Elder Ephraim of Katounakia

Elder Ephraim of Katounakia (Fell asleep in the Lord on February 14, 1998)

At the end of the month of February 1998, the tall cedar of the desert of Katounakia fell. He was the modern hesychast of Mt Athos, the embodiment of Orthodox Athonite Hesychasm, the embodiment of renunciation and departure, and of great obedience and ceaseless prayer.

The late spiritual father was one who approached the divine through the experience of personal struggle. He was a great teacher of our times and a faithful guide. He was the one who taught and practised Hesychasm, departure, obedience, prayer.

He came from the region of Thebes, but he never visited his relatives, as far as I recall, after being tonsured a monk. He was a disciple of true departure.

He placed himself under the guidance of the elder Joseph, from whom he learnt the mysteries and spiritual ascent of inner labour and prayer, the monk who became his father and whom he served as a son.

He was always eager to fulfil the rigorous discipline which harsh and strict elders required.

Father Ephraim's specialty was to speak, teach and advise others about such obedience. This was his beloved topic. On an almost daily basis, he would refer one thing to all and relate to all - obedience. And with that expressive tone of his strong voice, with the persuasion and experience of an old Biblical figure, he would often come back to the topic so dear to him with a new surge of refreshing ascetic demeanour, to the sweetest lesson and the unique matter - obedience. This is the requirement of sacred humility and the coming of the Grace of the Holy Spirit, the cause of all fruitfulness, the pretext of pure prayer. "Do you have obedience? You have prayer. If you don't have obedience, you do not have prayer", he would say, without his words receiving any objection (and Father Ephraim insisted correctly). For, according to St John of Sinai, "obedience means that we place our own discernment into the care of the rich discernment of the spiritual father".

Countless souls travelled the pathway to the ascetic dwelling of the Holy Father Ephraim of Katounakia - laity, monks, priests and bishops - visitors and beggars of spiritual mercy. The sick came and left healed. The burdened came and left feeling lighter. They came weak and left strong.

I remember the late spiritual father even before his fine monastic community was formed, when he was alone. When he made the seals for the prosphora loaves in his humble hut. With a cassock that was mended a thousand times. With spiritual vision and practical virtues, precisely as developed by St Isaac the Syrian in his ascetical works.

May we have your blessing, Holy Father, and may your worthy community follow your hesychastic "model". Amen!

From Voice of Orthodoxy, 1998, v. 19/4,
the official publication of the Greek Orthodox Archbiocese of Australia


On Suffering

Everyone has a cross to carry. Why? Since the leader of our faith endured the cross, we will also endure it. On one hand, the cross is sweet and light, but, on the other, it can also be bitter and heavy. It depends on our will. If you bear Christ’s cross with love then it will be very light; like a sponge or a cork. But if you have a negative attitude, it becomes heavy; too heavy to lift.

On Prayer

The best prayer is the one you say with your own words. Reading a prayer is not enough. For example, before receiving Holy Communion we read the Service of Preparation for Holy Communion: ‘From lips tainted and defiled, from heart unclean and loathsome…’, sometimes without even understanding the words. You yourself should pray with your own words. Then you will understand what you are saying to God. This prayer has great power; great power indeed!

[To see pictures of his cell and listen to audio lecture about Elder Ephraim (in Greek), see here and here.]

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

"Forgiveness": A Poem by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

That God may forgive us, let us forgive men.

We are all on this earth as temporary guests.

Prolonged fasting and prayer is in vain

Without forgiveness and true mercy.

God is the true Physician; sins are leprosy.

Whomever God cleanses, God also glorifies.

Every merciful act of men, God rewards with mercy.

He who returns sin with sin perishes without mercy.

Pus is not cleansed by pus from infected wounds,

Neither is the darkness of the dungeon dispelled by darkness,

But pure balm heals the festering wound,

And light disperses the darkness of the dungeon.

To the seriously wounded, mercy is like a balm;

As if seeing a torch dispersing the darkness, everyone rejoices in mercy.

The madman says, "I have no need of mercy!"

But when he is overcome by misery, he cries out for mercy!

Men bathe in the mercy of God,

And that mercy of God wakens us to life!

That God may forgive us, let us forgive men,

We are all on this earth as temporary guests.


See also: Resentment and Forgiveness

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

On Adam's Lament

INTRODUCTION

The anonymous Kontakion on Adam’s Lament is one of the earliest we possess and is probably of the fifth century and pre-dates those of St Romanos. It is still used in the office of Matins for the Sunday before Lent, where the Proemium is followed not, as is usual, by the first stanza of the hymn only, but by four, numbers 1 to 3 and 7. The text in the Triodion differs in places from that of the critical edition, notably in the refrain, which is in the first person, ’Have mercy on me who have fallen’. In the third line of stanza 7 the Triodion has, ’Implore God for the one who has fallen’, which does not scan.

The last four stanzas, which correspond to the word ADAM in the acrostic, are almost certainly spurious, though they occur in all but one of the MSS. Stanza 18, which begins, ’Now therefore, Saviour’ forms a concluding prayer, which is feature of the classic kontakion and the following stanzas are not really about Adam at all, but are simply a series of commonplaces of inferior quality.

ON ADAM’S LAMENT

Acrostic: On The First-Formed, [Adam]

Proemium

Guide of wisdom, Giver of prudence,
Teacher of the foolish and Defender of the poor,
Establish, give understanding to my heart, Master;
Give me a word, Word of the Father;
For see, my lips I shall not restrain from crying to you:
O Merciful, have mercy on the fallen.

1

Then Adam sat and wept opposite[1]
The delight of Paradise beating his eyes with his hands
And he said:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

2

As Adam saw the Angel pushing and shutting
The door of God’s garden he groaned aloud
And said:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

3

Share in the pain, O Paradise, of your beggared master
And with the sound of your leaves implore the Creator
Not to shut you:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

4

Bend down your trees like living beings and fall before
Him who holds the key, that thus you may remain open
For one who cries:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

5

I breathe the fragrance of your beauty and I melt as I recall
How I delighted there from the sweet scent
Of the flowers:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

6

Now I have learnt what I suffered, now I have understood what God
Said to me in Paradise, ‘In taking Eve
You steal away from Me’:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

7

Paradise, all virtue, all holiness, all happiness,
Planted because of Adam, shut because of Eve,
How shall I lament for you?
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

8

I am polluted, I am ruined, I am enslaved to my slaves;
For reptiles and wild beasts, whom I subjected by fear,
Now make me tremble;
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

9

No longer do the flowers offer me pleasure,
But thorns and thistles[2] the earth raises for me,
Not produce:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

10

The table without toil I overthrew by my own will;
And now in the sweat of my brow I eat
My bread:[3]
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

11

My throat, which holy waters had made sweet,
Has become bitter from the multitude of my groans,
As I cry out:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

12

How have I fallen? Where have I arrived? From a pedestal to the ground;
From a divine admonition to a wretched existence
I have been reduced:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

13

Now Satan rejoices having stripped me of my glory;
But this gives him no joy; for see, my God
clothes me:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

14

God himself pitied me, clothes my nakedness;
By this He shows me that He too cares
For me, the transgressor:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

15

The clothing signifies for me the state that is to come,
For the One who has now clothed me in a little while wears me
And saves me:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

16

Swiftly Adam you have understood the wish of My compassion;
Therefore I do not deprive you of this your hope
As you cry:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

17

I do not wish nor do I will the death of the one I fashioned;
But having chastened him enough I will glorify eternally
The one who cries:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.’

18

Now therefore, Saviour, save me also who seek for you with longing;
I do not wish to take you in, but I wish to be taken in by you
And to cry to you:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.[4]

[19][5]

O incomparable, all-holy, all-immaculate, look down
From heaven as compassionate and save me as unworthily
I shout:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

[20]

Rouse my mind to praise, raise up
The one who lies sick in bed, who unworthily, Saviour,
Cries to you:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

[21]

Raise up, make firm, O Lover of mankind, the one who has now
Stumbled as a profligate in life; draw near me, Saviour,
As I cry:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.

[22]

Unity, Trinity undivided unseparated, at the prayers
Of the Mother of God take pity on me and overlook the sins
Of those who cry:
O Merciful, have mercy on the one who has fallen.]

