MYSTAGOGY: February 2010

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Sermon for the Fourth Wednesday of Great Lent

Catechesis 66: That This Pascha Is a Type of the Future and Eternal Pascha; and About Endurance and Courage.

by St. Theodore the Studite

Given on the Fourth Wednesday of the Great Fast

Brethren and fathers, Lent is already galloping past and the soul rejoices at the imminence of Pascha, because by it it finds rest and is relieved of many toils. Why did this thought sound for me in advance? Because it is as if our whole life directs its reason contemplating the eternal Pascha. For this present Pascha, even though it is great and revered, is nevertheless, as our fathers explain, only a type of that Pascha to come. For this Pascha is for one day and it passes, while that Pascha has no successor. From it "pain, grief and sighing have fled away"[1]; there everlasting joy, gladness and rejoicing; there the sound of those who feast[2], a choir of those who keep festival and contemplation of eternal light; where there is the blessed breakfast[3] of Christ and the new[4] drink of which Christ spoke, "I shall not drink of the fruit of this vine, until I drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father".[5] Of this He spoke to his disciples when He was about to ascend to heaven, "I am going to prepare a place for you and, if I go, I will prepare a place for you. I am coming again and I will take you to myself, so that where I am you maybe also. And where I am going you know, and the way you know."[6] And a little further on, "On that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you."[7] And elsewhere, "Father, I wish that where I am they may be with Me also, so that they may see My glory, which You gave Me, because You loved from before the foundation of the world."[8] But because this concerns not only the Apostles, but also ourselves, He also said, "I do not ask this only for them, but also for those who through their word believe in Me, so that all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You, that they may also be one in Us."[9] What could be more comforting than these words? What could be more appealing? What soul can they not soften? What heart not prick with compunction, even should someone say that the human heart is a nature of stone? With thoughts like these the saints bore all that they bore, considering afflictions as joys, constraints as freedoms[10], struggles as delights, harsh training as relaxation, deaths as lives.

I beseech you, my brother, should not we also, since we have the same aim and seek the same Pascha, bravely and courageously bear our present condition, not falling, not succumbing to despondency, but rather roused with greater fervour watching for the wicked serpent who works to deceive us by the passions, transforming himself into an angel of light,[11]and altering things from what they are; show dark as light, bitter as sweet. This was how he ensnared our forefather, bewitching his sight and depicting as beautiful what was not, and as a result through food casting him out of Paradise. But let us, who have learned by experience what a deceiver he is, not leave the paradise of God’s commandments, nor, when he indicates to us that the fruit is beautiful, let the eye of soul or body be directed there, otherwise we are being caught in the snare. But let us flee by every means from looking. What is the fruit which seems beautiful? The love of the flesh, the evil lust of every one of the destructive passions. If we avoid experiencing them, my brothers, we shall be saved and easter[12] to age on age, with all the Saints in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Notes:

[1] Isaiah 35:10. The phrase is familiar from the prayer for the departed.

[2] Cf. Psa. 42:4, where the Greek has a singular. The same phrase is found, but with the plural, in the prayers after Communion.

[3] Cf. John 21:12.

[4] The Greek has koinon, ‘common’, but the word should be kainon, ‘new’, as the following citation makes clear. There is also an echo of the Paschal canon, ‘Come, let us drink a new drink’ (poma kainon).

[5] Matthew 26:29.

[6] John 14:2-4.

[7] John 14:20.

[8] John 17:24.

[9] John 17:20-21.

[10] It is difficult to reproduce the play in Greek on stenochoria and evrychoria.

[11] 2 Corinthians 11:14.

[12] St Theodore uses a very rare verb paschazein, and temptation to follow G. M. Hopkins and use ‘easter’ as a verb is irresistible. The only reference in Lampe is to St Theodore’s contemporary Theophanes, who uses it of the Quartodecimans, who ‘easter’ with the Jews.

Source

Sermon for the Feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs

CATECHESIS 62: On Our Imitating the Lord’s Sufferings

by St. Theodore the Studite

[Migne adds: On the Forty Martyrs [March 9th]. But it seems to have been given after the day itself.]

Brethren and fathers, how good it has become for us the separation from the monastery here! "For why should our liberty be subject to the judgement of another’s conscience?" [1 Cor. 10:29]. And why do we maltreat ourselves still for what is of no use? We managed as far as it was possible and the moment allowed; but now, because when the moment summoned they did not choose persecution on behalf of Christ, as certain others, it is necessary to listen to the Prophet when he says, "Come out from among them and be separated," [Isa. 52:11] says the Lord. If others act otherwise over these matters, they will render an account to the Lord on the day of judgement; for it seems to me that to be brought under their power is equivalent of being indifferent towards the heretics. You see that the same distinction withdraws us from the world and drives us to trouble, to distress, to hunger, to persecution, to prison, to death; "but in all these we must be supremely victorious through the God who loved us," [Rom. 8:37] when, whenever he sees a soul thirsting for Him, gives it force to be able to endure sufferings on His behalf. And to this the Forty Martyrs, whose memorial we have just celebrated, bear witness with the others; for we cannot say that they possessed a different nature to the one we have. But since they loved God with a true heart, they were empowered in their weakness to throw down the invisible enemy by the flesh, and to accomplish a struggle of such a quality and greatness that all Christians praise it in song. And blessed is one who has been granted to share in the sufferings of Christ,[ Cf. 1 Pet. 4:13] even to some extent at least: the persecuted, because He too was persecuted; the arrested, because He too was arrested; the reviled, because He too was reviled; the scourged, because He too was scourged; the imprisoned, because He too was imprisoned; see too why it is written, "If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we shall also reign with Him; if we deny, He too will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful; He is not able to deny Himself" [2 Tim. 2:11-13]. Do you see the promises and the threats, of what sort and how great they are? For the rest then, brethren, let us strive, let us struggle by the grace of Christ not to shame those things that have been previously mentioned: the banishments, the imprisonments, the scourgings. We may not all have been imprisoned, nor all scourged; but nevertheless the fellowship of life itself becomes a fellowship of sufferings, "for if one limb suffers, all the limbs suffer with it; if one limb is glorified, all the limbs rejoice with it" [1 Cor. 12:26]. And would that we were even "more one body and one spirit, as we have been called in one hope of our calling," [Eph. 4:4] having Christ as the head, to become well-pleasing to God, to gain the kingdom of heaven, 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.

A Tour of Panagoulakis Hermitage in Kalamata

Many thanks to my sister Vaso and my mother for taking this rare video footage of the Hermitage of Panagoulakis in Kalamata, Greece. My mother is from Kalamata and was baptized in this monastery in 1955. In these videos pilgrims tell the story of Elder Elias Panagoulakis (+1917) and how he founded this monastery, and my sister is able to descend into the cave of Elder Elias, where he lived his life in strict asceticism, and venerate his holy skull. Stories are also told of Haralambi the Fool for Christ, whom my mother knew and was a regular visitor to the monastery. More will be said on these two holy personalities in future posts. It should be kept in mind, if anyone happens to visit, that this monastery is currently Old Calendarist and not in communion with the Church.

