- The Protestants maintain that, in the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, we don't have the actual Body and Blood of our Lord, but that it is a simple remembrance of the Sacrifice of His Crucifixion.

The Elder responded to this:

"As we know, the Body of the Lord upon the Cross not only was not broken up into small pieces, but not even a bone of His was broken. So, how then does the Lord, during the imparting of the Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, say: 'Take, eat, this is my Body, which is broken' (1 Cor. 11:24). If it were merely a simple remembrance, he would not have said 'which is klomenon' - that is, 'broken into small pieces', because such a thing had not occurred in the crucifixion for them to remember it."


Ecclesiastical Issues

- He was asked:

"Why, in the area of the Church, are improprieties and injustices committed and why can we not find perfection even in the people who are most dedicated to God?"

Responding he said:

"So that we do not base ourselves on persons and things which are related to the earth, and so we can turn our thought constantly to God and toward heaven which is our permanent homeland."


The Problem of Evil

- "Elder, why does God allow righteous and virtuous people to suffer from dreadful illness?"

"In order to be cleansed even from the least traces of their passions and to gain a greater crown in heaven. Furthermore, since He allowed His beloved Son to suffer and to die upon the Cross, what can we say for the people, who, no matter how holy they are, have filth and spots from sins?"

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- "Elder, how does the goodness of God reconcile with the existence of Hell?"

"We must not consider Hell as an expression of the punishing disposition of God. Hell means his complete absence. And, as such, it is a result of our free choice. When someone tells God: 'Depart from me, I do not wish to know your ways' (Job 21:14), then He also, even though All-Good, does not save him by force. Being just, He lets him enjoy his choice - that is, Hell, just as He offers the delight of Paradise to the saint. We choose the place of our eternal dwelling place and God, being just, simply co-signs our choice. In a few words: The justice of God is not exhausted in the selections of our choice."


Children's Questions

- A small child asked him:

"Elder, where was I before I was born?"

"In God's mind, my child."


Science

- "Natural sciences in essence describe and certify. They don't explain."

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- The Elder said: "Professor Louvaris formulated in a first form the following argument, whose strength Ι have experienced in conversations: Marxists proclaim that there exists nothing beyond matter, and natural laws govern everything. However, nature knows οnly the law of strength (survival). The laws of love, compassion and justice are unknown to it. Based οn this logic, the fate of the lamb is for the wolf to eat it and for the rich person to oppress the poor person without ethical respon­sibility. Οnly the acceptance of ethical laws, after the rejection of materialism, can justify the demand for social justice."


Bible Difficulties

- One night, the Elder was returning on foot from the Three Hierarchs Church, accompanied by a certain spiritual child of his, who, utilizing the opportunity, posed different biblical questions to him. So he asked the Elder at one point:

"Elder, how do we say 'Moses signed the Cross' since, in the text of the Old Testament, it is not written that he made the sign of the cross?"

They were then at Saint Constantine Street, waiting for the light to change so they could go across. So, the Elder responded:

"This is concluded if we think of what motions Moses did to achieve a passage way through the Red Sea. If we suppose that Saint Constantine Street is the Red Sea, then for it to be interrupted, the motion of the rod must be vertical toward the road. When we go across - that is, we pass through the 'Red Sea' - in order for the waters to again unite, the motion of the rod must be parallel with the road. Thus, however, in the air the sign of the Precious Cross is formed with the vertical and the parallel signing toward the road/Red Sea."

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- "Elder, isn't cowardice a sin?"

"Yes, my child."

"Didn't the Lord cower at Gethsemene? Then, how is he sinless?"

"What would the Lord face at Golgotha?"

"Death."

"And what is death, according to the Holy Scripture?"

"The wages of sin."

"Well, what relation did the God-Man have with sin and its wages, death?"

"None, whatsoever!"

"The agony, consequently, of the Lord at Gethsemene was not cowardice as a sin, but disgust and aversion, which he felt as God toward sin and its fruits."

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- When again he was asked why the angel Raphael lied to Tobit when he asked him to tell him who he was, and he answered "I am Azarias of Ananias the great, of your brothers" (Tobit 5:13), the Elder said:

"He did not lie. Very simply, he answered according to appearance. He said, that is, that he is Azarias, because he had taken his form. If Ananias was present at the scene, he would be seeing in front of him his son Azaria. And to give you a parallel example so you can understand it, I tell you the following:

"Say that I have in my office someone who is suffering from color-blindness - that is, he sees red for green and vice versa, and at some point in my library I have next to each other a red and green book and I want him to bring me the green one. If I, despite the fact that I want the green one, tell him: 'I want you to bring me the red one', whereas seemingly I am lying, in reality I am not lying, because only if I tell him red, will he see green, which I really want, and he will bring it to me."

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- Once he related:

"A child of High School age, exceptionally misbehaved, had just returned home after his catechetical lesson. He immediately began with great audacity to make fun of his catechist: 'So you can understand how stupid he is, he was telling us that the ass of Balaam spoke like a man.'

"The grandmother scolded her grandson for his impiety to the Old Testament. Then, the grandson turned to his grandmother and with haughtiness and scorn asked her: 'Do you possibly, grandmother, also believe in these stupidities, that the ass was able to speak like a man?'

"And the grandmother responded: 'Since, my child, you who are a man are able to speak like an ass, why should I not believe that the ass also was able to speak like a man?'"

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