Notes

[1] Cf. Gen. 3:25 (LXX). The first line of Stanza 1 echoes the LXX text of Genesis 3:24, which reads ’And [God] settled Adam opposite the Paradise of pleasure and set in place the Cherubim’. This rendering has influenced both the liturgical and the iconographic traditions. The Hebrew has only one verb, 'And [God] settled east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim’. The Catholic New American Bible has adopted the LXX reading as the correct one.

[2] Cf. Gen. 3:18.

[3] Cf. Gen. 3:20.

[4] The trope in the second line of Stanza 18 is almost impossible to translate. The verb I have translated ’take in’ in both clauses is the same, and means both ’cheat’ and ’steal’.

[5] These stanzas, 19-22, are considered spurious by the editor, though they are present in all but one ms. 18 forms a final prayer, which is feature of the classic kontakion, and the final stanzas, which form the word ADAM in the acrostic seem to be an unnecessary addition. They are not really about Adam at all and greatly inferior in quality, being simply a collection of commonplaces.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

St. Theodore the Studite: Cheesefare Sunday

CATECHESIS 53

On fasting; and that the true fast of the obedient and the subject is the cutting off of one’s will.

Given on Cheesefare Sunday.

Brethren and Fathers, our good God who gives us life and brings us from year to year, has brought us also with love for mankind to this present time of fasting, in which each of the eager, as their choice directs, enters the contest; one devoting himself to self-mastery, eating only every two or three days, another to vigil, keeping vigil for so long or so long, another spending even longer in prostrations, and others in other ascetic actions. Quite simply during these holy days it is possible to see great zeal and attention. But the true subject behaves with obedience not at any particular time, but keeps up the struggle always. What is the struggle? Not to walk according to one’s own will, but to let oneself be ruled by the disposition of the superior. This is better than the other works of zeal and is a crown of martyrdom; except that for you there is also change of diet, multiplication of prostrations and increase of psalmody are in accord with the established tradition from of old. And so I ask, let us welcome gladly the gift of the fast, not making ourselves miserable, as we are taught, but let us advance with cheerfulness of heart, innocent, not slandering, not angry, not evil, not envying; rather peaceable towards each other, and loving, fair, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits; breathing in seasonable stillness, since hubbub is damaging in a community; speaking suitable words, since too unreasonable stillness is profitless; yet above all unsleepingly keeping watch over our thoughts, not opening the door to the passions, not giving place to the devil. If the spirit of the powerful one, it says, rise up against you, do not let it find your place. So that the enemy has power to suggest, but in no way to enter. We are lords of ourselves; let us not open our door to the devil; rather let us keep guard over our soul as a bride of Christ, not set about with tumult, unwounded by the arrows of the thoughts; for thus we are able to become a dwelling of God in Spirit. Thus we may be made worthy to hear, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Quite simply, Whatever is true, whatever noble, whatever just, whatever pure, whatever lovely, whatever of good report, if there is anything virtuous, if there is anything praiseworthy, to speak like the Apostle, do it; and the God of peace will be with you all, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, to whom be the glory and the might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Sunday of Forgiveness: Cheesefare Sunday

The Sunday of Forgiveness is the last Sunday prior to the commencement of Great Lent. During the pre-Lenten period, the services of the Church include hymns from the Triodion, a liturgical book that contains the services from the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the tenth before Pascha (Easter), through Great and Holy Saturday. On the Sunday of Forgiveness focus is placed on the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, an event that shows us how far we have fallen in sin and separated ourselves from God. At the onset of Great Lent and a period of intense fasting, this Sunday reminds us of our need for God’s forgiveness and guides our hearts, minds, and spiritual efforts on returning to Him in repentance.

The Sunday of Forgiveness, the last of the preparatory Sundays before Great Lent, has two themes: it commemorates Adam’s expulsion from Paradise, and it accentuates our need for forgiveness. There are obvious reasons why these two things should be brought to our attention as we stand on the threshold of Great Lent. One of the primary images in the Triodion is that of the return to Paradise. Lent is a time when we weep with Adam and Eve before the closed gate of Eden, repenting with them for the sins that have deprived us of our free communion with God. But Lent is also a time when we are preparing to celebrate the saving event of Christ’s death and rising, which has reopened Paradise to us once more (Luke 23:43). So sorrow for our exile in sin is tempered by hope of our re-entry into Paradise.

The second theme, that of forgiveness, is emphasized in the Gospel reading for this Sunday (Matthew 6:14-21) and in the special ceremony of mutual forgiveness at the end of the Vespers on Sunday evening. Before we enter the Lenten fast, we are reminded that there can be no true fast, no genuine repentance, no reconciliation with God, unless we are at the same time reconciled with one another. A fast without mutual love is the fast of demons. We do not travel the road of Lent as isolated individuals but as members of a family. Our asceticism and fasting should not separate us from others, but should link us to them with ever-stronger bonds.

The Sunday of Forgiveness also directs us to see that Great Lent is a journey of liberation from our enslavement to sin. The Gospel lesson sets the conditions for this liberation. The first one is fasting—the refusal to accept the desires and urges of our fallen nature as normal, the effort to free ourselves from the dictatorship of the flesh and matter over the spirit. To be effective, however, our fast must not be hypocritical, a “showing off.” We must “appear not unto men to fast but to our Father who is in secret” (vv. 16-18).

The second condition is forgiveness—“If you forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you” (vv. 14-15). The triumph of sin, the main sign of its rule over the world, is division, opposition, separation, hatred. Therefore, the first break through this fortress of sin is forgiveness—the return to unity, solidarity, love. To forgive is to put between me and my “enemy” the radiant forgiveness of God Himself. To forgive is to reject the hopeless “dead-ends” of human relations and to refer them to Christ. Forgiveness is truly a “breakthrough” of the Kingdom into this sinful and fallen world.

The Sunday of Forgiveness is also known as Cheesefare Sunday. This is the last day that dairy products can be eaten before the Lenten fast. The full fast begins the following day on Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent. On the evening of the Sunday of Forgiveness the Church conducts the first service of Great Lent, the Vespers of Forgiveness, a service that directs us further on the path of repentance and helps us to acknowledge our need for forgiveness from God and to seek forgiveness from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the first time that the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim accompanied by prostrations is read. At the end of the service all the faithful approach the priest and one another asking for mutual forgiveness.

Orthodox Christians are encouraged to enter Great Lent in repentance and confession by attending these services, coming for the Sacrament of Confession, and dedicating themselves to worship, prayer, and fasting throughout the Lenten period. The first day of Lent, Clean Monday, signifies the beginning of a period of cleansing and purification of sins through repentance.

Exapostelarion of Matins in Tone Two
Wretch that I am I disobeyed Your good commandment, O my Lord. And being stripped of Your glory, alas, with shame I am laden. And I have been evicted from the pure delights of Paradise. O merciful and compassionate, have mercy on me who rightly has been deprived of Your goodness.

Exapostelarion of Matins in Tone Two
We were expelled of old, O Lord, from the Garden of Eden, for wrongly eating from the tree. But, O my God and Savior, You once again have restored us through Your Cross and Your Passion. Thereby, O Master, fortify and enable us purely to finish Lent and to worship Your holy resurrection, Pascha our saving Passover, by the prayers of Your Mother.

Prokeimenon of Vespers in Tone Plagal Fourth
Turn not away Thy face from Thy child for I am afflicted; hear me speedily. Draw near to my soul and deliver me.

Stichos
Thy salvation, O God, hath set me up. The poor see and rejoice.

Kontakion in Tone Plagal Second
O Master, Guide to wisdom, Giver of prudent counsel, Instructor of the foolish and Champion of the poor, make firm my heart and grant it understanding. O Word of the Father, give me words, for see, I shall not stop my lips from crying out to Thee: I am fallen, in Thy compassion have mercy on me.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Protestant Canon Refuted

By Jay Dyer

Many reformed acquaintances have, on various occasions, sent me different challenges relating to the canon of Scripture. One of these was a list of arguments proposed by Reformed theologian Dr. Ian Paisley against the canonicity of the 7 Deuterocanonical Books (or, the "Apocrypha," from here on titled "DB"). Another challenger stated the traditional Orthodox arguments for the necessary involvement of a Spirit-led Church in the formation of a definitive canon is not a valid argument, since the Old Testament believer needed no extra-scriptural, infallible authorities, in any sense, to recognize the veracity of the OT books. This second objection is true in principle, but I have decided to kill two birds with one stone. If it can be shown that the Protestant canon of Scripture itself is erroneous, then both of these non-Orthodox challenges fall to the ground, since the question of who has the right canon is obviously prior to one's right to quote this or that text.

