The Novel Ascetic Feat of Thalelaios the Cilician

St. Thalelaios the Cilician (Feast Day - February 27)

Brief Life of Saint Thalelaios

Saint Thalelaios lived during the fifth century. He was a native of Cilicia (Asia Minor), became a monk at the Monastery of St Sava the Sanctified, and was ordained presbyter there. Later on, he moved to Syria, not far from the city of Habala, he found a dilapidated pagan temple surrounded by graves, and he settled there in a tent. This place had a rough reputation, since the unclean spirits residing there frightened travellers and caused them much harm.

Here the monk lived, praying day and night in total solitude. The demons often assailed the saint, trying to terrify him with sights and sounds. But by the power of God the saint ultimately gained victory over the power of the Enemy, after which he was troubled no more. He then intensified his efforts even more: he built a barrel-like structure, so cramped that it was just possible to get into it, and only with an effort was it possible to raise his head. He lived there for about ten years.

The Lord granted to the ascetic the gift of wonderworking, and his miracles helped him to enlighten the pagan inhabitants. With the help of the inhabitants he converted to Christianity, he demolished the pagan temple, building a church where there were daily services.

St Thalelaios died in old age in about the year 460. In the book titled Leimonarion or Pratum [The Meadow], a composition of the Greek monk John Moschus (+ 622). St Thalelaios is mentioned: "Abba Thalelaios was a monk for sixty years and with tears never ceased saying, 'Brethren, God has given us this time for repentance, and we must seek after Him'" (Ch. 59).

The Barrel-like Structure of Saint Thalelaios

After the venerable Thalelaios emerged from his hut near the temple and defeated every demonic assault, he decided to enter the next level of ascetical struggle unique in Christian history. He took two wheels of two cubits in diameter and joined them with planks with bolts and nails. The wooden planks of this barrel-like cylinder were not thick and heavy, but slender and spaced apart. Thalelaios then drove three wooden poles into the ground, forming a kind of tripod. He joined the three poles at the top with other pieces of wood. From that point where they met at the top, he raised up the two-wheeled barrel-like structure and fastened it. As it swung, suspended in the air, Thalelaios crawled inside. We are not told the height above the ground the structure was placed, nor how he entered within. But when he was inside the airy cylinder, the interior height of which was no more than two cubits, he was compelled to take a sitting position. Since he was a rather large-boned man, he could not take his ease within that confined space. He certainly could not recline, nor could he even keep his neck straight. Thalelaios was ever seen in a sitting position, bent over, so that his forehead was pressed tightly against his knees.

Theodoret of Cyrus gives us an eye-witness account of this most astonishing ascetic feat in his History:

"When I beheld him, he had been already ten years in that position. I also observed that he was reaping the benefit of the divine Gospels, in which he was immersed. I then, out of a desire to learn and not from idle curiosity, asked him why he took up this novel contest of asceticism. He replied to me in the Greek tongue, since he was Cilician by birth and people, and said:

'Because I lay under many sins, I believe unshakably that I shall be liable to the penalties of which sinners have been forewarned by God. I, therefore, have contrived these moderate means of chastisement, in this present life, that I might lighten the burden of torments in the future life. Those punishments are worse, not only in quantity but also in quality, for they are involuntary and violent. Whatever is forced upon one without one's will is grievous, while that which is self-chosen without constraint, even if toilsome and sorrowful, is a lesser evil. For the labors of such a one are self-determined and voluntary. One does not feel compelled or lorded over. Therefore, if I may by these small afflictions lessen the great punishments that await me, assuredly it will be a great gain to me.'

"When I heard this explanation, I marvelled not only at the venerable ascetic's sagacity and shrewdness, but also at the fact that he exceeded the customary ascetic contests laid down. He devised other struggles, greater ones, in which he knew exactly what he was doing and by which he encouraged and taught others."

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The Baptism and Martyrdom of the Comedic Actor Gelasios

St. Gelasios the Actor (Feast Day - February 27)

Gelasios, of the village Mariamne near Damascus, was an actor. In a performance at Heliopolis of Syria, he played the part of a catechumen in a dramatized parody of the Christian's Mystery of Holy Baptism. As he was immersed in the waters, the audience laughed. Divine Grace, however, wrought a miracle, and Gelasios emerged from those waters transformed. As the play continued and he was garbed in the white gown of the newly-illumined, he declared before the crowd, "I am a Christian. When I was under those waters, I was awestruck by the glory that I beheld. I am now ready to be slain on behalf of Christ!" The rest of the cast, knowing that these lines were not in the script, were aghast. The audience soon understood that Gelasios was not jesting but instead meant every word of his public confession. Roused to fury, the audience came down upon Gelasios, who was still clad in white, and dragged him out of the theatre and stoned him. Christians who witnessed the stoning, afterward took up his precious relics and returned with them to their own country. A church was built over the martyrs tomb.

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Sinners Are Without Reality and Without Mind

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Whenever we are outside the Grace of God, we are outside of ourselves and, compared with our Grace-filled nature, we do not find ourselves in a better condition than an insane man in comparison to a so-called healthy man. Only a blessed man is a natural man, i.e., a man of higher and unspoiled nature, in which the Grace of God rules and governs.

St. Symeon the New Theologian says: "A lamp, even if it is filled with oil and possesses a wick, remains totally dark if it is not lighted with fire. So it is with the soul in appearance adorned with all virtues, if it does not have a light and the Grace of the Holy Spirit, it is extinguished and dark" (Homily 59). As the great apostle also says: "But by the Grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).

However to be without grace means to be alienated from God and alienated from the reality of our own individual being. Our being, our personality, confirms our reality and receives its fullness only in the nearness of God and by God. That is why we must look at sinners as we look upon the sick: as weak shadows, without reality and without a mind.

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Why Psychiatry Needs Therapy

A manual's draft reflects how diagnoses have grown foggier, drugs more ineffective

FEBRUARY 27, 2010
Wall Street Journal
By EDWARD SHORTER

To flip through the latest draft of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, in the works for seven years now, is to see the discipline's floundering writ large. Psychiatry seems to have lost its way in a forest of poorly verified diagnoses and ineffectual medications. Patients who seek psychiatric help today for mood disorders stand a good chance of being diagnosed with a disease that doesn't exist and treated with a medication little more effective than a placebo.

Psychopharmacology, or the treatment of the mind and brain with drugs, has come to dominate the field. The positive side is that many illnesses respond readily to medication. The negative side is that the pharmaceutical industry seeks the largest possible market for a given drug, and advertises huge diseases, such as major depression and schizophrenia, the scientific status of which makes insiders uneasy.

In the 1950s and '60s, when psychiatry was still under the influence of the European scientific tradition, reasonably accurate diagnoses still sat at center stage. If you felt blue, uneasy and generally jumpy, "nerves" was a common diagnosis. For the psychotherapeutically oriented psychiatrists of the day, "psychoneurosis" was the equivalent of nerves. There was no point in breaking these terms down: clinicians and patients alike understood "a case of nerves," or a "nervous breakdown."

Our psychopathological lingo today offers little improvement on these sturdy terms. A patient with the same symptoms today might be told he has "social anxiety disorder" or "seasonal affective disorder." The increased specificity is spurious. There is little risk of misdiagnosis, because the new disorders all respond to the same drugs, so in terms of treatment, the differentiation is meaningless and of benefit mainly to pharmaceutical companies that market drugs for these niches.

For those more seriously ill, contemplating suicide or pacing restlessly and saying "It's all my fault," melancholia was the diagnosis of choice. The term has been around for donkey's years.