Xeropotamou Monastery and the Forty Holy Martyrs

Xeropotamou Monastery on Mount Athos is dedicated to the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste. Oral tradition makes the founder of the Monastery the Empress Pulcheria, who lived in the fifth century, while another version regards the founders as the tenth century Emperors Constantine VI Porphyrogenetus and Romanus I Lecapenus. Saint Paul of Xeropotamou is said to have become an ascetic in a cell near an old monastery where Xeropotamou now stands. This old monastery is the one said to have been built by Empress Pulcheria and dedicated to the Forty Holy Martyrs after the discovery of their holy relics in her time. St. Paul of Xeropotamou also wrote the Canon to the Forty Martyrs. The katholikon today is dedicated to the Forty Holy Martyrs and was built in between 1761-1763 on the site of an earlier church; the iconography was done in 1783. It celebrates its main feast on March 9. Among the treasures of Xeropotamou are the paten of Pulcheria, made of steatite, relics of many saints including those of the Forty Holy Martyrs, gold embroidered vestments, and priceless episcopal staffs, but its greatest treasure consists of two pieces of the True Cross, the largest anywhere in the world, which have a hole made by one of the nails of the Crucifixion. According to St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, the library contains manuscripts detailing the lives of the Forty Holy Martyrs.

(For the history of the icons and manuscripts at Xeropotamou pertaining to the Forty Martyrs, see here. There is an english summary on page 8 which is followed by some icons of the Forty Martyrs from Xeropotamou.)

Two Miracles of the Forty Martyrs at Xeropotamou Monastery

A. The Forty Martyrs and Sultan Selim I (d. 1519):

Xeropotamou Monastery has survived many earthquakes and fires, having been rebuilt many times over by several rulers. One of these rulers was Sultan Selim I. Pirates had burned down the monastery in 1507, and one day the Forty Holy Martyrs appeared to Selim in a vision to restore it. In return for this restoration, the Forty Martyrs promised him that they would help him in his battle against the Arabs. Long after the sultan's death in 1519, his successors continued to provide oil for the lamps before the icon and relics of the Forty Holy Martyrs in the katholikon of Xeropotamou. Today the monastery has in its archives a Hatt Shariff from 1517 documenting the large donations Selim made to the monastery and its facilities.

Here is the official record of Selim's vision:

"During his residence in Egypt, Sultan Selim saw forty large-bodied lads with golden chariots, which appeared to be running like angels, and they said: "We are, O King, helpers of the Ottomans and co-workers in the victory against your enemy. As a reward for the good we have done for you, when tomorrow comes, if you will, some spiritual (Ρουχμπάνιδες) hermits will come asking of you a will of your kingdom to restore our house, in which is found our relics. If you have love and want to have us as friends on other occasions, you must not only grant them a will to build our house, but to give them some of your imperial friendly treasures as well."

The 10 Articles of the Hatt Shariff defined the following:

1. Restore Xeropotamou after a recent fire.
2. Give permission to the monks to restore the Monastery as necessary.
3. 40 oil lamps are to burn before the relics of the saints.
4. For the Monastery to be able to see the four parts of the horizon.
5. The monks are to be granted immunity.
6. 10 of the best workers are to be brought to draw up the borders of the Monastery and the Metochion, with the caretaker of the Monastery being Ibrahim Agha.
7. Confirms the Hatt Shariff of Sultan Murad Yao.
8. If a monk leaves the Monastery for another, he is to be punished with a fine of 100 piastres, having received this Monastery from the Agha's land, and for Xeropotamou to be notified.
9. No one should inherit all of Mount Athos, but only the Monastery to which they belong.
10. The present Hatt Shariff should be kept in the Monastery, and only a copy is to be used when exported by the fathers for use in courts, etc. Mentioned also here are aphorisms against the violators of this document.

B. From the life of Elder Ambrose Lazaris (+2006):

The blessed elder told me [Abbot Ephraim of Vatopaidi] in a conversation that after his military duty was completed (he was a Tsolia for the Palace Guard), he wanted to go to the Holy Mountain. However, he did not know where nor how to go. Suddenly there appeared to him a young man around 25 years of age and said to him: "I know those lands. Come with me." And this is how it happened.

They embarked together, went to the sea and boarded the ship. "He also gave me," he said, "bread which we ate together all the days we were together. His name however he did not tell me, though I also never asked him. This is how we arrived in Daphne and from there we walked into the Holy Mountain.

"As long as he was with me, I felt greatly protected. Moving on he showed me the Monastery of Xeropotamou where the Holy Forty Martyrs are honored. He asked me if I wanted us to go venerate and I approved. We entered the church (the katholikon of the Monastery) and as I was venerating the icon, forty young men encircled us. Then the young man told me that 'it is the Forty Holy Martyrs and they are rejoicing because you are becoming a monk'.

"From there we continued along the road and arrived at Karyes and from their the Holy Monastery of Koutloumousiou. Here the young man stopped, he showed me the Holy Monastery, and said: 'Here you will live Spyro. You will become a monk, you will be patient and be obedient to the elder' ... and he disappeared."

Discovery of the Relics of the Forty Holy Martyrs

A woman by the name Eusebia, who was a deaconess of the Macedonian sect, had a house and garden outside the walls of Constantinople, in which she kept the holy remains of forty soldiers, who had suffered martyrdom under Licinius at Sebaste in Armenia.

When she felt death approaching, she bequeathed the aforesaid place to some Orthodox monks, and bound them by oath to bury her there, and to hew out separately a place above her head at the top of her coffin, and to deposit the relics of the martyrs with her, and to inform no one. The monks did so; but in order to render due honor to the martyrs secretly, according to the agreement with Eusebia, they formed a subterranean house of prayer near her tomb. But open to view, an edifice was erected above the foundation, enclosed with baked bricks, and a secret descent from it to the martyrs.

Soon after, Caesar, a man among those in power, who had formerly been advanced to the dignity of consul and prefect, lost his wife, and caused her to be interred near the tomb of Eusebia; for the two ladies had been knit together by the most tender friendship, and had been of one mind on all doctrinal and religious subjects. Caesar was hence induced to purchase this place so that he might be entombed near his wife. The aforesaid monks settled elsewhere, and without divulging anything about the martyrs.

After this, when the building was demolished, and when the earth and refuse were scattered about, the whole place was smoothed off. For Caesar himself erected there a magnificent temple to God to the honor of Thyrsus, the martyr. It appears probable that God designedly willed the aforesaid place to disappear, and so long a time to elapse in order that the discovery of the martyrs might be regarded as more marvelous and a more conspicuous event, and as a proof of the Divine favor towards the discoverer.

The discoverer was, in fact, no other than the Empress Pulcheria, the sister of the emperor. The admirable Thyrsus appeared to her three times, and revealed to her those concealed beneath the earth; and commanded that they should be deposited near his tomb, in order that they might share in the same position and honor. The forty martyrs themselves also appeared to her, arrayed in shining robes. But the occurrence seemed too marvelous to be credible, and altogether impossible; for the aged of clergy of that region, after having frequently prosecuted inquiries, had not been able to indicate the position of the martyrs, nor indeed had any one else.