Thus, if 2 Maccabees is part of Scripture, then prayer for the dead is a biblical doctrine: but almost no Protestant holds this doctrine, thus demonstrating for "sola scriptura" the implications of rejecting books of the Bible. It will be shown, then, that the Protestants are the real violators of the written Word of God, having cut out books that did not fit their preconceived notions. This is ironic, since Protestants are always accusing those that do not adhere to sola scriptura, of violating the "Word of God." One Reformed acquaintance of mine likes to think his grammatico-historico syntax arguments cannot be defeated. Rather than go into their maze of texts (as Tertullian recommends against), since they puts on a show of appearing to follow the written Word of God alone, this erroneous position will actually be shown to be violating the Word of God. Just as the Protestant follows a man-Luther-in hypocritically cutting out 7 books of the Word that didn't fit with his heretical presuppositions, we will cut out from under this view its foundation—the wrong Bible. Until the serious-minded Protestant deals with this question, the sola scriptura claim has no force.

First, I will give the basic arguments of reformed theologian Dr. Ian Paisley as they were presented to me, and I will respond, demonstrating that each argument is entirely false with specific responses exclusively from noted Protestant scholarly sources. The following points of Dr. Paisley are the strongest standard arguments most Protestants give. If someone has others they are welcome.

1. First argument of Paisley: The Jews never accepted the DB and they were not part of the oracles committed unto them (Rom. 3:2) Furthermore, they are not written in Hebrew.

Response:

This is totally false. Paisley makes no distinction between Jews of the diaspora and Palestinian Jews. Palestinian Jews rejected the DB, but the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the OT composed in the 2nd-3rd century B.C. at Alexandria, Egypt by 70 or 72 Jewish scribes, was used by non-Palestinian Jews. It is a well known fact that the Septuagint (LXX) was both the Bible of the diaspora Jews and the Bible of all the early Christians, as will be proven below. Further, it's also a fact that the LXX contained the DB, as will also be proven below.

Protestant scholars admit the LXX was the bible of the diaspora Jews who were far more numerous at the time of Christ than Palestinian Jews.

1. Oxford University church historian Paul Johnson, in his book A History of Christianity, writes:

"There was already [in the first century] a huge Jewish diaspora, especially in the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean-Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, and so forth…The Greek adaptation of the Old Testament, or the Septuagint, which was composed in Alexandria was widely used in diaspora communities…" (pg. 10-11).

2. Baptist textual scholar Lee McDonald, in his book The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, writes:

"It is most likely that these [DB] books were considered by the Jewish community holy or sacred well before the time of Christ, and that they were simply received by the early Christians as part of the sacred collection they inherited from Judaism. There is evidence that at least some non-canonical books had their origin in the land of Israel and were translated and transported from Israel to Alexandria and probably wherever Jews lived in significant numbers in the Roman Empire . The grandson of Ben Sirach [the writer of the deuteroncanonical book Ecclesiasticus]…lets us know he was translating for the Jews in Alexandria . The NT also has many allusions to some [deuterocanonical] literature found in the LXX, and the oldest Christian collections of OT scriptures contain much of that literature" (page 90).

3. Furthermore, the Protestant Fausset's Bible Dictionary, under "Apocrypha" states:

Apocrypha= "…the writings added in the LXX, I and II Esdra, Tobit, Judith, the sequel to Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon…" (page 42)

4. Furthermore, the Protestant Nelson's New Christian Dictionary, under "Apocrypha" says:

"The Septuagint incorporates all of them (with the exception of 2 Esdras), and they are not differentiated in any other way from the other books of the OT" (page 40).

5. Renowned evangelical scholar F.F. Bruce writes also of this well known point in his The Canon of Scripture:

"However much the wording of Stephen's defense in Acts 7 may owe to the narrator, the consistency with which its biblical quotations and allusions are based on is the Septuagint is true to life….As soon as the gospel was carried into the Greek speaking world, the Septuagint came into its own as the sacred text to which preachers appealed. It was used in the Greek-speaking synagogues of throughout the Roman Empire " (page 49).

6. Renowned Protestant patristics scholar, J.N.D. Kelly, wrote in his well-known Early Christian Doctrines:

"It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the 22 or 24 books of Hebrew Palestinian Judaism. It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition the so-called Apocrypha, or deuterocanonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was not the original Hebrew version, but the Greek translation known as the Septuagint…most of the scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew" (page 53).

7. As to whether any were ever written in Hebrew, which Paisley denies, scholarship says quite different:

F.F. Bruce writes:

"…Yeshua ben Sira…in Egypt in 132 B.C, translated his grandfather's book of wisdom, commonly called Ecclesiasticus or Sirach from Hebrew into Greek" (Canon, page 31).

Baptist Lee McDonald quoted above (no. 2) agrees the DB were transported from Israel and translated from Hebrew into Greek at Alexandria.

Furthermore, it is well known that the Dead Sea Scrolls found at the Qumran community contain DB books that are in Hebrew, as Charles Pfeiffer's book The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible demonstrates (pages 16-17), as does McDonalds Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon on page 81, where he notes that Ecclesiasticus was found in Hebrew in caves 2 and 11 (page 81).

Besides, it wouldn't matter if there were no DB in Hebrew at all (though there are), since I can simply ask upon what grounds does Paisley and the Protestant say that a book "must be written in Hebrew to be canonical"? Says who? Does the Bible say that? Of course not, and it's obviously an assumption that is totally irrelevant. Dr. Paisley: the New Testament is not written in Hebrew, so does that disqualify it? Of course not.

2. Second argument of Paisley : the New Testament never quotes the DB and early Christians never used it.

Response:

This is totally false, and can be shown to be incorrect by a few simple examples:

1. Ecclus. 11:31 and 2 John 10.

2. Ecclus. 11:18-20 compared with Christ's parable of the wealthy farmer in Luke 12:19.

3. Further, Jesus' statements about the eye making the whole body dark in Matthew 6:22 seem to clearly refer to Ecclus. 14:8-11.

4. Further, Wisdom 12-13 is almost exactly parallel with Romans 1.

5. Wisdom 2 contains a lengthy, clear prophecy of Christ.

6. Hebrews 11:35 refers to women and children who refused to be delivered from death (martyrdom) that they might receive a better resurrection. Now, there is nothing like this in the Protestant canonical OT (based on the Palestinian Jewish canon), where a woman refuses to have her children saved in order to merit for them a more glorious resurrection. But there is exactly that situation in 2 Maccabees 7, where the mother and her seven sons refuse to be delivered so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

There are several more examples than these, but these suffice to prove Paisley and the Protestant wrong.

Furthermore, a book's being quoted in the New Testament cannot be a criterion of canonicity, since Song of Solomon, Esther, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah are never quoted in the New Testament, yet Protestants accept them. Aside from that, the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses are quoted in the canonical book of Jude, and no Protestant accepts these two as canonical. Thus, New Testament citation is not the end all criterion.

As to whether early Christians after the Apostles ever used them, note Kelly again:

"It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative n the church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the 22 or 24 books of Hebrew Palestinian Judaism. It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition the so-called Apocrypha, or deuterocanonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was not the original Hebrew version, but the Greek translation known as the Septuagint…most of the scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew" (Early Christian Doctrines, page 53).

And the Protestant Nelson's New Christian Dictionary:

"…the early church Fathers, including Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen cite them [the DB] frequently. Christians made extensive use of them for apologetic purposes, because some of the texts referred to the Incarnation, Logos, and the Son of God. But the reformation leaders were instrumental in completely rejecting them, and refused to ascribe to them the status of inspired word of God" (page 41).

Anyone who spends a few hours in the post apostolic fathers sees very quickly that each of them (Clement, Ignatius, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus and others) clearly cites various DB texts as authoritative.

3. Final Paisley argument: the synod of Laodicea (341-381) did not accept the DB and that the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) supposedly ratifies Laodicea.

Response:

Once again Paisley is entirely incorrect and does not know what he is talking about. The Synod of Laodicea was a regional, and therefore not universally binding, series of mini-synods that took place over a period of several years. Laodicea 's canons are quoted at least 3 or 4 times in Chalcedon 's canons, but what is the evidence of Chalcedon defining a non-Deuterocanonical canon, as Paisley attempts to say? There is none.