All the serious disorders of mood were once lumped together technically as "manic-depressive illness"—and again, there was little point in differentiating, because medications such as lithium that worked for mania were also sometimes effective in forestalling renewed episodes of serious depression.

Psychopharmacology—the treatment of disorders of the mind and brain with drugs—was experiencing its first big push, and a host of effective new agents was marketed. The first blockbuster drug in psychiatry appeared in 1955 as Wallace Lab's Miltown, a "tranquilizer" of the dicarbamate class. The first of the "tricyclic antidepressants" (because of their chemical structure) was launched in the U.S. in 1959, called imipramine generically and Tofranil by brand name. It remains today the single most effective antidepressant on the market for the immediate treatment of serious depression.

In the 1960s an entirely different class of drugs appeared, the benzodiazepines, indicated for anxiety rather than depression. (But one keeps in mind that these indications are more marketing devices than scientific categories, because most depression entails anxiety and vice versa.) In the benzodiazepine class, Librium was launched for anxiety in 1960, Valium in 1963. Despite an undeserved reputation for addictiveness, the benzos remain today one of the most useful drug classes in the history of psychiatry. They are effective across the entire range of nervous illnesses. In one World Health Organization study in the early 1990s, a sample of family physicians world-wide prescribed benzos for 28% of their depressed patients, 31% of their anxious patients; the figures are virtually identical. In the 1950s and '60s physicians had available drugs that truly worked for diseases that actually existed.

And then the golden era came to an end. The 1978 article of British psychiatrist Malcolm Lader on the benzos as "the opium of the masses" would be a good landmark. The patents expired for the drugs of the 1950s and '60s, and the solid diagnoses were all erased from the classification in 1980 with the appearance of the third edition of the DSM series, called "DSM-III." It was largely the brainchild of Columbia University psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, an energetic and charismatic individual who had been schooled in psychometrics. But his energy and charisma nearly led psychiatry off a cliff.

Mr. Spitzer was discouraged with psychoanalysis, and wanted to come up with a new illness classification that would ditch all the old Freudian concepts such as "depressive neurosis" with their implication of "unconscious psychic conflicts." Mr. Spitzer and company wanted diagnoses based on observable symptoms rather than on speculation about the unconscious mind. So he, and members of the Task Force that the American Psychiatric Association designated, set out to devise a new list of diagnoses that correspond to natural disease entities.

Yet Mr. Spitzer ran smack against the politics of the American Psychiatric Association, still heavily influenced by the psychoanalysts. Mr. Spitzer proposed such diagnoses as "major depression" and "dysthymia," diagnoses that were themselves highly heterogeneous, lumping together a number of different kinds of depression. But the terms turned out to be politically acceptable.

So in DSM-III there was a lot of horse-trading. The biologically oriented young Turks got a depression diagnosis—major depression—that was divorced from what they considered the psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo. And the waning but still substantial number of analysts got a diagnosis—dysthymia—that sounded like their beloved "neurotic depression," that had been the mainstay of psychoanalytic practice. Psychiatry ended up with two brand-new depression diagnoses with criteria so broad that huge numbers of people could qualify for them.

There was one more bow to psychoanalysis: DSM-III continued to make depression separate from anxiety (because the analysts thought anxiety the motor that drove everything). And in homage to several influential figures in European psychiatry, DSM-III brought in "bipolar disorder," a condition alternating between depression and mania thought separate from "major depression."

A word of explanation: The evidence is very strong that the depression of "major depression" and the depression of "bipolar disorder" are the same disease. Experienced clinicians know that in chronic depressive illness many patients will have an episode of mania or hypomania; it is implausible that such an event would change the patient's diagnosis completely from "major depression" to "bipolar disorder," given that they are classified as quite different illnesses.

These rather technical issues in the classification of disease had enormous ramifications in the real world. Bipolar disorder became divorced from unipolar disorder. And anxiety—the original indication for the benzos—became soft-pedaled because the benzos were thought, incorrectly, to be highly addictive, and anxiety became associated with addiction.

Major depression became the big new diagnosis in the 1980s and after, replacing "neurotic depression" and "melancholia," even though it combined melancholic illness and non-melancholic illness. This would be like incorporating tuberculosis and mumps into the same diagnosis, simply because they are both infectious diseases. As well, "bipolar disorder" began its relentless on-march, supposedly separate from plain old depression.

New drugs appeared to match the new diseases. In the late 1980s, the Prozac-type agents began to hit the market, the "SSRIs," or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Lexapro. They were supposedly effective by increasing the amount of serotonin available to the brain.

The SSRIs are effective for certain indications, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and for some patients with anxiety. But many people believe they're not often effective for serious depression, even though they fit wonderfully with the heterogeneous concept of "major depression." So, hand in hand, these antidepressants and major depression marched off together into the sunset. These were drugs that don't work for diseases that don't exist, as it were.

The latest draft of the DSM fixes none of the problems with the previous DSM series, and even creates some new ones.

A new problem is the extension of "schizophrenia" to a larger population, with "psychosis risk syndrome." Even if you aren't floridly psychotic with hallucinations and delusions, eccentric behavior can nonetheless awaken the suspicion that you might someday become psychotic. Let's say you have "disorganized speech." This would apply to about half of my students. Pour on the Seroquel for "psychosis risk syndrome"!

DSM-V accelerates the trend of making variants on the spectrum of everyday behavior into diseases: turning grief into depression, apprehension into anxiety, and boyishness into hyperactivity.

If there were specific treatments for these various niches, you could argue this is good diagnostics. But, as with other forms of anxiety-depression, the SSRIs are thought good for everything. Yet to market a given indication, such as social-anxiety disorder, it's necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on registration trials to convince the FDA that your agent works for this disease that previously nobody had ever heard of.

DSM-V is not all bad news. It turns the jumble of developmental syndromes for children into a single group of "autism spectrum disorders," which makes sense because previously, with Asperger's as a separate disease, it was like trying to draw lines in a bucket of water. But the basic problems of the previous DSM series are left untouched.

Where is psychiatry headed? What the discipline badly needs is close attention to patients and their individual symptoms, in order to carve out the real diseases from the vast pool of symptoms that DSM keeps reshuffling into different "disorders." This kind of careful attention to what patients actually have is called "psychopathology," and its absence distinguishes American psychiatry from the European tradition. With DSM-V, American psychiatry is headed in exactly the opposite direction: defining ever-widening circles of the population as mentally ill with vague and undifferentiated diagnoses and treating them with powerful drugs.

—Edward Shorter is professor of the history of medicine and psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto. His latest book, written with Max Fink, "Endocrine Psychiatry: Solving the Riddle of Melancholia," is forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

The New Abnormal
A selection of new ailments in the planned manual.

1. Hoarding
This is defined as "persistent difficulty discarding or parting with personal possessions, even those of apparently useless or limited value, due to strong urges to save items."

2. Mixed Anxiety-Depression
"The patient has the symptoms of major depression…accompanied by anxious distress." The combination of depression and anxiety has been recognized clinically for years; only now does it make it into the handbook.

3. Binge Eating

This means eating "an amount of food that is definitely larger than most people would eat in a similar period of time under similar circumstances," in addition to having "a sense of lack of control over eating."

4. Minor Neurocognitive Disorder
"Evidence of minor cognitive decline from a previous level of performance," a commonplace occurrence for anybody over 50.

5. Temper Dysregulation Disorder With Dysphoria
A new definition for all children with outbursts of temper. It is seen as a way to avoid using the term "bipolar."