At length, when everything was hopeless, Polychronius, a certain presbyter, who had formerly been a servant in the household of Caesar, was reminded by God that the locality in question had once been inhabited by monks. He therefore went to the clergy of the Macedonian sect to inquire concerning them. All the monks were dead, with the exception of one, who seemed to have been preserved in life for the express purpose of pointing out the spot where the relics of the holy martyrs were concealed. Polychronius questioned him closely on the subject, and finding that, on account of the agreement made with Eusebia, his answers were somewhat undecided, he made known to him the Divine revelation and the anxiety of the empress, as well as the failure of her recourses. The monk then confessed that God had declared the truth to the empress; for at the time when he was an overgrown boy, and was taught the monastic life by its aged leaders, he remembered exactly that the relics of the martyrs had been deposited near the tomb of Eusebia; but that the subsequent lapse of time, and the changes which had been carried on in that locality, deprived him of the power of recalling to his recollection whether the relics had been deposited beneath the church or in any other spot. And further said Polychronius, "I have not suffered a like lapse of memory, for I remember that I was present at the interment of the wife of Caesar, and, as well as I can judge from the relative situation of the high road, I infer that she must have been buried beneath the ambo; this is the platform for the readers. Therefore," subjoined the monk, "it must be near the remains of Caesar's wife that the tomb of Eusebia must be sought; for the two ladies lived on terms of the closest friendship and intimacy, and mutually agreed to be interred beside each other."

When it was necessary to dig, according to the aforesaid intimations, and to track out the sacred relics, and the empress had learned the facts, she commanded them to begin the work. On digging up the earth by the ambo, the coffin of Caesar's wife was discovered according to the conjecture of Polychronius. At a short distance on the side they found the pavement of baked bricks, and a marble tablet of equal dimensions, each the measure of the bricks, under which the coffin of Eusebia was disclosed; and close by was an oratory, elegantly enclosed with white and purple marble. The cover of the tomb was in the form of a holy table, and at the summit, where the relics were deposited, a small orifice was visible. A man attached to the palace, who happened to be standing by, thrust a cane which he held in his hand into the orifice; and on withdrawing the cane he held it to his nose, and inhaled a sweet odor of myrrh, which inspired the workmen and bystanders with fresh confidence.

When they had eagerly opened the coffin, the remains of Eusebia were found, and near her head was the prominent part of the tomb fashioned exactly in the form of a chest, and was concealed within by its own cover; and the iron which enclosed it on each side at the edges was firmly held together by lead. In the middle, the same orifice again appeared, and still more clearly revealed the fact of the relics being concealed within. As soon as the discovery was announced, they ran to the church of the martyr, and sent for smiths to unfasten the iron bars, and easily drew off the lid. A great many perfumes were found thereunder, and among the perfumes two silver caskets were found in which lay the holy relics.

Then the princess returned giving thanks to God for having accounted her worthy of so great a manifestation and for attaining the discovery of the holy relics. After this she honored the martyrs with the costliest casket; and on the conclusion of a public festival which was celebrated with befitting honor and with a procession to the accompaniment of psalms, and at which I was present, the relics were placed alongside of the godlike Thyrsus. And others who were present can also bear testimony that these things were done in the way described, for almost all of them still survive. And the event occurred much later, when Proclus governed the church of Constantinople.

Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, Book IX, Ch. 2

Gender Equality and Priestly Celibacy in the Catholic Church

Two interesting articles below:

"Gender Equality" Seen to Be Hindering Women

Is Priestly Celibacy Psychologically Dangerous?

Monday, March 8, 2010

St. Luke of Crimea: Science and Religion

"When we examine contemporary science as developed by scientists such as Lamark and Darwin, we see the antithesis and I would say the complete disagreement that exists between science and religion, on topics that concern the more basic problems of existence and knowledge. For this, an enlightened mind cannot accept at the same time both one and the other and must chose between religion and science."

A well known German Zoologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), who was a good follower of Darwin, wrote these words some 65 years ago, in his book, "The Riddle of the Universe" that was very successful and as it seemed, had proved that faith is absurd. So says Haeckel that every enlightened man must choose between science and religion and should follow either one or the other. He considered it necessary that such men should deny religion because a logical man cannot deny science.

Truly, is this necessary? No, not at all, for we know that many and great scientists were at the same time great believers. For example, such was the Polish astronomer Copernicus who laid the foundation of all contemporary astronomy. Copernicus was not only a believer but was also a cleric. Another great scientist, Newton, whenever he mentioned the word God, he removed his hat. He was a great believer. A great bacteriologist of our time and almost a contemporary, Pasteur, who laid the basis of contemporary bacteriology, he would start every scientific work with a prayer to God. Some ten years ago a great scientist passed away, who was our countryman, physiologist Pavlov, who was the creator of the new physiology of the brain. He too was a great believer. Would Haeckel therefore dare say that these men did not have enlightened minds because they believed in God?

So what happens now? Why even today there are some scientists, professors at Universities whom I personally know and are great believers. Why don't all the scientists deny religion but only those who think the same as Haeckel? Because these people believe only in materialism and deny the spiritual world, they do not believe in life after death, they do not accept the immortality of the soul, and of course they do not accept the resurrection of the dead. They say that science is capable of everything, that there is no secret in nature that science cannot discover. What can we answer to these?

We shall respond to them this way. You are totally right. We cannot limit the human mind that searches nature. We know that today, science knows only a part of the things we have of nature. We also understand that the possibilities of science are great. In this they are right and we don't doubt it. What then do we doubt? Why don't we deny religion like them and consider it contrary to scientific knowledge?

It is because we believe wholeheartedly that there is a spiritual world. We are certain that apart from the material world there is an infinite and incomparably superior spiritual world. We believe in the existence of spiritual beings that have higher intellect than us humans. We believe wholeheartedly that above this spiritual and material world there is the Great and Almighty God.

What we doubt is the right of science to research with its methods the spiritual world. Because the spiritual world cannot be researched with the methods used to research the material world. Such methods are totally inappropriate to research the spiritual world.

How do we know that there is a spiritual world? Who told us that it exists? If we are asked by people who do not believe in Divine Revelation, we shall answer them thus: "Our heart told us". For there are two ways for one to know something, the first is that which is spoken by Haeckel, which is used by science to learn of the material world. There is however another way that is unknown to science, and does not wish to know it. It is the knowledge through the heart. Our heart is not only the central organ of the circulation system, it is an organ with which we know the other world and receive the highest knowledge. It is the organ that gives us the capability to communicate with God and the world above. Only in this we disagree with science.

Praising the great successes and achievements of science, we do not doubt at all its great importance and we do not confine scientific knowledge. We only tell the scientists "You do not have the capability with your methods to research the spiritual world, we however can with our heart."

There are many unexplainable phenomena which concern the spiritual world that are real (as are some type of material phenomena). There are therefore phenomena that science will never be able to explain because it does not use the appropriate methods.

Let science explain how the prophecies were made regarding the coming of the Messiah, which were all fulfilled. Could science tell us how the great prophet Isaiah, some 700 years before the birth of Christ, foretold the most important events in His life and for which he was named the evangelist of the Old Testament? Could it explain the far-sighted grace possessed by the saints and to tell us with which physical methods the saints inherited this grace and how they could understand the heart and read the thoughts of a person they had just met for the first time? They would see a person for the first time and they will call him by his name. Without waiting for the visitor to ask, they would answer on what troubled him.

If they can, let them explain it to us. Let them explain with what method the saints foretold the great historical events which were accurately fulfilled as they were prophesied. Let them explain the visitation from the other world and the appearance of the dead to the living.

They shall never explain it to us because they are too far from the basis of religion - from faith. If you read the books of the scientists who try to reconstruct religion, you will see how superficially they look at things. They do not understand the essence of religion yet they criticize it. Their criticism does not touch the essence of faith, since they are unable to understand the types, the expressions of religious feeling. The essence of religion they do not understand. Why not? Because the Lord Jesus Christ says "No one can come to me unless My Father who sent Me draws him to Me"(John 6:44).