But these points aren't the most devastating on this issue: Paisley apparently hasn't read what the canon of Scripture Laodicea lists is: it's a canon that no one follows: it excludes Revelation and Esther, while it includes Baruch! No one—Protestant, Orthodox or Catholic--accepts this list of books, so Laodicea provides absolutely no support for the Protestant canon whatsoever. Anyone who doubts these claims can look up online the "Synod of Laodicea" and see what Scriptures it lists. Paisley really should have done this.

This terrible argument is further blown away when one actually reads the Letters of Pope St. Leo the Great: the Pope who presided at the Council of Chalcedon. In St. Leo's letters you find him frequently citing the DB as Scripture. Furthermore, he quotes the book of Revelation as Scripture, which Laodicea also omits. So, clearly, St. Leo and Chalcedon afford Paisley no evidence.

Why do Protestants quote Chalcedon , as if they hallowed it? Session III calls the Bishop of Rome the "universal patriarch," in tandem with the Patriarchate of Alexandria. In other words, Apostolic Sucession. The canons of that council teach Apostolic Succession, hierarchical church government, monasticism, tradition, vows of celibacy, etc. Need I say more?

In conclusion, then, the Protestant is the one who violates the written Word of God. I am speaking specifically here to my Reformed acquaintances who want to talk all day long about Greek exegesis. One can throw "sola scriptura's" all day long, but this is meaningless when your policy for canonicity is the drunk monk (Luther) who cast seven books out of the Bible because he didn't feel they "preached the Word." One must admit that if this is correct, then Protestantism is built on a faulty foundation. The summits of conservative Protestant scholarship support these facts.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Cheesefare Saturday: The Ascetic Fathers and Mothers

Commemoration of the Holy Ascetic Fathers and Mothers (Feast Day - Cheesefare Saturday)

On this day, we commemorate all the righteous and God-bearing Fathers and Mothers, both known and unknown, who shone forth in asceticism. With these two weeks of Meatfare and Cheesefare, the Church gradually eases us into the full fasting which begins on Monday.

The holy acetics are virtuous men and women who contended against the devil and their own passions. By examining their lives and their struggles against the Enemy, we take courage from the victory they have achieved, and are inspired to imitate their God-pleasing conduct. They also teach us that fasting is not merely abstinence from food, but involves refraining from inappropriate speech and unseemly actions.

Since these holy ascetics share the same human nature that we have, their example is an encouragement to us as we embark on our own spiritual struggles Their lives are a model for us to follow as we seek to acquire and practice the various virtues and to turn away from everything evil. If we undertake these same struggles of prayer, fasting, and good works, we shall receive from God the same reward they did.

Most of the holy ascetics commemorated today have their own separate Feast Day during the year, while some are remembered only on this day.

- From OCA Website

The God-bearing Fathers, after preparing us through the preceding feasts for the stadium of spiritual struggles, now set before us the men and women who have passed their lives in a manner pleasing to God, so that by their example they might make us more eager in the work of virtue and more courageous against the passions. And as experienced generals, when they prepare their soldiers for battle, urge their soldiers on by recalling for them the heroic exploits of excellent men, so that the soldiers take courage and charge wholeheartedly against the enemy; even so the God-bearing Fathers do for our sakes now, by appointing this day as a common memorial and feast of all those Saints who by many labours overcame the passions and became well-pleasing to God; so that we too, looking to the life of the righteous, might imitate them as far as possible in contending courageously against the passions and accomplishing the virtues, having it always in mind that the Saints were of the same nature and of like passions with us.

Kontakion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
As preachers of true piety who silenced all impiety, Lord, Thou hast made the whole host of God-bearing Saints shine forth with splendour on the world. By their prayers and entreaties, keep all them that extol and sincerely magnify Thee in perfect peace, to chant and to sing to Thee: Alleluia.

- From the Synaxarion of Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Saints Martinian the Righteous, With Zoe and Photine

Saint Martinian the Righteous, Together with Zoe and Photine (Feast Day - February 13)

Saint Martinian, who was from Caesarea of Palestine, flourished about the beginning of the fifth century. He struggled in the wilderness from his youth. After he had passed twenty-five years in asceticism, the devil brought a temptation upon him through a harlot [Zoe], who when she heard the Saint praised for his virtue, determined to try his virtue, or rather, to undo it. Coming to his cell by night as it rained, and saying she had lost her way, she begged with pitiful cries to be admitted in for the night, lest she fall prey to wild beasts. Moved with compassion, and not wishing to be guilty of her death should anything befall her, he allowed her to enter. When she began to seduce him, and the fire of desire began to burn in his heart, he kindled a fire and stepped into it, burning his body, but saving his soul from the fire of Gehenna. And she, brought to her senses by this, repented, and, following his counsel, went to Bethlehem to a certain virgin named Paula, with whom she lived in fasting and prayer; before her death, she was deemed worthy of the gift of wonder-working. Saint Martinian, when he recovered from the burning, resolved to go to some more solitary place, and took a ship to a certain island, where he struggled in solitude for a number of years. Then a young maiden [Photine] who had suffered a shipwreck came ashore on his island. Not wishing to fall into temptation again, he departed after helping her, and passed his remaining time as a wanderer, coming to the end of his life in Athens.

This occurred around the year 422.

Apolytikion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
Thou didst quench the flame of temptation with the streams of thy tears, O blessed Martinian; and having checked the waves of the sea and the attacks of wild beasts, thou didst cry out: Most glorious art Thou, O Almighty One, Who hast saved me from fire and tempest.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
As is meet, let us praise with hymns the ever-venerable Martinian as a tried ascetic that struggled for piety, as an honorable athlete by deliberate choice, and a resolute citizen and inhabitant of the desert; for he hath trodden upon the serpent.

(From the Synaxarion of Holy Transfiguration Monastery)

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Saint Symeon the Myrrhgusher of Serbia

St. Symeon the Myrrhbearer (Feast Day - February 13)

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Stefan Nemanja [Nehemiah], the great ruler [Great Zupan] of the Serbian people, the consolidator of Serbian lands, creator of the independent Serbian state, defender of Orthodoxy and exterminator of heresy.

At first, he was baptized in the Latin Church but later left this Church and embraced the Orthodox Church. In the beginning, he was dependent on the Greeks with regard to the State, but later he freed himself from this dependence and became completely autonomous. When Stefan consolidated the State and the Orthodox Faith in the State, then, following the example of his son Savva, received the monastic tonsure in Studenica Monastery in the year 1195 A.D., and received the name Symeon. His wife Anna withdrew to a convent, embraced the monastic tonsure and received the name Anastasia.

After two years as a monk in Studenica, Symeon traveled to Athos, the Holy Mountain. There he took up residence in the Monastery Vatopaidi together with his son Savva. Father and son spent their days and nights in prayer. There, they built six chapels dedicated to: the Savior, the Unmercenary Saints, St. George, St. Theodore, The Forerunner and St. Nicholas.

They purchased the ruins of Hilandari and erected a glorious monastery in which Symeon lived only eight months and then died. When Symeon was on his deathbed, Savva, according to his father's wishes, placed him on a simple mat. With eyes directed toward the icon of the Mother of God and the Savior, the blessed elder spoke these last words: "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." (Psalm 150:6), and took up habitation with the Lord on February 13, 1200 A.D.

More on the Repose of St. Symeon

The great Stefan Nemanja, whose authorative words everyone unconditionally heeded to and at whom people and emperors trembled, became a monk and served the monks of the Holy Mountain [Athos] as an ideal example of meekness, humility, goodness and piety.

Even his death was the death of a truly godly man and spiritual director. He became bedridden on February 7. He summoned St. Savva, placed his hands on him and blessed him saying: "My beloved child, the light of my eyes, comfort and protector in my old age! Behold the time of our separation has arrived. Behold the Lord is releasing me in peace. But you, my child, do not mourn because of our separation. For parting is the common cup of all and everyone; here we part from one another but we will meet there where there is no separation."

On February 12, St. Symeon asked Savva to clothe him in a burial cassock, to spread a mat on the ground, lay him there and place a stone under his head. He then summoned all the monks and asked their forgiveness. At dawn, on February 13, while the monks were chanting the Office of Matins in church and the voices were reaching the cell of the dying one, St. Symeon, once more his face radiated and he gave up his soul to his God.

Apolytikion in the Third Tone
Illumined by divine grace, even after death thou dost make manifest the radiance of thy life; for thou pourest forth fragrant myrrh for them that have recourse to the shrine of the relics. Thou didst also guide thy people to the light of the knowledge of God. O our Father Symeon, entreat Christ God that we be granted great mercy.