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Greek Orthodox Fasting Cleanses Body and Soul

Great Lent: The Greek Orthodox Tradition of Fasting Cleanses Both Body and Soul

The National Herald
February 21, 2010
by Georgia Kofinas

ATHENS - When I recently asked my elderly uncle in Athens how they celebrated “Kathara Deftera” (Pure, or Clean Monday) in the village in the early 1920’s, he told me that it was the day set aside for washing all the pots, pans and various utensils with soap and ash water to “purify” them from their use in cooking meat and dairy products. For the next six weeks, kitchen activities would be limited to preparing the frugal, yet nutritious Lenten meals to be shared by all the family members, young and old alike.

After the Second World War and the Depression, as Greece became more affluent and its inhabitants moved into the cities, the traditional Lenten dishes were seen as the “poor man’s food” and were readily removed from the repertoire of the urban kitchen. It was not until my co-author and I started gathering recipes for our Lenten cookbook, “The Festive Fast,” that we were able to find some of those long-forgotten recipes that had been stashed away in the memories of the older generations of family cooks. With the current trend of eating less meat and animal fat and more vegetables, fruit and olive oil, traditional Greek Lenten cuisine has recaptured its spot alongside many of today’s healthy diets.

Fasting as defined by the Church

Fasting, however, is not just a way of detoxifying our bodies and eating healthier foods. In the dictionary, fasting is defined as “abstinence from or reduction in the intake of certain foods”, but there is much more to it than just that. The religious practice of fasting in the Orthodox Church is a way of life, not merely something someone does periodically. Another explanation of fasting comes from a very well known 4th century church father, St. John Chrysostom who gives us the medicinal aspect of fasting while supporting the Orthodox belief that the body and soul are inseparable. He refers to fasting as the “mother of bodily health”, and says, “If you do not believe me, then ask the doctors about this and they will tell you better.” He then goes on to say, “Pains of the legs and headache and apoplexy and tuberculosis and water retention and inflammations and abscesses and many other countless illnesses come from luxurious diets and over-eating. When the body becomes sluggish and weak, the soul undergoes damage as well. This is because the activities of the soul are determined by the conditions of the body”. Chrysostom, which means “golden mouth” in Greek, was considered so because he had a sharp tongue and was to the point when he preached. He spared no one. Directing himself to women, he said: “Why do you destroy bodily vitality with fatty greasy foods? When you inflict your body with various illnesses, neither will you have a blossoming complexion nor will your health be in good condition and you will continuously be bent over with sluggishness and depression.”

The way we fast in the Orthodox Church is carried over from the Jewish ascetic tradition where meat symbolizes feast and celebration. In the eastern ascetic tradition, meat is associated with the arousal of passion and is thus abstained from during times of fasting. It also stems from the pagan practice of slaughtering an animal for sacrificial purposes. Thus, in many monasteries, there is no consumption of meat at all, even when not fasting. Fasting also entails abstinence from fish and dairy products although there are some fasting periods, such as the first four weeks before Christmas, which allow for the consumption of fish. Dairy products are not allowed, as they are by-products of the milk that comes from animals. Seafood (as opposed to fleshy fish) is allowed during most fasts as the flesh of seafood does not contain blood.

There are also two types of fasting - (1) ascetic fasting and (2) liturgical fasting. Ascetic fasting encompasses the four fasting periods of the liturgical calendar, where there is a drastic reduction of the intake of food and abstinence from certain foods. The Church, however, does not see fasting in a legalistic way; it is a means and not an end in the spiritual struggle of its faithful. One usually fasts according to the guidelines set up by the Church, but one should also seek the guidance of a spiritual father. Ascetic fasting is also practiced on Wednesdays and Fridays and, in the monastic tradition, on Mondays (the day dedicated to the Holy Angels). Liturgical fasting (also known as “xerophagia”) is practiced in anticipation of a great feast day and consists of only dry food; or in the case of preparing for Holy Communion, complete abstinence from any food or liquid.

The Lenten Cuisine

Since fasting involves over 180 days of the year, in a culture whose religion is a basic element of its foundation, it definitely has an impact on all aspects of life. And because Greece is a country whose cuisine is a rich expression of its traditions and customs, fasting has played an important role is shaping the way Greeks eat.

The basic ingredient in Lenten cuisine is undoubtedly olive oil, which is what gives the dishes their unique character and nutritional value. Specifically, there is a name for dishes cooked in olive oil - lathera. The name stems from the Modern Greek word for oil, lathi, and traditionally refers to vegetables and legumes cooked slowly on the stove top in a rich, olive oil-based sauce. Because of the duration of Great Lent and the change in season from winter to spring, lathera dishes can be prepared using a wide variety of ingredients. The colder days at the beginning of Lent will certainly include hearty soups and stews made with legumes such as beans, chickpeas or lentils. Spinach, wild greens, cauliflower and leeks are among the winter vegetables often combined with grains or legumes to create a complete meal. Early spring dishes abound with fresh artichokes, peas, broad beans, spring onions, dill and other herbs. Lathera dishes display the Greek preference for soft vegetables cooked slowly in such a way that the flavors meld and the dish acquires its characteristically rich oily texture. Another attribute of lathera is that these dishes can be served at room temperature or even cold, which means that they can be prepared from the day before they are served.

Seafood dishes are highly favored during Lent, especially those found in the cuisine of the seacoast areas. Octopus figures prominently on the Lenten table in dishes as simple as grilled octopus drizzled with a lemon-oil dressing, or as complicated as ground octopus combined with spices and herbs to make octopus fritters. Shrimp is preferred grilled when dining out, but family style dishes will feature shrimp in a tomato-based pilaf or in a sauce served over pasta. Squid is usually simply dusted in flour and fried, but specialties also include stewing it in a spicy tomato sauce or, even more popular, stuffing it with rice and herbs. Less popular, but certainly not to be overlooked, is the humble cuttlefish, which actually has more nutritive value than its fellow cephalopods. Because it is considerably fleshy (it has only one flat spinal cartilage) it is quite versatile and can be cooked in numerous ways. Flattened, it makes a great grilled cuttlefish “steak”, which may be served with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Cut up, it goes into stews with spinach or other greens in either a lemony white sauce or a rich tomato sauce. It can even be stuffed with rice, herbs, and nuts and baked in a wine sauce.

Sweets are part of the Lenten cuisine, as hospitality and light entertaining for special occasions do not stop during this period. A nice lathero koulouraki (oil cookie) with a cup of Greek coffee serves as a perfect boost of energy for that mid-morning or afternoon slump. The base of all sweets is, of course, olive oil, which adds to the texture and moistness of cakes and sweet breads, gives cookies a nice crunch and offers a healthier way of frying such sweets as loukoumades (fried honey puffs) or tiganites (fritters). Because olive oil is also a natural preservative, sweets made with olive oil also last longer.

For those days when abstaining from olive oil, there are various sweets that can be made with tahini. Besides fulfilling the need for a quick boost of energy, tahini, which is made from pulverized sesame seeds, is rich in calcium and protein while containing absolutely no cholesterol.

To get a start on changing your dietary habits I suggest trying out the following recipes: (From: “The Festive Fast”, M. Kokkinou and G. Kofinas, Akritas Publications, Athens, Greece)

Stuffed Squid

3 1/2 lbs medium squid, defrosted

1 cup long grain rice

1 lb onions finely chopped

2 tbsp. fine bread crumbs

2 tbsp. pine nuts

1/2 cup dry white wine

1 ½ cups peeled chopped tomatoes

1 cup olive oil

½ cup dill weed and parsley finely chopped

Salt, pepper

1. Clean squid by removing head (with tentacles) and discarding thin membrane in the center. Wash bodies to remove any sand. Finely chop heads and set aside.