So it is necessary that we be drawn by the Heavenly Father, and it is necessary that the grace of the Holy Spirit enlighten our heart and our mind. To dwell in our heart and mind through this enlightenment, the Holy Spirit and the ones who were found worthy to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, those in whose heart lives Christ and His Father, know the essence of faith. The others, outside the faith cannot understand anything.

Let us hear the criticism against Haeckel from a French philosopher Emile Boutroux (1845-1921). So says Boutroux" "The criticisms of Haeckel concern much more the ways, than the essence, which (the ways) he observes with such a materialistic and narrow view, that they cannot be accepted by religious people. Thus the criticism of religion by Haeckel is not referred to, not even in one of the principles that constitutes religion."

This is therefore our opinion regarding Haeckel's book "The Riddle of the Universe" which up to day is considered the "Bible" for all those who criticize religion, which they deny and find it contrary to science. Do you see how poor and tasteless arguments they use? Don't become scandalized when you hear what they say about religion, since they themselves cannot understand its essence. You people, who may not have much of a relationship with science and do not know much about philosophy, remember always the most basic beginning, which was well known by the early Christians. They considered poor, the person who knew all the sciences yet he knew not God. On the other hand, they considered blessed the person who knew God, even if he knew absolutely nothing about the worldly things.

Guard this truth like the best treasure of the heart, walk straight without looking right or left. Let us not bother with what we hear against religion, losing our bearings. Let us hold on to our faith which is the eternal indisputable truth. Amen.

A Tour of St. Irene Chrysovalantou Monastery in Lykovrisi

Many thanks to my sister Vaso, my mother, and my niece Christiana (you can see my nephews Pano and Demetri as well) for taking this rare video footage of the Holy Monastery of Saint Irene Chrysovalantou in Lykovrisi, Athens. This was filmed in the summer of 2009.

To read more about Saint Irene Chrysovalantou and her Monastery in Lykovrisi, see here, here and here.

If videos don't work, just click on them and they will take you to the originals on Youtube.

Adam's Lament

Outside the empty Paradise, Adam folds his hands,
Banished and alienated he throbbed from pain;
The angels of heaven, until then his companions,
As beautiful dreams, flew hurriedly away,
Before the banished one, before the cursed one,
Until yesterday, the mighty proprietor of Paradise!
And Adam sobbed on the cold boulder:
"Woe to my descendants! Woe to me a sinner!
For one moment, my Creator I despised
To be despised by all that was created
Throughout the days and nights,
Throughout the centuries long,
Instead of God, a serpent to have for a companion!
Instead of me, over all created things to rule,
Over me, now, everything will rule:
The winds and the heat, the elements of nature,
The beasts and scorpions, repulsive things and serpents.
Instead of freedom, behold, fear grips me,
And confuses my thoughts and chills me to the bone.
There is only One Who is able to help:
The One that I offended--Have mercy O God!"

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Why Galileo Was Wrong, Even Though He Was Right

March 7, 2010
by Cornelius Hunter
Darwin's God

In the early seventeenth century a courageous and brilliant scientist, Galileo Galileo, confirmed heliocentrism, the idea first proposed a century earlier by Nicolaus Copernicus that the sun was at the center of the universe. Heliocentrism challenged geocentrism, the religiously motivated idea that a stationary earth was at the center of the universe. Galileo explained why heliocentrism was true and not surprisingly the church strongly opposed and persecuted the scientist. Ultimately, however, the truth could not be denied and church was forced to, once again, reluctantly give in to the objective truths of science.

That was the false history of the Galileo Affair according to later revisionists who promoted the view that science and religion were in conflict. In fact while Galileo indeed was brilliant, he also made it difficult for friendly voices to support him. Furthermore he did not confirm heliocentrism, and heliocentrism was not the only viable alternative to geocentrism. And geocentrism was hardly religiously motivated. The church had little objection to heliocentrism when Copernicus wrote of the model in the sixteenth century, and Copernicus was not the first to consider the idea.

The Galileo Affair is far more complex than the simple-minded warfare thesis supposes. Yes Pope John Paul II issued a declaration in 1992 acknowledging the church's errors. And the church was no doubt mistaken. But the church's action in the Galileo Affair was far more complex than simply opposing a scientific finding out of religious conviction (Galileo's trial focused on his insubordination, not heliocentrism). In fact, there were at least four reasons why the church opposed Galileo's heliocentrism which confound the naive warfare thesis.

First, in Galileo's day internal church politics had made it less receptive to new ideas such as heliocentrism. Second, Galileo's disobedience and style--such as satirizing his friend Pope Urban VIII who had been a supporter--fomented opposition. Third, it was understood that science could devise models that, on the one hand fit the data but on the other hand were not true or approximately so. In fact, geocentrism modeled the celestial motions quite accurately. And finally, in some cases where geocentrism did fail, another alternative--Tycho Brahe's hybrid model--succeeded.

An important failure of geocentrism were the phases of Venus which indicated it circled the sun, not Earth. Galileo expounded upon this point, but what he failed to mention was that the Tychonic system, in which the sun circles the earth and the inner planets in turn circle the sun, handled the phases of Venus just fine.

In fact new research reported on this week indicates another problem with Galileo's firmly held views. When observing stars through a telescope, as Galileo did, they do not appear as points of light, as they should, but as a small extended area, or disk, as did the planets. This disk appearance is due to the diffraction of light which was unknown at the time.

Of course the stars were assumed to be like the sun, and therefore much larger than the planets. Given their larger size the observed small disk meant they must have been much farther away than the planets. But the calculated distances to the stars were thousands of times less than what we now calculate. Yes the stars were far away, but those small disks were misleading. The diffracting light made the stars appear closer than they actually are.

Galileo was therefore assuming the stars were much closer than they actually are. Why is this important? Consider objects you observe out the window as you sit in a moving train. A nearby tree may be behind a closer tree, but as the train moves you will see the farther tree emerge as your angle changes. Two stars in the sky, on the other hand, do not move in relation to each other as you move along, because they are so far away.

Because Galileo calculated the stars to be much closer than they actually are, he would necessarily expect to see some change in their relative positions as the earth circled the sun in his heliocentric model. But no such relative change was observed. It was an important failure of Galileo's model which, again, he did not mention. And again, it was an observation that the Tychonic system handled just fine.

What the new research points out is that a contemporary of Galileo, the German astronomer Simon Marius, famous for naming the moons of Jupiter, was aware of these implications and followed them to their logical conclusion.

While Galileo was making high claims for heliocentrism, Marius had made clear in his 1614 book Mundus Iovialis (The Jovian World), that the observations confirmed the earth-centered Tychonic system.

The new paper, aptly entitled "How Marius Was Right and Galileo Was Wrong Even Though Galileo Was Right and Marius Was Wrong," is another example of how not just science, but the history of science, is more complicated than self-serving black-white renditions would have it.

The Desperation of the Multiverse Theory

Multiverse Mavens Hoisted on Own Petard

6 March 2010
Barry Arrington
UncommonDescent

Several factors are combining to increase belief (of the “faith” variety, not the “demonstrated fact” variety) in the multiverse among materialists. Two of these factors are relevant to ID at the biological and cosmological levels. At the biological level materialists are beginning to understand that the probability that life arose by random material processes is so low (estimated in this article written by materialists to be 10 raised to -1018) that infinite universes are required for it to have occurred, the implication being that we just happen to live in the ever-so-lucky universe where it all came together.