Kontakion in the Plagal of the Second Tone
Living the angelic life on this earth, thou didst abandon the world and worldly dominion and didst follow Christ by fasting, O Symeon. In an apostolic manner, thou didst guide unto Christ them that loved thee and didst cry: Love ye the Lord even as He hath loved you.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Life Lessons from a Pencil

A pencil maker told the pencil 5 important lessons:

1.) Everything you do will always leave a mark.

2.) You can always correct the mistakes you make.

3.) What is important is what is inside you.

4.) In life, you will undergo painful sharpenings, which will make you a better person.

5.) To be the best pencil, you must allow yourself to be held and guided by the hand that holds you.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Priest Suspected of Thefts at Monasteries

February 13, 2010
Kathimerini

Police in Ioannina, northwestern Greece, believe they are on the trail of a gang that has been stealing religious icons and other valuables from monasteries in the area after arresting a priest who is alleged to have played a major role in the thefts.

The cleric, who was not named, was found to be in possession of 48 stolen icons, wood carvings and various books. It is believed that some of the items were stolen from a monastery in Ioannina last year.

After arresting the priest, officers took another two men into custody. They also searched a monastery in the Pamvotida municipality and the two suspects’ homes, where they found more relics, a handgun and some 500 bullets.

The other two suspects were not named and the police said that the value of the stolen items was as yet unknown.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

More Russians to Observe Great Lent

Growing Number of Russians Find Their Way Into Great Lent

Moscow, Russia
February 12, 2010
Interfax

Almost one third of Russians are going to observe Great Lent this year, while others do not want to restrict themselves, the poll says.

In spite of the fact that majority of Russians still ignore food limitations during Great Lent, this year their number has decreased from 83 percent to 62 percent if compared to 2008, sociologists of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center told Interfax on Friday summing up results of All-Russian poll held in February.

According to it, among those who refuse fasting are respondents aged under 34 (67-71 percent) and atheists (87 percent).

However, the number of those who are going to observe Lent has increased from 16 percent to 32 percent for the recent two years.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Heartfelt Appeal to All Romanian Orthodox Abroad

APPEAL TO UNITY AND ROMANIAN DIGNITY

At the beginning of the year 2010, proclaimed by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church as Anniversary Year of the Orthodox Creed and of Romanian Autocephaly, in the context of the 125th anniversary of the moment when the Romanian Orthodox Church became autocephalous and of the 85th anniversary of the elevation to the rank of Patriarchate, the hierarchs of the Holy Synod are reaching out and addressing a Heartfelt appeal to all Romanian Orthodox clerics and faithful abroad, who are, without blessing, in other sister Orthodox Churches or in non-canonical church structures, to restore their direct communion with their Mother Church, under the canonical jurisdiction of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The realization of this desideratum is the fulfillment of the provisions of the Bylaw for the Organization and Functioning of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which mentions that the Romanian Orthodox Church is the Church of the Romanian people and encompasses all Orthodox Christians in Romania and the Romanian Orthodox Christians abroad (article 5), and the canonical and pastoral organization of the Romanian Orthodox faithful outside Romania is ensured by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church (article 8). This principle is in full accordance with the decision of the Panorthodox Preconciliar Conference of Chambésy-Switzerland (June 6-13, 2009), which specifies that each autocephalous Church has the right to shepherd its own diaspora.

The above-mentioned principles are expressing the duty of the Romanian Orthodox Church and are based upon the 16th Canon of the 1st Ecumenical Council (325), which contains the principle that no diocese is allowed to receive under its jurisdiction Orthodox clerics and faithful, without the blessing of the Church (diocese) to which they belong.

To this end, we are mentioning that the process of returning of the clergy and faithful of different nationalities to their Mother Churches (such as in the Moscow Patriarchate and the Serbian Patriarchate) has already started for a long time and has shown that, through shared responsibility and ethnic Orthodox solidarity, the conjunctural historical feuds, based on past political motives, can be overcome.

Now, when 20 years have passed since the fall of the Communist regime in Eastern Europe, when Romania is a member of the European Union and of NATO and in the context of an unprecedented activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church abroad, through the reorganization and foundation of numerous dioceses across the world, we think that there are no more real reasons to reject the call of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church to unity and Romanian Orthodox communion.

We are confident that this attitude of Romanian Orthodox resurrection and reconciliation will consolidate and intensify the pastoral-missionary, social-philanthropic and cultural-educational ministry of the Romanian Orthodox Church everywhere, strengthening at the same time the Romanian Orthodox dignity, through the liberation of some Romanian Orthodox from considering themselves 'searchers of canonical shadows' among strangers.

We are regretting that, for several reasons, some of our Romanian Orthodox brothers have sought other Orthodox jurisdictions, during Communism, but what was understandable in the past has become unreasonable and regrettable in present times, amounting to estrangement of Romanians from one another, up to their church division.

Being confident that our appeal to unity and Romanian Orthodox dignity will be received with joy and responsibility, as a desire for communion and brotherly cooperation, we are sharing with everyone our utmost respect and fatherly blessing.

Bucharest, February 11, 2010

THE PRESIDENT OF THE HOLY SYNOD OF THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH,
† D A N I E L
Archbishop of Bucharest,
Metropolitan of Muntenia and Dobrudgea, Locum Tenens of the Throne of Caesarea Cappadocia and
Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church


† Teofan
Archbishop of Iasi and Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bukovina

† Laurenţiu
Archbishop of Sibiu and Metropolitan Transylvania

† Bartolomeu
Archbishop of Vad, Feleac and Cluj
Metropolitan of Cluj, Alba, Crisana and Maramures

† Irineu
Archbishop of Craiova and Metropolitan of Oltenia

† Nicolae
Archbishop of Timisoara and Metropolitan of Banat

† Petru
Archbishop Chisinau, Metropolitan of Basarabia and Exarch of the Plains

† Serafim
Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Germany, Austria and Luxembourg
and Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of Germany, Central and Northern Europe

† Iosif
Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of Western Europe and
Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan of Western and Southern Europe

† Nifon
Honorary Metropolitan, Archbishop of Targoviste and Patriarchal Exarch

† Teodosie
Archbishop of Tomis

† Pimen
Archbishop of Suceava and Radauti

† Andrei
Archbishop of Alba Iulia

† Gherasim
Archbishop of Ramnic

† Eftimie
Archbishop of Roman and Bacau

† Epifanie
Archbishop of Buzau and Vrancea

† Calinic
Archbishop of Arges and Muscel

† Casian
Archbishop of Lower Danube

† Timotei
Archbishop of Arad

† Nicolae
Romanian Orthodox Archbishop of the Americas

† Justinian
Honorary Archbishop, Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Maramures and Satu Mare

† Ioan
Honorary Archbishop, Bishop of Covasna and Harghita

† Corneliu
Bishop of Husi

† Lucian
Bishop of Caransebes

† Sofronie
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Oradea

† Nicodim
Bishop of Severin and Strehaia

† Vincenţiu
Bishop of Slobozia and Calarasi

† Galaction
Bishop of Alexandria and Teleorman

† Ambrozie
Bishop of Giurgiu

† Sebastian
Bishop of Slatina Romanati

† Visarion
Bishop of Tulcea

† Petroniu
Bishop of Salaj

† Gurie
Bishop of Deva and Hunedoara

† Daniil
Locum Tenens (Administrator) of
the Diocese of Dacia Felix

† Siluan
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Hungary

† Siluan
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Italy

† Timotei
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Spain and Portugal

† Macarie
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Northern Europe

† Mihail
Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Australia and New Zealand

† Ciprian Câmpineanul
Patriarchal Vicar Bishop

† Varlaam Ploieşteanul
Patriarchal Vicar Bishop

† Varsanufie Prahoveanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Bucharest Archdiocese

† Calinic Botoşăneanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Iasi Archdiocese

† Andrei Făgărăşeanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Sibiu Archdiocese

† Irineu Bistriţeanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac and Cluj

† Vasile Someşeanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac and Cluj

† Paisie Lugojeanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Timisoara Archdiocese

† Emilian Lovişteanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Ramnic Archdiocese

† Ioachim Băcăuanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Roman and Bacau Archdiocese

† Sofian Braşoveanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese
of Germany, Austria and Luxembourg

† Marc Nemţeanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese
of Western Europe

† Ioan Casian de Vicina
Auxiliary Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese
of the Americas

† Iustin Sigheteanul
Auxiliary Bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese
of Maramures and Satu Mare

THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE ROMANIAN PATRIARCHATE

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Rehabilitating the Memory of Saint Valentine

by Father John Bockman

Around 1928, when I was in the second grade, a good part of the winter was spent constructing what I recall as a fantastic make-believe classroom post office so that we little ones could draw, write, and mail valentines to one another, have them posted, sorted, and finally delivered by one another to mailboxes just as we learned occurred in the regular postal service. I remember that the protracted activity was huge, exciting fun, especially when I took my turn as postmaster, collecting and disbursing play stamps and play money.