2. Parboil onions in a little water until it evaporates and add half of the oil. Saute for 1 minute and add chopped heads. Slowly pour in wine until liquid is deglazed.

3. Add rice, bread crumbs, dill and parsley, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Stir in well and remove from heat. Allow to cool.

4. Stuff bodies of squid loosely with mixture and close ends together with a toothpick. Set stuffed squid aside.

5. Heat remaining oil in wide skillet and add tomatoes. Simmer for about 2 minutes and arrange stuffed squid on top. Cover and simmer for about 1 – 1 ½ hours or until tender and sauce thickens.

6. Arrange in a platter and pour sauce over squid.

Orange Lenten Cake

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 cups sugar

½ cup light olive oil

½ cup brandy (Greek Metaxa is fine)

1 ½ cups orange juice

½ cup black or white raisins

½ cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 tbsp. grated orange zest

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground clove

Powdered sugar for topping

1. Mix baking powder, soda, cinnamon and clove with flour.

2. Beat oil and sugar well and add brandy and orange juice. Slowly add in flour and, lastly, the walnuts, raisins and orange zest.

3. Pour batter into greased and floured baking pan (do not use tube or bundt pan).

4. Bake in pre-heated oven at 225? for about 45-60 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

5. Cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Note: Lenten cakes are usually moister than other cakes and are not removed from cake form pans very easily. For this reason, we suggest using a baking pan and serving the cake from there.

Georgia Kofinas is a food writer, cookbook author and chef instructor at Alpine College, a hotel management and tourism school in Athens, Greece. Her culinary journeys have taken her to many regions of the Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor.

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Exotic Birds Play a Good Missionary Role

Ostrich Eggs Served to Pilgrims in Kaliningrad Nunnery

It is the fourth Russian monastery to raise African birds

Moscow, 27 February 2010, Interfax – Nuns of St. Elizabeth Nunnery in the village of Priozerye not far from Kaliningrad raise ostriches in a special ostrich farm.

Nuns believe exotic birds play a good missionary role, the Rossiysskaya Gazeta reports. Many secular people come to the nunnery to see the ostriches and then go to worship shrines, visit the church and light candles.

Besides, nuns paint ostrich eggs and sell them as souvenirs. When there is no Lent, nuns have eggs for breakfast. One egg is enough to feed eight people. Ostrich omelet is served to pilgrims as well.

Ostriches are raised in some other Russian monasteries, for example in Kamenno-Brodsky Holy Trinity Monastery in Vologda and in Svyatoozersky Monastery in Valday. St. Nicholas Monastery in Shartom, the Ivanovo Region, even gave an African ostrich to a local Zoo as a present.

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Orthodox American Figure Skater Wins Olympic Gold Medal

Evan Lysacek is an American figure skater who recently became the first U.S. man to win the Olympic gold medal since Brian Boitano in 1988, shocking everyone — maybe even himself — by upsetting defending champion Yevgeny Plushenko on Thursday night. Plushenko came out of retirement with the sole purpose of making a little history of his own with a second straight gold medal.

He is a Greek Orthodox Christian who has stated that one of his most prized possessions is his Orthodox cross. He has stated: "I want to go to the Greek islands. I'm Greek Orthodox, so I've sat through countless church services in Greek. I need to experience it for real now." His Greek background comes through his mother's side.

Read more about his gold medal win here:
www.nbcolympics.com/news-features/news/newsid=429679.html

Read more about his Orthodox connections here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Lysacek

Below is a picture of Evan with his three-bar Russian cross:


And here is the performance that won him the gold:

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The Strange Church of St. Photini in Mantinea

Greece is full of strange churches. Some find beauty in the architecture of these churches, some just see architectural aberrations. For me they are an extraordinary experience.

Located 12 km from Tripoli in southern Greece, this church is of recent origin across from what is now known as Ancient Mantinea. The foundations were laid in 1969 and completed in 1973, though not opened till 1978. It is an architectural mixture of traditional Byzantine and Greco-Roman. The iconography and decor is classical. In other words, this church captures all the significant historical periods of the region bridging its historical and architectural history together.

Of course, this church is not without its controversy. To prevent a modern attempt of paganization of an Orthodox church, officials have stepped in and replaced many of the paintings with traditional iconography. This imposition is partial however.

There are also two neo-classical monuments which surround the church. The first is the Ηρώον (Heroes) to honor all those heroes who fought for Greek independence from the Turks, since it is in this region where the rebellion was initiated. The second is the Φρέαρ Ιακώβ (Fountain of Jacob) to recall the story of St. Photini's meeting with Jesus at Jacob's Well.

About St. Photini

Saint Photini was the Samaritan Woman who encountered Christ our Saviour at Jacob's Well (John 4:1-42). Afterwards she laboured in the spread of the Gospel in various places, and finally received the crown of martyrdom in Rome with her two sons and five sisters, during the persecutions under the Emperor Nero.

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Saint John Kalphes the Neomartyr

The Holy New Martyr John Kalphes (the Apprentice) lived in a suburb of Constantinople, called Galata. He was a cabinetmaker by profession, and he had acquired great skill in his craft, so that important officials made use of his services. He was entrusted with the inner adornment of the sultan's palace.

St John Kalphes was distinguished for his Christian charity. He provided for orphans and those locked up in prison, and many turned to him for help. One time a certain dignitary asked St John to take on his nephew as an apprentice. He agreed, and the youth received an honorable position at court upon the completion of his apprenticeship.

Once, encountering his former teacher and benefactor, the apprentice asked St John what it says in the Christian books about their "prophet" Mohammed. St John did not want to answer his question, but because of the persistent demands of the youth, he declared the following:

"As you have asked me to say, I will tell you the truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one and only true God. Mohammed, in whom you believe, was a mortal and uneducated man who did nothing good upon this earth, and did not perform a single miracle, unlike the other prophets of God that we, the Christians have. It is only you people who revere him as a prophet. In fact, he was a theomachist and with his fantasies and fanaticism attracted a simple and ignorant people, so that what was prophesied about him was fulfilled: that he 'would come to seduce the world.'"

The youth, devoted to Islam, reported to his fellow Moslems that the cabinetmaker had insulted Mohammed.

St John was brought to trial, where they demanded that he renounce Christ, but he bravely confessed his faith in Christ, saying: "I will not renounce my Sweetest Jesus; I believe in Him and worship Him, and confess Him to be true God and perfect Man."

After torture, they sent the holy martyr off to penal servitude with a fleet at the Black Sea, where he spent six months. Then, for the next three months they beat him in the prison. Seeing that they could not coerce him into submitting to their will, they beheaded him in the crowded city square in Ergat-Bazara, near the Bedestan (a covered bazaar) on February 26, 1575.

The suffering of the holy Martyr John Kalphes were recorded by Father Andrew, the Chief Steward (Megas Oikonomos) of the Patriarch of Constantinople, who communed him with the Holy Mysteries in prison.

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Divine Liturgy Etiquette

St. John Chrysostom writes thusly against those who in church create a disturbance and who depart from church before the completion of the Divine Liturgy:

Some do not approach Holy Communion with trembling but with commotion, shoving one another, burning with anger, hollering, scolding, pushing their neighbor, full of disturbance. About this, I have often spoken and will not cease to speak about this. Do you not see the order of behavior at the pagan Olympic games when the Arranger passes through the arena with a wreath on his head, dressed in a lengthy garment, holding a staff in his hand and the Crier declares that there be silence and order? Is it not obscene that there, where the devil reigns, there is such silence, and here where Christ invites us to Himself there is such an uproar. At the arena, silence, and in church, uproar! On the sea, calm, and in the harbor, tempest!