At the cosmological level, the probability that the fine tuning of the universe necessary for the existence of life arose by sheer coincidence is so low that again the multiverse is invoked to provide infinite “probabilistic resources” to do the job (see here).

Of course, there is another possible explanation for both the emergence of life and the fine tuning of the universe. These phenomena may be the results of acts of a super powerful being whom we might call God.

Obviously, the whole reason materialists have invoked the multiverse in the first place is to avoid resorting to agency to explain the emergence of life and cosmological fine tuning. But isn’t it obvious that given the very premises invoked by materialists in the multiverse scenarios that we can just as easily conclude that God exists.

Here is how the logic runs: The materialists says, “Yes, the probability that life emerged through random material processes is vanishingly small, but in an infinite multiverse everything that is not logically impossible is in fact instantiated, and we just happen to live in the lucky universe where life was instantiated. Similarly, we happen to live in the Goldilocks universe (which, again, is one of infinite universes) where the physical constants are just right for the existence of life.”

But the theist can play this game too. “The existence of God is not logically impossible. In an infinite number of universes everything that is not logically impossible is in fact instantiated, and we just happen to live in one of those universes in which God is instantiated.”

I do not believe in the multiverse. The entire concept is a desperation “Hail Mary” pass in which logical positivists and their materialist fellow travelers are attempting to save a philosophical construct on the brink of destruction. The point is that materialists’ own multiverse premise leads to the conclusion that God exists more readily than the opposite conclusion. Ironically, far from excluding the existence of God, if the multiverse exists, God must also exist.

'Mystical' Stone Puts Plumber On New Path

March 2010
Ananova

A Polish plumber has become a faith healer after finding a 'mystical' stone while digging up drains under his house.

Jacek Slominski has been swamped by demands from hundreds of patients since he pulled the stone from the earth where it had lain undisturbed for hundreds of years.

"It has a huge Z carved into it and as soon as I touched it I felt this tremendous energy coming from it," he said.

"I've had a bad back for years but all of a sudden all the pain left me and never returned," he added at his home in Bialystok.

Now Mr Slominski has become a full time healer and claims that patients travel hundreds of miles just to touch his healing stone. "I don't understand it but it works and it's better than fixing broken toilets," he said.

Icon of Virgin Mary Weeps In France

Virgin Mary Icon 'Crying Tears of Oil' in France

An image of the Virgin Mary has been crying tears of oil, its owner has claimed, in a story that has drawn hundreds of visitors to the man's home in France.

08 Mar 2010
Telegraph UK

Esat Altindagoglu has been inundated with more than 50 visitors a day hoping to see the "miracle" at his house near Paris.

The one-foot high painting was given to his wife Sevin by a Lebanese priest on her birthday in 2006, the Turkish-born salesman said.

It began weeping oil on February 12 this year, and had been "crying" every day since, he claimed.

He said: "As word spread, people started arriving from France, then from all over Europe.

"I've been having between 50 and 60 people a day turning up for more than three weeks now."

An Orthodox priest had now agreed to say mass at his home in Garges-les-Gonesse this week to thank the Virgin Mary, Mr Altindagoglu said.

He added: "Apparently the next step is to have the weeping witnessed by a bishop so the miracle can be officially recognised by the church."

Over the centuries there have been hundreds of incidents of statues said to have wept blood, oil or water.

But the only one ever approved as a miracle by the Pope was Our Lady of Akita in Japan, in 1973, with all the others ruled out as hoaxes.

See more here.

Idle Chit Chat Can Make You Unhappy

06 Mar 2010
Telegraph UK

Having a profound conversation can boost happiness levels, but trivial chatter can be depressing, scientists say.

Psychologists investigated whether happy and unhappy people differed because of the types of conversations they engaged in.

Volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device to monitor conversations with friends and colleagues for four days.

Researchers then listened to the recordings and identified them as trivial small talk or substantive discussions.

In addition, the volunteers completed personality and wellbeing assessments.

Reporting the findings in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers said the recordings revealed some startling findings.

Greater wellbeing was related to spending less time alone and more time talking to others. The happiest participants spent 25 per cent less time alone and 70 per cent more time talking than the unhappiest.

But the researchers were surprised to discover that the type of conversations people took part in also affected their happiness levels.

The happiest participants had twice as many deep and meaningful conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest.

Matthias Mehl, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, said: "These findings suggest that the happy life is social and conversationally deep rather than solitary and superficial."

The researchers conclude that profound conversations may have the potential to make people happier.

They said: "Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in interaction with partners."

Lost Jewish Tribe 'Found in Zimbabwe'

By Steve Vickers
BBC News
Harare

The Lemba people of Zimbabwe and South Africa may look like their compatriots, but they follow a very different set of customs and traditions.

They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones.

Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago.

It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which have confirmed their Semitic origin.

These tests back up the group's belief that a group of perhaps seven men married African women and settled on the continent. The Lemba, who number perhaps 80,000, live in central Zimbabwe and the north of South Africa.

And they also have a prized religious artefact that they say connects them to their Jewish ancestry - a replica of the Biblical Ark of the Covenant known as the ngoma lungundu, meaning "the drum that thunders".

The object went on display recently at a Harare museum to much fanfare, and instilled pride in many of the Lemba.

"For me it's the starting point," says religious singer Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave.

"Very few people knew about us and this is the time to come out. I'm very proud to realise that we have a rich culture and I'm proud to be a Lemba.

"We have been a very secretive people, because we believe we are a special people."

Religion vs culture

The Lemba have many customs and regulations that tally with Jewish tradition.

They wear skull caps, practise circumcision, which is not a tradition for most Zimbabweans, avoid eating pork and food with animal blood, and have 12 tribes.

They slaughter animals in the same way as Jewish people, and they put the Jewish Star of David on their tombstones.

Members of the priestly clan of the Lemba, known as the Buba, were even discovered to have a genetic element also found among the Jewish priestly line.

"This was amazing," said Prof Tudor Parfitt, from the University of London.

"It looks as if the Jewish priesthood continued in the West by people called Cohen, and in same way it was continued by the priestly clan of the Lemba.

"They have a common ancestor who geneticists say lived about 3,000 years ago somewhere in north Arabia, which is the time of Moses and Aaron when the Jewish priesthood started."

Prof Parfitt is a world-renowned expert, having spent 20 years researching the Lemba, and living with them for six months.

The Lemba have a sacred prayer language which is a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, pointing to their roots in Israel and Yemen.

Despite their ties to Judaism, many of the Lemba in Zimbabwe are Christians, while some are Muslims.

"Christianity is my religion, and Judaism is my culture," explains Perez Hamandishe, a pastor and member of parliament from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Despite their centuries-old traditions, some younger Lemba are taking a more liberal view.

"In the old days you didn't marry a non-Lemba, but these days we interact with others," says Alex Makotore, son of the late Chief Mposi from the Lemba "headquarters" in Mberengwa.

"I feel special in my heart but not in front of others such that I'm separated from them. Culture is dynamic."

Crowds

The oral traditions of the Lemba say that the ngoma lungundu is the Biblical wooden Ark made by Moses, and that centuries ago a small group of men began a long journey carrying it from Yemen to southern Africa.

The object went missing during the 1970s and was eventually rediscovered in Harare in 2007 by Prof Parfitt.

"Many people say that the story is far-fetched, but the oral traditions of the Lemba have been backed up by science," he says.

Carbon dating shows the ngoma to be nearly 700 years old - pretty ancient, if not as old as Bible stories would suggest.

But Prof Parfitt says this is because the ngoma was used in battles, and would explode and be rebuilt.

The ngoma now on display was a replica, he says, possibly built from the remains of the original.

"So it's the closest descendant of the Ark that we know of," Prof Parfitt says.

Large crowds came to see the unveiling of the ngoma and to attend lectures on the identity of the Lemba.

For David Maramwidze, an elder in his village, the discovery of the ngoma has been a defining moment.

"Hearing from those professors in Harare and seeing the ngoma makes it clear that we are a great people and I'm very proud," he says.

"I heard about it all my life and it was hard for me to believe, because I had no idea of what it really is.

"I'm still seeing the picture of the ngoma in my mind and it will never come out from my brain. Now we want it to be given back to the Lemba people."

Sermon for the Third Sunday of Great Lent

CATECHESIS 63: Historical, Concerning the Christians Who Were Massacred in Bulgaria During the Holy Lent, On Account of Meat-eating.

by St. Theodore the Studite

Given On the 3rd Sunday.

Brethren and fathers, in the present instruction I want to urge you to consolation from a certain story. The story is this: In Bulgaria, as those who were accurately informed have reported, an evil decree went out from the ruler there that the Christians in captivity and our brothers were to eat meat during the period of the holy Forty Days; those who obeyed would live, those who disobeyed would be killed. The word of the godless was exceedingly strong and the people assembled and there was weeping and groans and much lamentation with women and children, on the one side of those clinging to the Christian law, on the other of those quailing before the death of the flesh. Finally — ah, the pitiable announcement — they were defeated and submitted to the godless order. Fourteen of them though broke away and stood apart saying it was not possible either to obey or to eat meat in violation of the Christian law. At this, appeals and exhortations by the people were made: 'Let them yield to constraint, not die foolishly, and through repentance they can be restored again.' But nothing could persuade them or weaken them from keeping their gaze fixed on God and on the blessedness that was laid up in his promises. The Scythian then, when he saw the implacable determination of the men, thought to subdue the rest by means of one, and having slain him he at once distributed his children and his wife among the Scythians as slaves, so that the others weakened by this would be brought over. But they rather remained unbowed and shouted out, ‘We are Christians, and our lot is that of our dead brother’. At this confession they were crucified on planks and died in the Lord.

You see, therefore, brethren, that even now too the Gospel of the kingdom of God is active. 'One who loves father or mother,' it says, 'more than me is not worthy of me; and one who loves son or daughter or wife more than me is not worthy of me; and one who does not take up his cross and follow after me, is not worthy of me' [Matt. 10:37-38]. And again, 'Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul; rather fear one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna' [Matt. 10:28]. They were obedient then to the commands of the Gospel, they obeyed the authority of the Lord and were wreathed with the crown of martyrdom, imitating the holy Maccabees and doubling their number, for the Maccabees were seven, but they were fourteen; the former so as not to taste swine’s meat in violation of the law, the latter so as not to partake of any meat in violation of the Christian rule; this latter seems stricter, because for the Maccabees partaking of pork was utterly forbidden, but for these men it was permissible to partake of any meat under necessity, as St Basil says. But since the order from the Scythians was aimed at the rejection of the faith, they refused; but they considered all things as secondary for the love of Christ. O blessed men! O blessed action! in a single instant to have received in exchange eternal rest! What will they say to this, those who deny that heretical communion is a breach of faith? For if there there was a breach of faith by the people over eating meat, how much more here over the heretically sacrificed communion. Where too are those who say that there is no ground for martyrdom in the image of Christ? For if there there was ground for martyrdom for those who did not eat meat, how much more here is the ground for martyrdom resplendent for those who have not denied. But the heretics, because they are dark themselves, also speak things that are dark as they try to embroil others in their own falls.

But let us, brethren, glorify our good God, who glorifies those who have glorified Him, who reveals martyrs in this generation too, as we reflect on the fact that if men who were apparently lowly, uneducated, married and with children gave everything up for the love of Christ, how much more should we, who are unmarried and outside the world, when the moment calls, become as zealous as the saints. But this is for a day when Christ calls us; now though, let us stand firm for the uninterrupted martyrdom according to the conscience. Let us not bow the knee to Baal, brethren, and let us not give in when struck by thoughts [logismoi], but let us rather quench the fiery arrows of the evil one with tears, with supplications, with compunction, with the other batterings of the body, so that we too may be able to say with the Apostle, 'Every day I die, that is as certain as the boast in you, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord' [1 Cor. 15:31]; and with the holy David, 'Because for You we die all the day, we were reckoned as sheep for the slaughter' [Ps. 43:23]. With them may we be found worthy to become heirs of the kingdom of heaven, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and might, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

Source

An Evolving Alphabet

Read more here: How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs

Do Not Let The Passions Take Root

A thick rope is made from thin, fibrous strands of hemp. One thin fiber cannot hold you tied nor can it strangle you. For you will easily, as in jest, break it and free yourself from it. If you are tied by a thick rope, you can be held bound and even be strangled by it. Neither can you break it easily nor free yourself from it.

As a thick rope consists of thin and weak fibers, so the passions of man consist of minor sins. Man can break off and turn away from the beginnings of minor sins. But, when sin after sin is repeated, the weave becomes all the more stronger and stronger until in the end a passion is created, which then turns man into some kind of monster as only it knows how. You cannot easily cut it off, nor distance yourself from it, nor can you divorce yourself from it.

O, if only men would beware and take care of the beginnings of sins! Then, they would not have to endure much in freeing themselves from passions. "To cut off rooted passions is as difficult as cutting off the fingers," said a monk from the Holy Mountain. To free himself from sinful passions, St. Emilianus was helped by thinking thoughts of death and, understandably, the Grace of God, without which it is extremely difficult to rid oneself of the fetters of passion. To think often of impending death, to repent and to implore Grace from Almighty God, these three save a man from the bondage of sin.

St. Sisoes was asked, "At which time can passions be uprooted?" The saint replied, "As soon as one passion takes root in you, uproot it immediately."

- St. Nikoali Velimirovich, Prologue

Sunday, March 7, 2010

"The Life In Christ" by Fr. John Romanides

INTRODUCTION

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Dr. Andrew Sopko once remarked that Fr. John Romanides “manifests a rather elusive presence, remaining on the periphery of many of the predominant themes occupying Orthodox theology today.” One explanation Sopko proffers for Fr. John’s continued obscurity is that half of his work was written in Greek and the other half in English, and since Greek is not commonly spoken in the West, few are in a position to “see the complete picture.” Until now, the existence of a sermon by Fr. John in French, composed in the mid-fifties while he was a student at L’Institut de Theologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge, further complicated the situation. We have translated this worthy but unnoticed piece — Fr. John’s “La Vie dans Christ” — as a continuation of Fr. Alexios Trader’s admirable achievement in translating Patristic Theology: The University Lectures of John Romanides, published by Uncut Mountain Press earlier this year. Now efforts can be focused on Fr. John’s many great works in Greek that have yet to be translated, chief amongst them the masterful Romeosyne, Romania, Rumeli.

In “The Life in Christ” Fr. John’s message is urgent: Today’s Orthodox have forgotten the meaning of life in the Holy Sacraments. True membership in the Body of Christ is grounded in a day-to-day crucifixion of one’s sentimental, eudaemonistic love. Such a crucifixion gradually replaces self-centered love with the kenotic love of the Cross, which “seeketh not its own.” However, this call to arms bears no resemblance to the revivalism of American Protestantism, because for Fr. John the spiritual ascesis of the individual Christian is inseparable from life in the Holy Sacraments. Sacramental life, in turn, is always presented as a literal union of love between actual people who are waging unremitting warfare against Satan, side by side with the Holy Angels as well as with the Saints of all eras.

In Fr. John’s important early essay, “Man and His True Life According to the Greek Orthodox Service Books,” Holy Baptism is viewed as the culmination of an arduous catechesis of self-denial and noetic purification, at the end of which the newly-illumined “can freely choose to die with Christ to the vanity of the ways of this world and live within the love of the corporate life in the body of Christ.” The same hesychastic notion of sacramental life is found in “The Life in Christ,” where Fr. John proclaims that: "The one who is a living member of the Body of Christ is one who is dead to the power of death and who lives in the renewal of the Spirit of life. For this very reason, those who denied Christ during persecution, even after hours of torture, were considered excommunicated."

Fr. John’s “coenobitic” Church corresponds to Fr. Alexander Golitzin’s vision of the Church as a single Temple which is also Threefold: 1) the Cardial Temple, where man purifies his heart to receive the Holy Spirit; 2) the Physical Temple, where the faithful gather to communally fight the devil; 3) and the Heavenly Temple, where those faithful on the other side of death ceaselessly offer “Holy things to the Holy.”

In closing, let us note that “The Life in Christ” contributes to Fr. John’s “neopatristic synthesis” by its insistence that the life in Christ is always a rediscovery of the mind of Christ, which does not change. Why is it that many Orthodox traditionalists who seek to preserve the true fullness of the Church’s life end up as mere "conservatives,” unable to discern what is changeless from what must change in the maintenance of a living Tradition? Fr. John, though his immediate audience in “The Life in Christ” was the youth of a secularized French society in the 1950s, formulates an answer which applies equally to today’s troubled seekers who would recover Orthodox Tradition in their own lives: Just as the essential methods and aims of the devil never change, likewise the Orthodox method for defeating the devil does not change, but is preserved in the spiritual “[g]uidance, participation in prayer, and communion” which together constitute hesychasm. “The Life in Christ” evinces Fr. John’s belief that hesychasm is the only life that truly is in Christ, since its Orthodox therapeutic cure is grounded solely in the reality of Christ in the Holy Sacraments of the Church.

The Life in Christ

By Protopresbyter John Romanides

The sacred task that faces Orthodoxy today, and in particular its youth, who are often lost in the liberalism of past generations, is the rediscovery of the Paschal victory in the daily life of the Church. The common faith and worship of the Apostles and the Fathers remains essentially unchanged in our liturgical and canonical books, but in practice, in the spirit of clergy and faithful, there is great confusion, no doubt due to a lack of spiritual understanding of the very nature of the work of Christ in the Church. Thus many people who claim to be Orthodox and who sincerely want to be, conceive of the life of the Church according to vague personal sentiments and not according to the spirit of the Apostles and Fathers of the Church. What is lacking is a living acceptance (acceptation vivante) that presupposes the sacramental life of the Church.

This lack of understanding explains to a large extent the weaknesses of the Church in the Western world and, in particular, characterizes its attitude toward various schisms and heresies. Those who cannot understand that “The Spirit itself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16) cannot preach the truth, but must ask themselves the question: Are not they themselves outside the Truth and, therefore, dead members of the Church?

1. Presuppositions of Sacramental Life

In contrast to most Western religions that generally accept death as a normal phenomenon, or even regard it as a result of a legal decision of God to punish the sinner, the Patristic Tradition of the [Christian] East takes very seriously the fact that death is intrinsically linked to sin (I Cor. 15:56) and that it is under the power of the Devil (Heb. 2:14). The Fathers of the [Christian] East rejected the idea that God is the author of death, that the world is “normal” in its current condition, and that man can live a “normal” life solely based on following natural laws that are assumed to govern the universe.

The Orthodox conception of the universe is incompatible with a static system of natural moral laws. The world is, on the contrary, seen as a field of action and struggle of living persons. A living and personal God is the originator of creation in its entirety. His omnipresence does not exclude, however, other wills, themselves established by Him even with the power to dismiss the will of their Creator. Thus, the Devil is not only able to exist, but also to aspire to the destruction of works of God. He does this by trying to lure the creation toward the nothingness from which it was formed. Death, which is a “return to nothingness” (St. Athanasius, Incarnatio Verbi, 4-5), constitutes the very essence of demonic power in creation (Rom. 8:19-22). The resurrection of Christ in the very reality of his flesh and his bones (Luke 24:39) not only serves as proof of the “abnormal” character of death, but also designates it as the true enemy (I Cor. 15:26). But if death is an abnormal phenomenon, there can be nothing resembling a “moral law” inherent in the universe. The Bible, at least, does not know of one (Rom. 8: 19-22). Otherwise, the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself in vain “for our sins so that we might uproot this present evil age.”

The destiny of man has been perfection since his origin, and is the same today: to become perfect, as God is perfect (Eph. 5:1, 4:13). The achievement of this perfection was rendered impossible by the coming of death into the world (Rom. 5:12), for “the sting of death is sin” (I Cor 15:56). Once submitted to the power of death, man can only concern himself with the sufficiency of the flesh (Rom. 7:14-25). His instinct for self-preservation saturates his everyday life and often leads him to be unfair to others for personal gain (I Thes. 4:4). A man subjected to the fear of death (Heb 2:15) cannot live the life of love of the Creator and be an imitator of God (Eph 5:1). Death and the instinct for self-preservation are at the root of sin that separates man from unity in love, life, and divine truth. According to St. Cyril of Alexandria, death is the enemy that prevents man from loving God and neighbor without anxiety or concern for his own security and his own comfort. For fear of becoming valueless and meaningless, man seeks to demonstrate to himself and to others that he is really worth something. He is then obliged to make himself appear, at least from a certain point of view, superior to others. He loves those who flatter him and hates those who insult him. An insult profoundly affects a man who is afraid of becoming insignificant! Whoever the world sees as a “natural man” almost always lives a life of half-lies and of disappointments. He cannot love his friends who give him a sense of security, while his instinct for self-preservation, both moral and physical, causes him to hate his enemies (Matt. 5:46-48; Luke 6:32-36).

Death is the source of individualism: it has the power to enslave the free will of man completely to the “body of death” (Rom. 7:18). It is death which, by reducing mankind to self-centeredness and egotism, blinds men to the truth. And the truth is rejected by many, because it is too difficult to accept. Man always prefers to accept a truth that satisfies his personal desires. Mankind seeks security and happiness rather than the sufferance of a love that is a self-offering (Philip. 1: 27-29). The natural man seeks a sentimental religion of security in moral precepts and simple rules that generate feelings of comfort, but require no effort at self-denial in “death with Christ to the elements of the world” (Col. 2:20). The Apostles and Fathers do not transmit to us a faith accomplished in “feelings of piety or comfort”. Instead, on every page they raise a cry of victory over death and corruption. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is your victory? ...Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Cor. 15: 55-57).

The victory of Christ over the devil has destroyed the power of death that separated man from God and neighbor (Eph. 2:13-22). This victory over death and corruption has been accomplished in the flesh of Christ (ibid. 2:15), as well as among the just ones who have died before (I Pet. 3:19). “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life” (Paschal Hymn). The Kingdom of God is already established, both beyond the grave and on this side of it (Eph. 2:19). The gates of hell cannot prevail over the Body of Christ (Mat. 16:18). The power of death cannot seize the kingdom of life. Each day the Devil and his kingdom moves a little closer to their final defeat (I Cor. 15:26), which is assured in the Body of Christ.

2. Sacramental Participation in the Victory of the Cross

Participation in the victory of the Cross is not only a hope for the future, but a present reality (Eph. 2:13-22). It is given to those who are baptized (Rom. 6:3-4) and grafted into the Body of Christ (Jn. 15:1-8). There is nevertheless no magical guarantee of salvation and of continued participation in the life of Christ (Rom. 9:19-20).

Christ came to destroy the power of disunity, uniting those who believe in him in his own Body. The external sign of the Church is unity of love (Jn. 17:21), while the center and the source of this unity is the Eucharist: “Since there is one bread, we who are several, are one body, because we are all part of one Bread” (I Cor. 6:19-20). Baptism and Confirmation grafts us to the Body of Christ, while the Eucharist keeps us alive in Christ and united with each other by the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit in our body (I Cor. 6:19-20). Faith is insufficient for salvation. The catechumens who were already “believers” had to stay vigilant before receiving baptism in rejecting anything that the world sees as “normal life” in the corrupt body of sin and death, to be resurrected in the unity of the Spirit, that is to say, to be united with other members of a local community in Christ and the communal life of love. Orthodoxy knows nothing of a sentimental love for humanity. It is with concrete individuals that we must be united to live in Christ. The only way that leads to the love of Christ is that of a real love for others. “I tell you the truth, whenever you have done these things to one of these, my brethren, it is to me that you have done them” (Mt. 15:20).

Love in the Body of Christ does not consist in vague abstractions expressing the need to serve ideologies or human causes. Love, according to the image of Christ, consists in being crucified to the world and is the liberation of the self from all vague ideas in order to live in the complexity of communal life, seeking to love Christ in the body of brethren who have a very real existence. It is easy to talk about love and goodness, but it is very difficult to enter into sincere and intimate relationships with people of diverse origins. It is, however, the death and resurrection in Christ that has established a community of saints who think not of themselves, nor of their own opinions, but continually express their love for Christ and other men, seeking to humble themselves as Christ was humiliated. What was not possible under the law of death has become possible through unity in the Spirit of life.

3. How We Today Achieve the Victory of the Cross

Throughout its history the Church has had to fight sin and corruption within its own members, and often within its clergy. However, in every epoch She knew how to implement the appropriate means, as She always remained able to recognize the enemy. The Church exists in the truth not because all its members are without sin, but because the sacramental life is always present in Her and against Her the Devil is defenseless. “When you often assemble in one place (epi to auto), the power of Satan is destroyed” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians, 13). Whenever members of a community gather to celebrate the Eucharist and are in the condition to exchange the kiss of peace to commune together in the Body and Blood of Christ, the devil is defeated. However, when a member of the Body of Christ communes unworthily, he eats and drinks damnation (I Cor. 11:29). When a Christian does not commune at all with the Body and Blood of Christ in every Eucharist, he is spiritually dead (Jn. 6:53). The Church has categorically refused to endorse the practice whereby a large number of Christians attend the Eucharist, while a few commune. Guidance, participation in prayer and communion are inseparable (7th Apostolic Canon; St. John Chrysostom, 3rd Homily On Ephesians). “Let no one be deceived: if somebody is outside the sanctuary, he is deprived of the Bread of God...he who does not gather together with the Church has shown his pride and has condemned himself” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Eph. 5). The Biblical and Patristic tradition is unanimous on one point: The one who is a living member of the Body of Christ is one who is dead to the power of death and who lives in the renewal of the Spirit of life. For this very reason, those who denied Christ during persecution, even after hours of torture, were considered excommunicated. Once a Christian died with Christ in baptism, he was expected to be ready to die anytime in the name of Christ. “Whoever denies me before men I will deny also before my Father in heaven” (Mat. 10:33). The 10th Canon of the First Ecumenical Council does not merely prohibit the ordination of anyone who has denied Christ during the persecution, but declares the automatic invalidation of any such ordination, even if it took place in ignorance of the ordainer. All who have performed such an ordination are themselves deprived of the priesthood. What serious breakers of the vows of baptism are those who are too lazy to go to church. The approval that our clergy today gives our sacramental practice is even more unacceptable! If the Christian was excommunicated for having denied Christ after hours of physical torture, those who week after week excommunicate themselves are all the more condemnable.

The character and methods of the Devil have not changed. He has remained similar to himself, as Paul described, capable of “transforming into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:15). The power of death in the world remains the same. The means of salvation, the death of baptism and the life of the Eucharist, have thus remained the same (at least in the liturgical books of the Church). The canons of the Church were never changed. We always read the same Scriptures approved by the Fathers. How then can we explain our modern weaknesses? They have never been so evident.

There can be only one answer to this question. The members of the Church are not fighting evil in the spirit of the Bible. Too many Christians employ the Church for their own interests and interpret the doctrine of Christ according to their own feelings. The essential task of the Orthodox youth today must be to return to the truth of the Apostles and the Fathers and to not walk according to the laws of the prince of darkness and the elements of this world. It is for this reason that Christ died. To deny this is to deny his Cross and the blood of martyrs. Before criticizing the “inflexibility” of patristic doctrine, the modern Orthodox must return to the presuppositions of life in Christ in Scripture and be careful not to pervert the doctrine of Christ.

”La Vie dans Christ” originally appeared in SYNAXE No 21 (p.26-28) and No 22 (p.23-26). To God Be Glory, Amen.

Translated from the French with an Introduction by James L. Kelley

Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem

The present Sunday, the Third Sunday of Great Lent, the Orthodox Church invites us to focus on the Holy Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, a source of blessing and support for this period of fasting and of our entire life in general.

Below is some information on the historical Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, a monastery inextricably related to the whole history of Orthodoxy's most precious emblem.

The Monastery of the Cross is a solitary Roman monastery located outside the Old City of Jerusalem. Its name is based on the tradition that it stands where the tree grew that was used to make Christ's cross.

The Holy Tree, according to the tradition of the Monastery, was based on a triplet seeding (olive + cypress + cedar) that Abraham gave to Lot. Lot planted the tree at this site and watered it with waters he fetched from the Jordan river. The tree was later used to create the Holy Cross on which Jesus was crucified. A room inside the Monastery marks the site of the tree. (Pictures below commemorate this event).

There was a Christian church on this site in the 5th century said to have been built by Saint Helen, the mother of Emperor Constantine I, but it was destroyed by the Persians in 614 AD (you can see part of the original mosaic floor next to the main altar in the present church).

The Monastery of the Cross' high, fortress-like walls reflect its precarious position outside the city walls.

By the 14th century, the monastery had become the center of the Georgian community in Jerusalem. By 1685, however, the monastery had been taken over by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate.

The simple dome is one of the church's most beautiful features. Also worth seeing are the frescoes, which were repainted in the 17th century based on 13th century originals and show an unusual combination of Christian, pagan, and worldly images.

The monastery's refectory and kitchen provide a glimpse into monastic life. A small museum displays the monastery's treasures.

The monastery remains active today, but visitors are permitted to wander freely around the monastery complex.

For more pictures, see here.