Even then, seventy years ago, Saint Valentine's Day was a big event in the life of a child, but I don't recollect that there was any commercialization of the holiday in our out-of-the-way town. No radio or TV there, no neon lights, hype, or advertising downtown that I can remember. Kids made their own valentines to send, usually had no money to buy them, and therefore the entire extended drawing, writing, mailing, posting, and delivery concept seems to me even now to have been a worthwhile educational experience.

Winter life in northern Idaho could be gloomy in those days — cloudy days, three to four feet of snow, ice, and miserable weather keeping kids indoors most of the time. Very few people operated automobiles — there was nowhere to go anyway — and most business transportation took place on sleighs. Besides, it was bitter cold, there were no school buses, and when you walked, as you had to, you risked frostbite. Children arrived at school crying from the severe wind and chill.

Today the weather is warmer, automobiles abound, and the holiday has grown into an exaggerated commercial frenzy, overcapitalizing on romantic love and on boy-girl relationships at an ever earlier age. It feeds the sentimentalism and excessive sexual awareness, even perhaps the promiscuity, that categorize modern American society. This direction of things has pretty much eliminated the "Saint" in "Saint Valentine's Day," and it is usually identified as simple "Valentines Day."

Yes, Virginia, there was and is a real Saint Valentine who as an early Christian martyr, who has taken his place in the heavenly mansions prepared by the Savior for those who love Him. He lived in Rome and so long ago when persecutions racked the Church of Christ, that virtually nothing is known of his earthly life. He is said to have been the Bishop of Terni (Interamna) in Italy, which we can accept as accurate. The Orthodox Church recognizes Saint Valentine (Valentinus) as a hieromartyr and celebrates his name day on July 30. In the West his name day was celebrated on February 14, now Valentines Day, with or without religious significance. The word "valentine", of course, denotes a card or letter expressing one's love and affection for a person of the opposite sex, regardless of the quality of that love and affection. Sending a valentine may also involve flowers, candy, and other gifts.

Since Saint Valentine was a real person and a real martyr for the faith, the Orthodox Church recognizes at least two Saint Valentines (although they may be doublets): Saint Valentinus of Terni (Interamna) in Italy, bishop and hieromartyr, celebrated on July 30, and Saint Valentinus, an unidentified martyr, celebrated October 24. It should be noted that the Roman Catholic Church has lost confidence in the existence of hosts of early saints, including the great wonderworker, Saint Nicholas, and a few years ago decided to drop them from their official calendar. (This upset a lot of people.) Since the Saint Valentine's lived and died during the Roman persecution of the second century, no details of their lives have come down to us. Although the Saint Valentine's were western saints and not particularly popular in the east, "Valentine" is or was a fairly common name among the Russians. Orthodoxy has always recognized them as true martyrs for the Faith.

Nothing about these saints provides grounds for associating them with the romantic love expressed in cards and letters adorned with hearts and sent to loved ones on February 14, a widespread practice which now characterizes this holiday. It has been suggested that it is an aberration of a saint's feast that originated either in some earlier pagan love ritual or, in later centuries, the observation that birds pair off around February 14, the saint's western name day.

As Father Metalinos, who is a spokesman for the Church of Greece, is quoted in the Serbian newspaper Pravoslavije as saying, that the commercialized feast of Saint Valentine has invaded Greece as a "holy day of love" on February 14, and is regarded as a definitely unwelcome foreign import. The Romanian Archbishop Andrew reports in the same newspaper that the cult of Saint Valentine and the "festival of love" associated with his name, which is foreign to Romanian spirituality, is spreading in Romania, also as an unwelcome import.

Nevertheless, the memory of the real Saint Valentine deserves to be held in honor in recognition of the hieromartyr that he is. Given that his name has unfortunately also been conferred upon tokens and practices that are being abused by people today, it seems important that we attempt to discover some overriding element of spiritual truth in the legend about him that has come down to us.

Legends, we should understand first of all, are sometimes unjustifiably equated with untruths or very unlikely truths. The word, coming from Latin, simply means "that which is to be read." Therefore, legends were originally found in books and records written some time after the actual events took place. Some legends probably contain some truth, others may be apocryphal and unverifiable, and still others are undoubtedly fabrications.

The Saint Valentine legend is one that strikes this writer as possessing at least a few grains of truth. It is easy to appreciate how the events described could have taken place. Valentinus, the hero of the legend, lived in the time of Claudius Caesar, Emperor of Rome in the second century A.D. Claudius had ordered the entire Roman population to worship twelve pagan gods, and made it a capital crime to associate with Christians. Since Valentinus would not stop practicing his faith, he was arrested and thrown into prison.

Roman prisons were not exactly like modern prisons. Prisoners often had some freedom. The jailer in this case recognized that Valentinus was an honorable man and a learned one too. Therefore he inquired of Valentinus if he would instruct his blind daughter, Julia, who was young and anxious to learn.

Valentine read stories of Rome to her and described the world of nature which surrounded her. We can be sure, too, that he told her about God. Julia began to see the world through the eyes of Valentinus and found spiritual comfort in his spiritual strength.

Julia wondered if God really hears our prayers, and Valentinus assured her that He does, provided it is for our greater spiritual good. She said she was now praying every morning and night that she might see everything that Valentinus had told her about the world. Then one day as they sat together praying, a brilliant light flashed in Valentinus's cell. Julia shouted, "Valentinus, I can see! I can see!".

On the eve of his martyrdom, Valentinus wrote a letter to his pupil, urging her to stay close to God in prayer. Without any further expression of affection he signed it, "From your Valentinus."

Valentinus, the martyr, gave up his spirit the next day, February 14, 270 A.D., near the gate that was later named Porta Valentini (The Gate of Valentine). His relics were buried in what is now the Church of Praxedes in Rome.

Valentinus had written a letter to Julia committing her to Christ. In return, Julia herself is said to have planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his resting place. Today the almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship, and the valentine remains a token of affection, love, and devotion.

The legend is charming, and it seems likely that as a good archpastor Saint Valentine would have been delighted to instruct a child in the faith and love of Christ. If the jailer really did bring his blind daughter to him for instruction, Saint Valentine would have taught her gladly in the tradition followed by all good teachers before and since.

Glory be to God for all good teachers of all times!

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Who Said Orthodox Don't Know How To Party...

[Of course I'm only joking. A somewhat amusing piece below, though sad when you consider this is about the church secretary and a Sunday school teacher. - J.S.]

Church Fined for Over-Serving Booze to Women

By Elizabeth Dinan
Seacoastonline.com
February 12, 2010

PORTSMOUTH — The St. Nicholas Greek Church was penalized by the state Liquor Commission for a July incident when one woman attending a party at the church was hospitalized for intoxication and a second was taken into police custody, also for intoxication.

The church was penalized by the Liquor Commission's Bureau of Enforcement for two counts of serving alcohol to an intoxicated person on July 12, 2009. At its Feb. 6 meeting, the Bureau imposed a $1,000 fine, with half suspended for one year pending no like infractions. The church's “caterer-on-site license” to sell alcoholic beverages was also suspended for three days, with two day held in abeyance pending the same year of no similar infractions.

Liquor Enforcement Chief Eddie Edwards said the incident was brought to his attention by Portsmouth police.

According to a report by Liquor Commission Sgt. Christopher Hutchins, three Portsmouth police officers responded to the Andrew Jarvis Drive church on July 12 at 1:32 a.m. for a complaint about “an intoxicated and belligerent female.” When the officers arrived, they found an “unresponsive” and “uncooperative” woman at the church function hall, who was later identified as a church secretary, according to Hutchins' report.

A witness said the woman consumed “several shots” of liquor at a church party and was transported by ambulance to Portsmouth Regional Hospital “due to her level of intoxication,” according to the report.