When you are invited to a meal, you must not leave before the others, even though you are satisfied before the others, and here while the awesome Mystery of Christ is being celebrated, while the priestly functions are still continuing, you leave in the middle of it and exit? How can this be forgiven? How can this be justified? Judas, after receiving Communion at the Last Supper [Mystical Supper] that final night, departed quickly while the others remained at the table. Behold, whose example do they follow who hurry to depart before the final thanksgiving?

(Homily on the Feast of the Epiphany)

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$1000 If You Name Your Child Muhammad

Chechnya Pays $1,000 to Babies Born on Prophet Muhammad's Birthday

February 27, 2010
Pravda

Residents of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, celebrate Prophet Muhammad’s birthday – the holiday known as Mawlid. Family couples, who became parents on February 27 at night, will be paid $1,000 from local authorities.

Happy parents will have to meet a number of requirements to be able to receive the bonus. They will have to give specific names to their children. A boy must be named in honor of the prophet – Muhammad. If it is a girl, parents will have to name her in honor of Prophet Muhammad’s mother (Aminat), wives (Aisha and Hadijat) or daughters (Fatima, Umm-Kulsum and Rukiyat).

Festivities in Grozny began in the evening of February 25 and continued throughout the whole night. Many foreign guests arrived in Chechnya to take part in celebrations. Grozny’s residents and guests enjoyed a laser show at night. Fireworks illuminated the sky above the city early in the morning, before the morning prayers began.

Low-income citizens receive financial and food help in all areas of Chechnya. Billboards and posters dedicated to the holiday are plastered all over the republic, Vesti.ru reports.

The earliest accounts for the observance of Mawlid can be found in eighth-century Mecca, when the house in which Muhammad was born was transformed into a place of prayer by Al-Khayzuran (mother of Harun al-Rashid, the fifth and most famous Abbasid caliph). The early celebrations included elements of Sufic influence, with animal sacrifices and torchlight processions along with public sermons and a feast. The celebrations occurred during the day, in contrast to modern day observances, with the ruler playing a key role in the ceremonies. Emphasis was given to the Ahl al-Bayt with presentation of sermons and recitations of the Qur'an. The event also featured the award of gifts to officials in order to bolster support for the ruling caliph.

Islamic scholars are divided on whether observing Mawlid is necessary or even permissible in Islam. Some see it as a praiseworthy event and positive development, while others say it is an improper innovation and forbid its celebration.

A number of Islamic scholars, such as Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, Gibril Haddad, and Zaid Shakir, all subscribing to the Sufi movement, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the primary scholar of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, have given their approval for the observance of Mawlid. They cite hadith where Muhammad recommended fasting on Mondays, as that was the day he was born and also the day prophecy descended on him. They suggest that fasting on Mondays is also a way of commemorating Muhammad's birthday. However, there is division among them on the lawfulness of the methods of the celebrations. Most accept that it is praiseworthy as long as it is not against sharia (i.e. inappropriate mingling of the sexes, consuming forbidden food or drink such as alcohol, playing music etc).

Mawlid is celebrated in most Muslim countries, and in other countries where Muslims have a presence, such as India, Britain, and Canada. Saudi Arabia is the only Muslim country where Mawlid is not an official public holiday. Participation in the ritual celebration of popular Islamic holidays is seen as an expression of the Islamic revival.

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Liberals and Atheists Smarter?

It's absolutely insane how so many scientists are funded to do some of the most ridiculous research. This particular study, which explores how evolution shaped intelligent people, is one such study. Read the report here from Science Daily.

One will notice that this study is filled with assumptions that are thrown into the research, thus making it a biased and bigoted study which "reputable" scientific sources are treating with mind-boggling seriousness.

"Humans are evolutionarily designed to be paranoid, and they believe in God because they are paranoid." They make it sound so obvious as if it is beyond dispute. But they base their findings on IQ scores. Their studies showed that adolescent atheists and liberals had higher IQ scores than non-atheists and conservatives. But do IQ scores determine such factors? Of course not. IQ measures developed skills, not native intelligence. When one places this into consideration, it is of little wonder that liberals and atheists would have higher IQ scores "on average".

Another interesting study reported was that men who are monogamous are more intelligent than men who aren't. Again this is measured by IQ. This is "assumed" on the "fact" that men were polygynous in evolutionary history, while women were monogamous. But if women were monogamous, and they measure intelligence by not only IQ but also those who adopt "novel preferences" (again another assumption), then we must conclude that women who have multiple partners are more intelligent than women who are monogamous.

This is just more proof that evolutionary psychology is going downhill.

Read more here, here, here, and here.

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A Biochemical Link Between Misery and Death?

Read the article about a possible genetic link between misery and death from Science Daily here.

Even if this were true, I wonder what scientists plan on doing with this information in the long run. Just something to ponder...

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Sermon for the Friday of the Second Week of Great Lent

CATECHESIS 58 - On Harmony and Love and on Nobly Enduring the Toils of Virtue for Gaining the Kingdom of Heaven

by St. Theodore the Studite

Friday of the Second Week.

Brethren and fathers, in my lowliness I rejoice over you, because you are walking in harmony, conducting yourselves peaceably and continuing the season of the fast with endurance. And this is for your salvation and for our hope; for peace and harmony are a considerable good in a community, already evils are kept far away: disorder and instability, contradiction and slander, disobedience and pride and any other wickedness that may exist! Such people in the first place find good for themselves, secondly they are set forth as an example of virtue to others, and thence they gain the greatest benefits. For as those who are causes of scandals inherit the Woe, so those who incite to virtue inherit blessing. And never, brethren, let us fall away from the good state and the praiseworthy way of life, nor let us leave off loving God; for it is written, "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole strength and your whole mind". One then who loves thus is not satiated, does not fall, is not overtaken by despondency [The translators of the Philokalia use ‘listlessness’ for this well known monastic scourge, akedia. See Volume 1 pp. 88-91 for St John Cassian’s account, or Step 13 of The Ladder]; rather he adds fire to fire, and sets enthusiasm alight with enthusiasm, disposing ascents of virtues in his heart and going from power to spiritual power; and this unremittingly. Do you not see how much those who toil according to the flesh toil for vain and perishable things? Do you not see how those who build ships here under your very eyes [St Theodore and his monks were in exile at this time at the Monastery of Crescens on the narrow gulf of Nikomedia (the modern Izmit Körfezi) at the NE end of the Sea of Marmara.] pass the whole day in toil , not allowing themselves any relaxation whatsoever? For what? So that they may acquire a little gold, so that they may take home what they need for their families; while we, to become rich with the things of God, to reach the kingdom of heaven, to enjoy the everlasting good things, to escape the everlasting punishments, shall we not endure all things with all enthusiasm and energy, if it were necessary to shed our blood, to be entirely ready to do so for the Lord? Yes, my brothers, I ask you, let us stand nobly, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, persevering in prayer, attentive to our manual work, to the psalmody, the recitation, the readings, that by such occupation we may keep a hold on the mind, dragging it away from being occupied with vanities; since idleness is the mother of wickedness, while work is the guardian of the mind. Not however through these being turned from our state, but placing even greater emphasis on obedience, good order, the repose of our neighbour, all the other things which bring about the salvation of our soul; besides all these praying also for our brothers who have been scattered here and there; for concerning them too, whom I cannot see before my eyes, it is an anguish for me how each one is coming through safely; but at any rate praying earnestly for my humble person, that a word may be given me when I open my mouth, and a life free from deformation; so that from either side both we and you may be saved, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always and to the ages of ages. Amen.

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Greek Crisis Is More Spiritual Than Economic

To escape the present crisis we must return to the way of God, says Archbishop Hieronymos of Athens and All Greece. He further said that though we all talk of a crisis, if we pull back the curtain we will see our own faces.

"We are embarrassed to say that we have a crisis in our days and we say it is economical", said the Archbishop, emphasizing the fact that we are facing many crisis' today, though they all stem from a spiritual crisis.

On the topic of immigration and the role of the Church, he also responded to those who criticize the philanthropic ministry of the Church towards the immigrants, saying: "We did not bring the strangers, and it is not our role to get rid of them. But when they knock on our door we must give them a plate of food because that is what Christ told us to do." Relating this issue to the topic of the economic crisis, he said that we distance ourselves from God when we don't obey these commands of Christ.

Hieronymos concluded saying: "I am sure that when we understand these things, then we will be able to move past this crisis."

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World's Oldest Joke Book (4th cent.)

The oldest joke book in existence, Philogelos, is a Roman book written about the 4th century AD around the time of Constantine the Great (in Greek). The book is mostly quips from two guys, Hierokles and Philagrios, about whom little is known.

Like modern comedy, Roman comedy at the time of Constantine was based on the fortunes and foibles of a gallery of stock characters: the drunk, the miser, the braggart, the sex-starved woman, as well as a classic type known as the Scholasticus, variously translated as "pedant," "absent-minded professor," or "egghead."

There's a great video here, in which Brit comedic legend Jim Bowen does ancient Roman material from Philogelos in a modern comedy club.

Examples:

- Scholasticus meeting a friend exclaims, "Why, I heard you were dead!" The other replies, "Well, I tell you that I'm alive". "Yes," persists Scholasticus, "but the man who told me so is more truthful than you!"

- A son says to his father, "Base man! Don't you see how you have wronged me? If you had never been born and stood in the way I should have come into all my grandfather's money."

- An Abderite saw a eunuch talking with a woman and asked him if she was his wife. When he replied that eunuchs can't have wives, the Abderite asked: "So is she your daughter?"

Ok, so these aren't exactly knee slappers to our modern ears. Some of the jokes are no longer understandable as funny because of differences in customs and lifestyle. For instance there's a lot of jokes about lettuce. Fourth century Romans loved lettuce jokes because they evidently were dirty jokes (???).

- An intellectual was eating dinner with his father. On the table was a large lettuce with many succulent shoots. The intellectual suggested: "Father, you eat the children; I'll take mother."

Well, maybe not much has really changed in 1600 years.

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Saint Tarasios and the Death of Emperor Leo V

St. Tarasios, Patriarch of Constantinople (Feast Day - February 25)

Saint Tarasios was the son of one of the foremost princes in Constantinople, and was originally a consul and first among the Emperor's private counselors. Then, in 784, he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople by the Sovereigns Irene and her son Constantine Porphyrogenitus. He convoked the Seventh Ecumenical Council that upheld the holy icons, and became the boast of the Church and a light to the clergy.

In the year 806, on the 25th of February, Saint Tarasios died a glorious death, and all of Constantinople mourned the passing of their faithful and zealous patriarch. Emperor Leo V the Armenian came to the throne in 813 and restored Iconoclasm and had the Orthodox Patriarch Nikephoros deposed. Seven years later, in 820, Emperor Leo felt that the end of his life was drawing near. It was then that he encountered a terrifying vision.

Saint Tarasios appeared in a dream to Emperor Leo and the hierarch was very angry. Turning to someone standing nearby, Saint Tarasios said: "Michael, thrust a sword against him" while pointing to the emperor. Michael obeyed and thrust a sword against Leo. Leo, stirred from that dream, made haste to the monastery nearby which contained the relics of Saint Tarasios. There he made known his dream to the monks and had some of the monks arrested, imprisoned and tortured in his attempt to discover who this Michael was that was planning his assassination. His intention was to have this Michael killed.

The following day was the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, and Leo was in church. There he was assassinated by the supporters of Michael II the Amorian (820-829). Though Michael was an iconoclast, he prohibited public discussion of the controversy and restored the iconophiles whom Leo V had either attacked or banished. Michael however did not restore Patriarch Nikephoros and even persecuted the future Patriarch Methodios I.

Thus, God glorified His servant Tarasios and delivered to destruction Leo, who refused to serve God in a holy manner.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
The truth of things hath revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, an icon of meekness, and a teacher of temperance; for this cause, thou hast achieved the heights by humility, riches by poverty. O Father and Hierarch Tarasios, intercede with Christ God that our souls be saved.

Kontakion in the Third Tone
Thou didst make the Church to shine with thy most Orthodox doctrines, teaching all to venerate and worship Christ's sacred image; so didst thou convict the godless and hateful doctrine of all them that fought against Christ's ven'rable icon; O Tarasius our Father most wise and blessed, to thee we all cry: Rejoice.

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Should We Promote Faithlessness in Our Churches?

[Though there is absolutely no evidence to support the theory that H1N1 virus can be transmitted through the use of a common spoon in receiving the Eucharist, it has become apparent that churches have taken steps to abolish this tradition of the Church in certain circumstances. The letter below reveals this.

There are three essential reasons why the Church adopted the use of the common spoon in receiving the eucharist: 1. To prevent crumbs from falling; 2. To prevent wine from spilling; 3. To prevent the misuse of the eucharist. Of course the common spoon is not a full proof prevention of these things, but it is the best possible method according to the experience of the Church.

Furthermore, there is no full proof method in preventing the transmission of a virus in church. If the priest handed the eucharist, who is to say he does not have a virus? When we eat antidoron at the end of the Liturgy, how can we know the person cutting the bread isn't infected? When the priest puts his hand underwater to bless the holy water we receive at Theophany, again how can we know the priest isn't infected? Should we also abolish kissing the hand of the priest? There are many arguments which show how illogical it is to prevent this centuries old practice of the Orthodox Church, and why paranoid feelings among the faithful require education rather than submission, especially when they cannot offer any evidence to support their paranoia.

More can be read here, here, here and here. - J.S.]

The Feb. 20-26, 2010 issue of the Greek-American newspaper, The National Herald had the following in its Letters to the Editor section:

In our Dec. 26 edition we published a commentary by Dr. John Collis, M.D., which we titled "Traditions of Orthodoxy and Science Need not Clash: A Discussion on H1N1". His original title was "Communion and the Common Spoon" which was a call for discussion about the use of the common spoon in Greek Orthodox Churches. The distinguished physician, a former member of the Archdiocesan Council, succeeded in stimulating discussion, as we have had many responses. We published one, along with further coments by Dr. Collis on Feb. 6. Here follow three more on both sides of the issue:

RUTLAND, VERMONT CHURCH PROVIDES PLASTIC SPOON

To the Editor:

In response to the article written by John Collis, M.D., this is to inform you of the procedure in use this winter at our Greek Orthodox Church in Rutland, Vermont (St. Nicholas Orthodox Church).

The priest instructs the parishioners who prefer to use individual plastic spoons to be first in line. Then as each one of them approaches, an altar server provides a plastic spoon and the priest administers holy communion to each of them with the plastic spoon. Each spoon that is used is discarded.

Then, those that wish to receive Holy Communion with the common spoon do so immediately afterwards. It works very well and all are pleased with this procedure.

During this winter season, most parishioners are using plastic spoons.

-Theodore Corsones
Rutland, Vermont

[ Note: There has been a large reaction to my posting and the postings of others on this issue, and it seems some are linking this practice observed at the Rutland parish with Ecumenism and still others are placing blame on Metropolitan Methodios and calling this a heresy. This is my brief response to these charges:

"As glad as I am to see Orthodox taking a stand against the practices of the Rutland parish (which only serves Liturgy once a month by the way), I agree that it is fallacious to link this with Ecumenism and to place any blame on Metropolitan Methodios. This is above all an issue of education and faith. We certainly do not have enough information to link this practice with Ecumenism or the approval of the Metropolitan. Much worse things happened in the Church prior to Ecumenism, so why all the blame goes there is a bit absurd. For example, according to primary sources during the Iconoclastic controversy in the 8th century, some Orthodox went so far that they were adding paint from icons into the communion wine. Others were using icons as godparents to children. In some places, the communion bread was being placed onto the hands of the saints depicted in icons before being consumed by the people. Aberations they all may be, but not heresy. Condemnable error comes when the truth is rejected, and there is no indication that anyone in Rutland, including the priest, really understands the reasons behind the use of a common spoon and why using disposable plastic spoons is so wrong." - J.S.]

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The Ascetic Makarios and Nikos Kazantzakis

In his autobiography Report to Greco, Nikos Kazantzakis describes his forty day sojourn on Mount Athos in 1914 with the poet Angelos Sikelianos. It is at this time that he had the following conversation with the ascetic Makarios:

Kazantzakis: "You live a difficult life, my elder. I also wish to be saved. Is there no other way?"

Makarios: "More convenient?" said the ascetic as he smiled with compassion.

"More human, my elder.

"Only one way."

"How do they call it?"

"Ascent. You must climb a ladder; from satiety in food to hunger; from satiety in drink to thirst; from joy to pain. At the peak of hunger, thirst and pain sits God. At the peak of good times sits the devil."

"I am still young. The earth is good. I have time to choose."

The ascetic stretched out his five bony fingers, squeezed my knees, and nudged me.

"Wake up, my child, wake up, before death wakes you up."

I shuddered.

See also: Ascent: The Spiritual Trajectory of Nikos Kazantzakis

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On Genuine Theology: The Science of Sciences

The Science of Science

V. Rev. Fr. Paul Jannakos
Jan 13, 2010

In the Orthodox Church we believe that God reveals Himself to us in truth. This means, basically, that as human beings we have the inherent ability to know God directly and simply i.e., personally. Just as Enoch and Noah “walked with God,” (Gen. 5:24, 6:9), and just as Moses “spoke with the Lord face to face, as a man speaks to a friend,” (Ex. 33:11), so are we able to enter into the same intimate communion with the Triune God. The knowledge of God that is the outgrowth of becoming united with Him is what we call theology. As such, all genuine theology is not merely the knowledge about God, but the knowledge of God - because it is experiential in nature.

In Western Christendom, unfortunately, theology came to be just this - the knowledge about God. Unlike the Christian East, theology became something scholastic, something appropriated to academicians who conversed with each other over philosophical abstractions. Even today, the discipline of theology in most American seminaries, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, remains, for the most part, thoroughly scholastic. Some of the more “liberal” theologians have even gone so far as to conclude that nothing reliable can ever be known about God. According to this line of thinking, God (or whoever he or she or it happens to be) is so far above and beyond our human realm that he/she/it cannot be understood.

For this reason theology has become meaningless to the majority of people in our country. And why not? For if theology is nothing more than an academic pursuit consigned to an intellectual minority, then what good is it? If one begins the discussion with the declaration that God cannot truly be known, then why would anyone want to bother with it in the first place? No doubt this is the source of the disinterest and disdain that our society displays towards what we as Orthodox Christians call the “science of sciences.”

Even so, it is important for us to remember what St. Gregory the Theologian once said. "For we do not theologize in the manner of Aristotle, (that is in the abstract way of the philosophers), but in the manner of the fishermen” - referring of course to the Holy Apostles. For St. Gregory, theology is the outcome of the living encounter with God the Father, through His Son and in the Holy Spirit. St. Anthony the Great touches on this as well when he says, “The theologian is the one who prays, and the one who prays in the theologian.”

Here, too, we arrive at the greatest miracle of the faith. God is true first because He transcends all of creation. God’s nature lies beyond all earthly categories, and this is why we call God "Holy." For that which is holy is totally "other-and-beyond" anything created. But this is not the end of the story, because the God Who is holy is also the same God Who has come near to us on account of His great love. In the language of the New Testament, the Son of God has descended from His throne and entered into the human realm by taking upon Himself the “semblance” of a servant. The great abyss that existed between God and man, between heaven and earth, and between the eternal and the temporal has been overcome in Christ. As a result, it is now possible for us as human beings, through repentance, to be glorified with Him in heaven. In the Son of God, as St. Basil prays in his liturgical anaphora, “we have been brought to the knowledge of one, true God.” And it is this knowledge that is our salvation.

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Richard Dawkins And His Faithful Followers

Richard Dawkins Receives Rabid Response From His Faithful Followers

25 February 2010
Clive Hayden
UncommonDescent

Richard Dawkins, so he says, wants to improve the forums on his website by implementing some new changes. He wants to keep it “scientific” and “rational”. The forums had, apparently, become a safe haven for Darwinians and atheists to post whatever uninteresting and vile subject matter their atheistic and Darwinian philosophy saw fit. So Dawkins posted a letter announcing the changes to the forums:

"Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed…We know some of you will be against this change. We ask that you respect our decision and help make this transition as smooth as possible."

The reaction he received from some of his own Darwinian and atheistic followers was heinous, so he responded:

"Surely there has to be something wrong with people who can resort to such over-the-top language, over-reacting so spectacularly to something so trivial. Even some of those with more temperate language are responding to the proposed changes in a way that is little short of hysterical. Was there ever such conservatism, such reactionary aversion to change, such vicious language in defence of a comfortable status quo? What is the underlying agenda of these people? How can anybody feel that strongly about something so small? Have we stumbled on some dark, territorial atavism? Have private fiefdoms been unwittingly trampled?

"Be that as it may, what this remarkable bile suggests to me is that there is something rotten in the Internet culture that can vent it. If I ever had any doubts that RD.net needs to change, and rid itself of this particular aspect of Internet culture, they are dispelled by this episode."

But, Dr. Dawkins, you knew they were snakes when you picked them up, why are you surprised when you get bitten? You invited them, gave them a home, encouragement, free reign, why the surprise?

See also: Death of the Dawkins forum – The world’s busiest atheist forum closes

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Atheists Challenge Darwinism

"What Darwin Got Wrong": Taking Down the Father of Evolution

A new book dares to attack the theory of natural selection by using -- surprise! -- science.

By Thomas Rogers
Feb 22, 2010
Salon

At this point, the idea of somebody publishing an attack on Charles Darwin isn’t exactly surprising. The 19th-century naturalist, and the man behind the theory of evolution, has never been a particularly popular figure among conservative Christians, and, these days, the anti-Darwin movement is a cottage industry. In the last year, which marked the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of "The Origin of the Species," the man was even subjected to the peculiar indignity of an assault by former "Growing Pains" star Kirk Cameron.

But unlike most of these attacks, "What Darwin Got Wrong," a new book by Jerry Fodor, a professor of philosophy and cognitive sciences at Rutgers University, and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, a professor of cognitive science at the University of Arizona, comes not from the religious right, but from two atheist academics with -- surprise -- a nuanced argument about the shortcomings of Darwin’s theories. Their book details (in very technical language) how recent discoveries in genetics have thrown into question many of our perceived truths about natural selection, and why these have the potential to undermine much of what we know about evolution and biology.

Salon spoke to Fodor over the phone from his home, about the problems with Darwin’s ideas, bloggers’ "obscene" comments on his work, and why Darwinism might be as unreliable as creationism.

In 2007, you wrote an article attacking Darwinism in the London Review of Books, and experienced a lot of backlash from both inside and outside of the scientific community. Why do you think people get so worked up about Darwinism?

It’s a theory that’s played all sort of roles in the foundations of biology. There’s a lot of people who think wrongly that if you didn’t have Darwinism the whole foundations of modern biology would collapse. I doubt that’s true. I’m sure it’s not. But if you tell people, "There’s this fundamental theoretical commitment you’ve made and there’s holes in it," they’ll want very much to defend that theory.

Most of the backlash to the book so far has been on blogs, which have been pretty obscene and debased. What’s upsetting is that they tell you that they think you’re an idiot, but they don’t tell you why -- people who aren’t part of the field or who may not, in many cases, know much about Darwin. I’m not sure that all people who have been blogging about it are very sophisticated. It’s frustrating because you don’t know who you’re talking to.

At some point you just have to stop worrying about the reaction and worry if the argument is any good. I don’t take the arguments that say, "This that can’t be true because of what I learned in Biology 101" very seriously.

What is your beef with natural selection?

The main thing Darwin had in mind with natural selection was to come up with a theory that answers the question, "Why are certain traits there?" Why do people have hair on their heads? Why do both eyes have the same color? Why does dark hair go with dark eyes? You can make up a story that explains why it was good to have those properties in the original environment of selection. Do we have any reason to think that story is true? No.

According to Darwin, traits of creatures are selected for their contribution to fitness [likelihood to survive]. But how do you distinguish a trait that is selected for from one that comes along with it? There are a lot of interesting structures in creatures that have nothing to do with fitness.

Some variants in selection are clearly environmental. If you can’t store water you’ll do worse in a dry environment than if you can. But suppose that having a high ability to carry a lot of water is correlated for genetic reasons with skin color. How do you decide which trait is selected for by environmental factors and which one is just attached to it? There isn’t anything in the Darwinist picture that allows you to answer that question.

So we have no way of knowing whether a trait serves an evolutionary purpose?

Some traits are presumably selected for by the environment, and some of them are not. If somebody says Trait A affects fitness and Trait B does not, but Trait B comes with Trait A so you’ve got both traits in the organism, it’s very natural for somebody in the Darwinian tradition to think that Trait B has been selected for by the environment. But the answer is, it’s not there for anything.

Look, everybody has toenails, so you might ask yourself, why is it such a good thing we have toenails? It may be a case that in the environment there was some factor that favored toenails but there also may not.

As you explain in the book, it turns out many genes are far more tied together -- and gene expression is much more complicated -- than many people originally thought.

What the genetics has come to show is that traits are not independent, but complexly interconnected, and a lot of the effect that the environment has on an organism’s evolution depends on what organism it is.

There’s a famous fox-into-dog experiment, in which many generations of foxes were selected for being domestically trainable. As you would expect, when you select for domesticability, you get animals that behave less and less like their feral counterparts -- but you also get curly ears and kinked tails and changes in their reproductive system. Nobody had that in mind, but the structure of the organism groups all of these traits together. Why do these animals have kinky tails? They just happen to be structural correlates. Now the question is, how much of the evolutionary variance is determined by factors of the environment and how much is controlled by the organization of the organism, and the answer is nobody knows.

Most children learn about natural selection by learning the example of the giraffe’s long neck, which supposedly evolved because it allowed animals to graze higher branches. Does this mean that we’re giving schoolchildren the wrong information?

The inference runs that there’s this creature that has a long neck, so this creature was selected for having a long neck. That inference is clearly invalid. A creature that has a long neck may have that neck because a different trait was selected, and the long neck came along with it.

And in a sense, there are no such things as traits. The environment selects creatures. Animals can have long necks and toenails, but if you try to break such creatures apart into traits and you say, OK, "What selected this trait?" and, "What selected that trait?" you've made a mistake right from the beginning. The disintegration of the organism into traits is itself a spurious undertaking. Biologists have said for a long time that organisms aren’t like Swiss apples, you can’t tap them on a table and have them fall apart into distinct wedges. Selection is operating on whole organisms.

There's been increasing evidence in recent years that homosexuality has a genetic cause, which doesn’t exactly mesh with natural selection, given that gay people aren’t likely to have lots of children. Does your theory help explain the gay gene?

It’s not obvious what, when the environment was selecting for fecundity, would have selected for people who are gay. You could have gotten them innately as a result of something that has nothing to do with sexual performance.

Do you think people are defending Darwinism because they think any attack on Darwinism gives power to creationists, and they don't want creationists to get the upper hand?

I think there’s the sense that if you think that there’s something wrong with the theory you’re giving aid and comfort to intelligent design people. And people do feel very strongly about whether you want to do that.

When you do science, you try to find the truth. The problem with creationism, even if you’re not a hardcore atheist, as I am, is that anything is compatible with creationism. If God created the world, he could have created it any way he liked. So creationists, when faced with evidence of evolution, are happy to say that that’s the way God created the world. If it turns out that there is no process of evolution, they’d say OK, that’s fine too. Whatever turns out to be the case it’s compatible with God having created the world, so you can’t argue with their position or you throw your shoulders out.

As you explain in the book, one of the problems with Darwinism is that Darwin is inventing explanations for something that happened long ago, over a long period of time. Isn’t that similar to creationism?

Creationism isn't the only doctrine that’s heavily into post-hoc explanation. Darwinism is too. If a creature develops the capacity to spin a web, you could tell a story of why spinning a web was good in the context of evolution. That is why you should be as suspicious of Darwinism as of creationism. They have spurious consequence in common. And that should be enough to make you worry about either account.

If you're right, what do you think your argument means for the study of evolution?

If this is true, then we need to rethink the implications of Darwinism. Maybe the right question to ask is not what environmental variables are doing selection, but what kinds of complexes are they selecting on. One sees, even without God, how this Darwinian story could turn out to be radically wrong. You could see a massive failure of the evolutionary project, because wrong assumptions were made.

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The West Initiated the Dissolution of Greece

"Personally I See That the West Initiated the Dissolution of Greece."

by Archimandrite Nektarios Moulatsiotis
January 12, 2010
Romfea.org

The West achieved the dissolution of Serbia with war. At that time we all said our turn was coming. God protected us and thus war did not come. The West however did not change its plans for Greece.

The agreements signed with the Burgas-Alexandroupolis-Igoumenitsa pipeline discouraged the dissolution of Greece, because the agreement provides strong Russian intervention in any part of our country at risk of the pipeline.

The West, however, succeeded and the pipeline stopped ... So almost all fields are open again. The dissolution of Greece with war is not so feasible ... So the West has found another way.

They create 13 regions (Kallikrates draft) with similar governments, limited capacity now at the beginning ... so our people won't react. But all governments, laws and rights they have will change with the passing of time.

At one time, for example, the Kings had enormous power, but over time they became only decorative elements.

What will happen in 5, 10, 20 years with today's new regions? What will happen when the West gives the command to the Rulers in our country, to grant other rights in the regions? Will they refuse? Will they go home, as the previous government did. Anyone who reacts exits from the middle ... and the West knows the ways and methods.

This is how they put the 'bases', in our Greece they create 13 regions, and in a few years ... we will talk about autonomy in the Region of Macedonia, Thrace (where there are many Muslims), Crete, etc. etc.

The most serious is that today, on the basis of the draft (I'm sure this is a proposal of the West and they agreed before the election), the two big pro-Western parties agree.

Is it all by chance? We are also obedient children. Personally I see that the West began the dissolution of Greece in a smart and painless way. But we are not all naive.

See also this update from February 16, 2010: Papandreou, Putin discuss economy, trade and energy

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