A second woman, later identified as a Sunday school teacher, was taken into protective custody for intoxication after police observed her “swaying, stumbling” and “uncooperative,” according to the report. At police headquarters she was “disruptive” and a breath test showed her blood alcohol concentration was .2, according to the report.

She was later released to a sober friend, according to the Liquor Commission.

A supplemental report by the Liquor Commission officer says church leader Father Angelo Pappas was contacted, said he was “shocked” at hearing the Sunday school teacher's BAC, said he would cooperate with the investigation “and understood the concern regarding alcohol service that evening.”

As a result of the Feb. 6 Liquor Commission meeting, all persons “designated to handle alcohol for any purpose” under the church caterer's license are mandated to complete a state course entitled Total Education in Alcohol Management within 30 days.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Greece is NWO Test Ground

"All men of power here, get their power from plundering the Greek people, or having connections with those that do it."

February 11, 2010
henrymakow.com
by Christos

I am 26 years old and live in Greece. I am writing this letter in order to let you know about a new law in Greece announced yesterday.

The financial minister of Greece announced yesterday that from 1/1/2011 all financial transactions of sums above 1500 euros in cash, will be banned. For any transaction above 1500 euros, only credit cards and checks will be legal. The formal explanation for this law is it will combat those who do not pay taxes. But we all know this is not the case...

It seems the new world order wants to make Greece a testing ground for their new laws. For the past months, Greece have been attacked without mercy. We have been called liars, frauds, cheaters, thieves. They are threatening us constantly with banning from the euro zone and default. [These charges are] not true. ... The problem is, based on their accusations and (the virtual) bad situation of Greek finances, they will pass their experimental laws of their new world order.

The fairly new Government of the socialist party, elected 4 months ago, forgot all its promises, and is determined to pass laws giving citizenship to illegal immigrants after 5 years, without any trade-off. We are 10 million Greeks here, and almost 3 million mostly illegal immigrants, who will obtain Greek nationality and will gain the right to bring their families here too... In Pakistan there are even ads saying "for 5000 euros we get you to Greece, to study free, work, make families, and obtain EU passports"...

And now this... The previous government created a new ID card, to collect data from people since childbirth. This government will ban transactions in cash over 1500 euros, in order to make all of us have credit cards. The obvious first step is to ban all cash transactions, then merge this new ID card with the credit system, then, well.... insert this merged ID card into our bodies...

Our peoples' morale is low, society is disorganized because of immigration and propaganda, and we will not fight those laws. You people living in the Western World, be prepared because they are planning the same for you!

BACKGROUND

I will try to give you my personal view of the conditions in Greece.

First of all, there is no trust in politicians. Most people distrust them and know they are scum, but continue to vote for the same people in every election. This happens because they promise privileges in order to get votes. Most politicians are members of secret societies, and have close ties to USA and European elites. Our current prime minister is even an American citizen...

A young man living in Greece and having no connections, is hopeless. Without connections, he will have major difficulties if he wants to join a good University(or complete his studies without bribes), if he wants to find a job, or create his own. He will be forced to join the army while privileged young men with connections will illegally avoid it.

And there is no point discussing finding love... Of course pretty women will pick wealthier men, but in Greece even women of moderate appearance prefer men with deep pockets. They prefer sharing the top men than having a man only for themselves.

And the top men in Greece are all frauds. Greece, apart from some natural resources and its tourism industry, produces nothing of value. Corruption is so big, that all productive forces are drowned. So all men of power here, get their power from plundering the Greek people, or having connections with those that do it. Women (and their families) of course are not concerned about that. As long as someone is wealthy, he is desirable, and value as a person is irrelevant.

Despite poor economic condition (but not so desperate as to warrant dire measures), people in power take pleasure in attacking traditional customs, Orthodox Christianity, and traditional Greek patriots. They protect illegal immigrants, and silence their crimes. They attack Christianity, in the media, at schools etc. They are removing all Christian symbols from public places.

MEDIA

Greek media are a pile of garbage. For the biggest part of the day, most major TV networks will show shows discussing Greek "VIP's" lifestyle, sexual relations etc. There are few "political" shows and news shows, all trying to cover the truth and turn the attention of the people at matters of trivial importance. Propaganda is blatant. The previous government was literally destroyed by TV networks. They promoted heavily the current government, so strongly that previous prime minister was forced to make new elections despite being only for 2 years in government.

Current prime minister made promises, NONE of which kept after being elected. Only a few days after election, he went on with the plans of New World Order. He created an artificially dire financial situation, in order to be able to pass whatever laws he wanted, plus giving his friends some money... He "cooked" our budget, by moving payments of 2010 in 2009 and incomes from 2009 to 2010, in order to both make our deficit bigger and be able to claim in 2010 that he "improved" our economy... This doesn't mean that our previous prime minister wasn't a puppet, just that he wasn't able to fulfill New World Order directions like the new government.

Huge economic scandals are discovered every day, and buried by Greek propaganda media. And most honest people are so concerned with working 2 and 3 jobs in order to feed their families, that cannot fight this corruption. Greek people work on average many more hours weekly than other EU countries, get much less pay, and pay more for the same products. And because of the traitors in government, EU newspapers and media call our people lazy. They say we need to work even more and receive even less... Of course this is not true. The plunder of Greek people has been made with their assistance. But this is a long subject and I wont go on with it.

CONCLUSION

In a few words... Life in Greece sucks. Since I am a computer programmer, I have many times thought about leaving for a better country and make my living there. But I do not want to abandon my home... yet. I would be willing to fight this system, but I see no point since the system is so well entrenched it cannot be tackled by a few men alone.

The reason I wrote you my previous letter is because this new law of banning cash transactions above 1500 euros is just another step towards cashless society, and is being implemented in Greece as a testing phase. I strongly believe it is a matter of time before most western nations see similar laws.

See also:

The Greek Tragedy That Changed Europe

A Greek Crisis Is Coming To America

Greece Turns On EU Critics

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Trivialization Nation: Are We Devaluing Our Values?

by Linton Weeks
February 12, 2010
NPR

A roll of U.S. Constitution toilet paper sells for $7.95 online. Certain TV shows arrange marriages. Other shows brush aside the horrors of serial killers or treat torture as a curiosity.

It makes you wonder — have we become Trivialization Nation? Perhaps we've downsized the meaning of everything: Love. Death. Sex. Religion. Education. Civil rights.

How sacred is life when in a recent episode of the widely watched and revered Oprah, a murderer on death row appears via satellite to speak with the children of his victims? How lifted up is love when a houseful of men and women vie on MTV's A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila for the favors of the self-promoting Web celeb?

The Department of Homeland Security, created in 2002, will be the subject of a conference this month called "The 7-Year Itch — Renewing the Commitment." That's right. Bright, creative people plan to discuss the supersober topic of national security in this era of incredible danger — and they name the confab for a 1955 Marilyn Monroe movie about marital ennui.

Witty, yes. Weighty, not so much.

There was a time not too long ago when the Dead Kennedys, same-sex kissing, Judy Blume books, RuPaul and politicians' affairs still had shock value. People had to actually practice practice practice the guitar before becoming a rock band musician. Relationships were not reduced to friending and unfriending.

Not too long ago we wondered if this gray-flannel country had a sense of humor. As recently as 1990, Madonna was exhorting America to "lighten up!" Now, 20 years later — thanks in part to Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Howard Stern, Sacha Baron Cohen, Wanda Sykes and a parade of snarkers who routinely reduce important matters to punch lines — a more appropriate question might be: Does this country have a sense of what is important?

It's As Old As The Hills

"Our culture, or at least our nation, is becoming more trivial, less concerned with what matters, by the hour," says Gary Hardcastle, a philosophy professor at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania and co-editor of Bullshit and Philosophy.

To be fair, Hardcastle continues, civilization trivialization is as old as the hills. He refers to Hesiod — a poet who railed against the devaluation of values in society in 750 B.C.

Writer Norman Corwin, who will turn 100 in May, has been waging a battle against banality for more than half a century. In 1983, he published a social critique titled Trivializing America: The Triumph of Mediocrity.

Discounting significant aspects of our society "is a national tendency," Corwin now says from his home in Los Angeles. "It's easier to think loosely about unimportant matters. People tend to think about football, the news, the weather and their budgets before they think of the important things."

Corwin and other cultural critics see the contemporary United States on a particularly steep downward slope.

Talk show maestro Charlie Rose recently asked Drew Faust, president of Harvard, if she is worried about the dumbing down of the culture. "I worry about attention span," Faust said, "because people will not listen to more than a couple of sentences or read more than a couple of sentences. Does everything have to be a sound bite? Is everything to be digested into something brief? And aren't there complicated ideas that we ought to have the patience to give our attention to?"

Faust continued, "I worry about dumbing down in terms of speed and in terms of reflection. Do we sit back and think about things hard or do we always have to go on to the next sound bite, the next stimulus?"

The floodwaters of trivialization seep throughout our culture, from Hollywood to the White House. Frank Schaeffer, writing in The Huffington Post, laments that Barack Obama has lowered lofty presidential standards. The lowest point occurred in August, according to Schaeffer, when Obama invited Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to the White House to share a beer with the Cambridge, Mass., cop who arrested Gates at his home.

"Is a Joe the Plumber consult next?" Schaeffer writes. "How small time and silly does the President want to look?"

Modern-Day Hesiods

The widespread trivialization of meaningful things is indisputable. Sound bites and silliness reign supreme. Reducing life-and-death questions to bumper stickers, such as "People Like You Make Me Pro-Choice," or vast education initiatives to a simple buzz phrase, such as No Child Left Behind, enables us to get a toehold on steep issues. But it can also cheapen the complexities.

Perhaps the tendency to trivialize is born of bandwagonism or laziness. Idiomatically speaking: It's easier to tear down than to build up. Or maybe we devalue valuable things because, as Herbert Marcuse observed, of society's tilt toward repressive desublimation. In Marcuse's mind, our capitalist culture renders a strong, often threatening urge into something weak and nonthreatening. For instance, marketers learn to satisfy our desire to be closer to nature by selling us Patagonia fleece jackets that we wear in our all-terrain Land Rovers driving to the mall.

This desublimation is repressive, Marcuse asserted, because it muffles social criticism and supports addictive consumerism. Consequently, contemporary society is spiritually and intellectually stagnant.

Plus, trivializing large ideals is easier than living up to them. And it's less scary.

"In an ideal democracy," says Richard Hanley, a philosophy professor at the University of Delaware, "the populace is interested, rational, and informed; and although reasonable people can disagree, so that not everyone gets what they want, a free marketplace of ideas would see the cream tend to rise to the top."

He adds, "In a real democracy like the United States, the populace is for the most part interested, somewhat less rational, and scandalously uninformed. ... Most people, on many important issues, do not know what to think about, and don't know how to think about it anyway."

So trivialization is an inevitable outgrowth of this confusion.

In fact, says Hardcastle, it's normal. "I'm inclined to think of a culture, even one as unwieldy as ours, as a body, and like all bodies it needs to be kept in balance. One part of it craves the mundane, the trivial, the stupid. Another pulls in the opposite direction, toward the profound, the subtle, the glorious. Either extreme is stultifying, but the balance between them is healthy in the sense that it can be sustained."

And so, he says, "we should we redouble our efforts to call out the trivialization, the slide toward banality."

By citing what's trite, Hardcastle observes, "we're doing our part to keep civilization on track. We're not going to eradicate the trivial, nor should we think things are any worse than they've ever been. But for all that our role is crucial."

Hardcastle reaches back through the history of cultural criticism and concludes: "We are modern-day Hesiods."

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Septuagint vs. Masoretic: Which Is More Authentic?

Guns, Lies and Forgeries: A Bible Story

By Robert E. Reis

Once upon a time there was a tribe living in the Middle East that had a collection of sacred texts written in Hebrew, Chaldean and Aramaic. It is the nature of sacred texts to be venerated and transmitted from generation to generation unaltered.

As time passed members of this tribe emigrated to areas where Hebrew and Aramaic and Chaldean were not spoken. A large community settled and prospered in the city of Alexandria in Egypt. Greek replaced their tribal language. They needed an accurate translation of their venerated documents into Greek.

Around 250 B.C. seventy rabbis translated the sacred texts into Greek. This translation was not a bootleg edition. The project was approved by the High Priest and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. The Septuagint, the translation of the seventy, was an official document.

A Hebrew Bible exists today. It is used by Jews everywhere. It is called the Masoretic text. It was compiled around 700 A.D. It is almost one thousand years newer than the Septuagint. The rabbis who compiled the Masoretic text were not accountable to the High Priest in Jerusalem. There no longer was a High Priest. The rabbis who compiled the Masoretic text were not accountable to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. There no longer was a Sanhedrin.

The Septuagint predates the first appearance of the Masoretic text by almost ten centuries. The Septuagint is based upon Hebrew texts at least twelve centuries older than the texts upon which the Masoretic version is based. .Yet, modern Christian translations of the Old Testament rely on the Masoretic Text, not the Septuagint.

Where is the problem?

Most of the quotations from the Old Testament in the New Testament used the Septuagint as their primary source. The integrity and truthfulness of the Septuagint is completely dependant on the Septuagint being a truthful translation. Discredit the Septuagint and there is no New Testament.

There was no controversy about the integrity of the Septuagint from 250 B.C. until 135 A. D.

What had happened to provoke dissatisfaction with the Septuagint among the Jews?

Annas and Caiphas and the Sanhedrin had rejected the messianic claims of Jesus. The New Testament documents had been written and were circulating by A.D. 70. The Jews knew that the credibility of the Christian Gospels depended on the credibility of the Septuagint. Something had to be done.

Around 95 A.D. Rabbi Akiva, who later proclaimed Bar Kochba as the messiah, hired a man named Aquila to translate a Hebrew to Greek version of the Old Testament that would undermine the messianic claims of Jesus found in the Septuagint. Some scholars believe that the Masoretic text was based in part on this tendentious translation by Aquila.

How is the Masoretic text different from the Septuagint?

Psalm 22:16 the word “pierced” has been replaced by “lion”.

Psalm 145: 13 omitted entirely.

Isaiah 53:11 the word “light” is omitted.

On 134 occasions the Tetragrammaton, the name of God, has been replaced by “Adonai”.

Psalm 151 was omitted entirely. (It is now omitted by almost all Christian Bibles!)

Exodus 1: The number 75 replaced by 70

Genesis 10:24 some generations removed.

Deuteronomy 32:8 “Angels Of Elohim” replaced with “children of Israel.”

Jeremiah 10 verses 6 and 7 have been added in the Masoretic.

Psalm 96:10 “Say among the nations, YHWH reigns from the wood” omitted.

Isaiah 19:18 “city of righteousness” changed to the “city of the sun” or in some versions “the city of destruction.”

The Masoretic scribes purposely and willfully rearranged the original chapter order in the prophetic Book of Daniel, so that the chapters make no sense chronologically.

Isaiah 61:1 “recovery of sight to the blind.”. Omitted.

In Psalm 40:6 “a body you have prepared for me” was replaced by “you opened my ears.”

Deuteronomy 32:43 ‘Let all the messengers of Elohim worship him.’” Omitted.

Genesis 4:8: “Let us go into the field” is omitted.

Deuteronomy 32:43. Moses’ song is shortened.

Isaiah 53 contains 10 spelling differences, 4 stylistic changes and 3 missing letters for light in verse 11, for a total of 17 differences.

Isaiah 7:14. “Virgin” replaced by “young woman.”

(When Aquila made his Greek translation of the Old Testament at the behest of Rabbi Akiva, he changed the Septuagint’s “virgin” into “young woman”. The Masoretic compilers may have followed his lead.)

The Masoretic text differs from the Septuagint in hundreds of places.

How do we know which text is accurate?

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered just after World War II.

According to carbon dating, textual analysis, and handwriting analysis the documents were written at various times between the middle of the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. There are fragments from all of the books of the Hebrew Bible fragments except the Book of Esther and the Book of Nehemiah.

In addition an independent Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible exists, the Peshitta.

Control of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a military objective of Israelis. It was achieved by their victory in the Six Days War.

The publication of the scrolls slowed to a trickle.

After 1971, the international team even refused to allow the publication of photographs of the material. They excluded scholars who wanted to make independent evaluations.

The embargo was not broken until 1991.

An addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars can use the Peshitta to decide between the Masoretic text and the Septuagint.

I have given examples above of some of the places the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Peshitta, and the Septuagint agree.

The Masoretic Text is part of a tradition that began with Rabbi Akiva. Rabbis rewrote the Jewish Bible to destroy the credibility of the New Testament.

The Hebrew versions of the Old Testament have been used to proclaim scores of “messiahs” . The Septuagint was only used once.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr