The Horrific Martyrdom of Hieromartyr Theodore of Vrsha

Our father among the saints Hieromartyr Teodor or Theodore (Nestorović) of Vršac or Vrsha (Свети свештеномученик Теодор (Несторовић) Вршачки) was a Serbian Orthodox bishop of Vršac in the sixteenth century. His feast day is May 16/29.

During the Austro-Turkish War (1593-1606), many Serbians suffered under the Turkish Islamic warriors. The Serbs in Banat decided to protect their families from these Turkish troops and asked their bishop, Teodor, to lead them. He joined the rebellion against the Turks in 1593. The Serbs liberated some towns but in the end were defeated. Bishop Teodor, along with a large group of people, left for Transylvania. The Turks then promised that they would stop killing innocent people if Teodor were to return. When he did, he was seized in 1595 and then killed in a terrible fashion: his skin was ripped off.

Kontakion in Tone 8
Let God be praised in the fields and meadows, on the green mountain tops and in the valleys below, on the rushing rivers and in dark caves, since every place has been watered by the innocent and holy blood of many Serbian Martyrs: worthy stewards, brave soldiers, young boys and children and chaste virgins; let God be praised and let everyone keep silent, for the Lord of all rules the world.

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Reproach for the Sake of Christ Greater Than Riches

"By faith Moses considered reproach for the sake of Christ of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward" (Hebrews 11:24-26).

Moses did not want to remain in the palace of the pharaoh nor to be called the adopted son of pharaoh. Desiring more, "He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than enjoy the fleeting pleasure of sin" (Hebrews 11:25). How different was Moses from his descendants [The Jews], who out of pharonic reasons, condemned the King of Glory to death! All of them would have liked to live one more year in the decaying court of the pharaoh rather than to travel with God for forty years in the wilderness. Moses left all honors, all riches and all vanities, which only the wealth of Egypt could provide. At the command of God, Moses started out through the hungry and thirsty wilderness with faith that beyond there lay the Promised Land. All of this also means to hold the "reproach for the sake of Christ" above all the wealth of Egypt.

The "reproach for the sake of Christ" is that which the men of this world with a powerful stench of the earth, are ashamed in Christ. That is Christ's poverty on earth, His fasting, His vigil, His prayer, His wandering without a roof over His head, His condemnation, His humiliation, and His shameful death. This "reproach for the sake of Christ" was valued by the apostles, and after them, by countless saints, who thought this to be of greater wealth than all the riches in the entire world. Following these indignities, the Lord resurrected and opened the gates of heaven and revealed the Promised Land of Paradise, into which He led mankind along the path of His reproach or the wilderness of His suffering.

O Lord, glorified and resurrected, help us that we may hold unwaveringly every drop of Your sweat and Your blood as a treasure greater than all worldly riches.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Church of Greece Facing New Tax Impostitions

Greek Orthodox Bishop Denounces New Taxes on Church as Hostile

Mar 17, 2010
Reuters

By Renee Maltezou

ATHENS – A senior cleric has accused Greece’s socialist government of being hostile to the Orthodox Church for imposing taxes on it as part of a drive to tame a budget crisis that has shaken global markets.

Greece, where about 90 percent of the 11 million-strong population are Christian Orthodox, will tax bequests and revenues from church property as it seeks to tackle a 300 billion euro ($409.9 billion) debt pile.

In a country where a bishop sits on the board of the biggest bank and the top cleric swears in the government, many on the streets of Athens felt the church should do its bit given the sacrifices they are making.

“It was about time the Church paid. It’s fair,” said Christina Alexiadou, 55, an accountant and frequent church-goer. “It can’t be that only ordinary people pay for everything.”

The Church of Greece, one of the country’s biggest owners of prime real estate, has until now been largely exempt from taxes even though the state pays priests’ salaries.

The government, which had announced earlier this month that the church would have to contribute to its budget drive, said late on Monday that church income from real estate holdings would be taxed at 20 percent.

Cash bequests will face a levy of 10 percent and property bequests a 5 percent charge.

“The 20 percent hits us right between the eyes,” Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki told public television on Tuesday. “This is a hostile stand, I don’t intend to hide it.”

Details of the measures come just two weeks before Easter, the Orthodox Church’s biggest festival of the year.

Polls show the majority of Greeks are ready to accept draconian austerity measures that include tax rises, pension freezes and lower pay for public sector workers.

“The church is wealthy and can help the country out of the crisis,” 36-year old bus driver Alexandros Kagris said. “Isn’t this what the church is for, to help people?”

GREEK SALVATION

According to an internal report published by Greek daily Kathimerini last year the Church’s total income reached 20 million euros in 2008, including 12.7 million from renting out church property. Its profit for the year was 7 million euros.

A spokesman for the church, which owns a 150 million euro stake in National Bank of Greece, declined to comment on its income or the new tax bill which is expected to go to parliament on Monday and enter force as soon as it is adopted.

It is not the first time church and state have clashed. In 2000 they fell out over EU rules requiring that religion be dropped from ID cards.

Theodore Couloumbis, deputy head of the ELIAMEP think-tank, said he did not expect the church as an institution to speak out against the taxes, however.

“The fact that we are going through a major crisis will make it easier for the Church to accept this measure, otherwise it will be thought of as not contributing to the salvation of Greece’s economy,” said Couloumbis.

The church’s ruling body issued a statement blessing politicians but making no reference to the new taxes.

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The Future of the GOA Rests On 32 Celibate Clergy

According to the National Herald, the future leadership of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America rests on 32 qualified celibate priests out of the approximately 600 reported priests of the GOA. These numbers were issued out of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 16 September 2009.

Out of the 32 celibate priests, 5 of them were previously married and have now risen to the rank of Archimandrite. However, 1 of these 5 is over 80 years old, and 2 are over 70.

The Archdiocese currently has 12 hierarchs not counting Archbishop Demetrios. 9 serve their respected Metropolis while 3 serve as titular Bishops. Of these there are 2 who are over 80 (Archbishop Demetrios and Iakovos of Chicago), 2 are over 70 (Maximus of Pittsburgh and Isaiah of Denver), and 3 are over 60 (Alexios of Atlanta, Methodios of Boston, and Gerasimos of San Francisco). Nicholas of Detroit is over 55 and Evangelos of New Jersey is near 50.

For more details, see here.

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Catholic Priests Speaking Out Against Celibacy

Priests With Love Lives Speak Out Against Celibacy

Angela Charlton and Victor L. Simpson
Associate Press
March 17, 2010

Paris, France - Leon Laclau shared his life, and often, his bed, with Marga over 20 years - all while serving as a Catholic priest in a town in the French Pyrenees.

His clerical leadership eventually expelled him, prompting protests from his flock and inspiring other priests and their partners around France to speak out about long-hidden love lives, and to press the Church to abandon its insistence on celibacy.

They say the chastity rule has fed the persistent, profound decline in the numbers of European and American priests. More influential voices are joining them as scandals involving sexual abuse and pedophilia spread across parishes around Europe.

The Vatican rejects any link between celibacy and sex abuse and shows no sign it intends to loosen its rules. Instead, church leaders are likely to continue a don't ask-don't tell policy of ignoring priestly relationships, as long as they cause no harm.

"Love, my love for Marga, never held me back from having faith. On the contrary, it encouraged me," Laclau told The Associated Press by telephone from his home in Asson, in the mountains near the pilgrimage site at Lourdes. "I lived my love life with Marga, and I kept my passion for the church."

The two met when Laclau led the funeral service for Marga's first husband in 1985. When their relationship blossomed, he said, "at first, we tried to hide it."

Slowly their friends learned, and Laclau's church colleagues, who met them "with a silence, not of disapproval, but of non-interference," he said.

The church's quiet tolerance melted when Marga came to live with Leon in 2001. Laclau's superior, Father Benat Oyhenart, asked him to "purify the relationship" - in essence to choose between his vocation and his love.

Laclau chose Marga. In 2007, he was forced out of the priesthood.

Oyhenart sent a statement to the congregation explaining what he had done. "What about the young groom who says, 'How can I commit to the sacrament of marriage, for the rest of my life, before a priest who himself does not respect the commitment he made for the rest of his life?'"

Oyhenart received angry, fearful letters from churchgoers. One he cited read: "If you replace him, I will keep my children at home, out of fear that his replacement is a pedophile."

Such fears have mounted as revelations about sexual abuse of children have convulsed Catholic leadership from the United States to Ireland to Australia and in recent weeks, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.

Now, one of the pope's closest advisers, Austrian Cardinal Christophy Schoenborn, has called for an honest examination of issues like celibacy and education for priests to root out the origins of sex abuse.

His office quickly stressed that Schoenborn wasn't calling celibacy into question, just as Pope Benedict XVI was reaffirming its importance as an "expression of the gift of oneself to God and others."

Theologians and psychologists warn against equating celibacy with pedophilia, at least directly.

But Schoenborn and others have been receptive to arguments that a celibate priesthood is increasingly problematic for the church, primarily because it limits potential candidates for ordination.

Another problem: People who are pedophiles to begin with are drawn to the church because it is an easy way to find victims and be in a position of authority where few question their actions, priest and family counselor Stephane Joulain noted in an essay in Sunday's Le Monde. He also said priests who have never had sexual experiences are often drawn to adolescents because their own sexual growth halted at adolescence.

Laclau, after his experience, says that "an end to celibacy is not the only answer" to the church's woes. He blames "young, reactionary priests ... who show a growing traditionalism" for alienating ordinary believers who might otherwise have been drawn to the priesthood.

While the worldwide number of priests is slowly rising to 408,000 - with major growth in Africa and Asia - the number in Europe is continuing to decline, according to Vatican statistics.

The decline is particularly jarring in the United States, where they have dropped from 58,909 in 1975 to 40,666 in 2009, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University.

France is down to about 24,000 priests nationwide from 42,000 in 1975, and numbers of churchgoers have plummeted. A study by Lyon's auxiliary bishop found that more than half of the 161 priests who left their jobs between 1996 and 2005 did so to join romantic unions with women or other men, according to Catholic newspaper La Croix.

"The church is losing a lot of ground, it's turning in on itself," Laclau said. Ending celibacy, while not the only solution, could help make the church "more humane," he said.

Two days after leaving the church, he received a letter from a former parishioner describing being sexually abused as a child by another priest, a kind of cry for help.

"It repulsed me. It stains religious life, this kind of perversion," he said.

Evidence over the past decade has shown church leadership has covered up, ignored or simply underestimated the problem of pedophilia.

Before becoming pope, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Catholic News Service in December 2002, that "less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type." The most extensive study of the abuse crisis in the American church, commissioned by the U.S. bishops in 2004, found that about 4 percent of all American clerics who served during the time studied were accused of abuse.

The percentage in society at large is unknown because studies are inconclusive.

The report stressed that neither celibacy nor homosexuality causes abuse, but argued that an understanding of the problem of clerical sex abuse isn't possible without reference to both, since the vast majority of U.S. abuse cases were of a homosexual nature.

In Italy, papal biographer Marco Politi, in his book "La Confessione" - "The Confession" - presents the testimony of a priest struggling to balance his homosexuality with his commitment to a church that considers homosexual acts a sin.

The priest, who is never identified, discloses that a network of homosexual priests is active in the Italian church. It is described as an informal "self-help group" that lives in the "catacombs" of the church - the underground.

For Laclau, the solution is more sexual honesty among the clergy.

"I thought I was one of the very few (priests) to have a love life. I slowly discovered how numerous we are," he said.

Groups around Europe have sprung up to bring together people like him, from the Belgium-based Married Priests association to a group called Plein Jour, or Light of Day, which includes some 150 Frenchwomen who live with priests.

Many have borne the priests' children. Many maintain a low public profile, but seek solace in sharing their stories with other women who have lived the same "suffering, silence, sacrifice," said the group's director, Dominique Venturini.

Venturini, now 85, spent 45 years romantically and sexually involved with a priest based in Provence. "Only when he retired could he come and live with me. But unfortunately, by then, it was too late to have children, a dream I always had."

She speaks bluntly against celibacy. "When you bury human nature, it figures out how to express itself in another, perverted way."

Under church law, the pope can change the celibacy requirement by fiat, although some in the church have suggested that various reforms be discussed in a wider forum such as a new Vatican council.

However, the Rev. Thomas Reese, an American expert on the Vatican, said he doubts there would be a majority vote at such a forum to lift celibacy. "In addition, too many dioceses in the southern hemisphere have resolved the issue by simply ignoring ongoing relationships between priests and women," in said in an email exchange with The Associated Press.

The Catholic church's Eastern rite, which follows Orthodox Christian traditions but is loyal to the pope, allows married priests in contrast to the Roman church.

The Rev. Igor Yatsiv, spokesman for Ukraine's Greek Catholic church, said he knew of no cases of clergy sex abuse.

"I am not sure that's just because of no mandatory celibacy here. I'm married myself and have three children, but I don't think it's this that keeps me from sin. I just don't know another way" of living, he said.

Leon and Marga Laclau, after he left the church and after more than 20 years together, finally married. He continues to attend Mass, "not regularly, but I go. It is always a joy to participate."

"I still have faith," he says. "But you must maintain it. It's a bit like love."

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St. Cyril of Jerusalem: The Lord's Prayer

Then, after these things, we say that Prayer which the Saviour delivered to His own disciples, with a pure conscience entitling God our Father, and saying, Our Father, which art in heaven. O most surpassing loving-kindness of God! On them who revolted from Him and were in the very extreme of misery has He bestowed such a complete forgiveness of evil deeds, and so great participation of grace, as that they should even call Him Father. Our Father, which art in heaven; and they also are a heaven who bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor. 15:49), in whom is God, dwelling and walking in them (2 Cor. 6:16).

Hallowed be Your Name. The Name of God is in its nature holy, whether we say so or not; but since it is sometimes profaned among sinners, according to the words, "Through you My Name is continually blasphemed among the Gentiles", we pray that in us God's Name may be hallowed; not that it comes to be holy from not being holy, but because it becomes holy in us, when we are made holy, and do things worthy of holiness.

Your kingdom come. A pure soul can say with boldness, Your kingdom come; for he who has heard Paul saying, "Let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body" (Rom. 6:12), and has cleansed himself in deed, and thought, and word, will say to God, Your kingdom come.

Your will be done as in heaven so on earth. God's divine and blessed Angels do the will of God, as David said in the Psalm, "Bless the Lord, all you Angels of His, mighty in strength, that do His pleasure". So then in effect you mean this by your prayer, as in the Angels Your will is done, so likewise be it done on earth in me, O Lord.

Give us this day our substantial bread. This common bread is not substantial bread, but this Holy Bread is substantial, that is, appointed for the substance of the soul. For this Bread goes not into the belly and is cast out into the draught (Matt. 15:17), but is distributed into your whole system for the benefit of body and soul. But by this day, he means, each day, as also Paul said, "While it is called today" (Heb. 3:15).

And forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. For we have many sins. For we offend both in word and in thought, and very many things we do worthy of condemnation; and if we say that we have no sin, we lie, as John says. And we make a covenant with God, entreating Him to forgive us our sins, as we also forgive our neighbours their debts. Considering then what we receive and in return for what, let us not put off nor delay to forgive one another. The offenses committed against us are slight and trivial, and easily settled; but those which we have committed against God are great, and need such mercy as His only is. Take heed therefore, lest for the slight and trivial sins against you, you shut out for yourself forgiveness from God for your very grievous sins.

And lead us not into temptation, O Lord. Is this then what the Lord teaches us to pray, that we may not be tempted at all? How then is it said elsewhere, "a man untempted, is a man unproved"; and again, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations" (James 1:2)? But does perchance the entering into temptation mean the being overwhelmed by the temptation? For temptation is, as it were, like a winter torrent difficult to cross. Those therefore who are not overwhelmed in temptations, pass through, showing themselves excellent swimmers, and not being swept away by them at all; while those who are not such, enter into them and are overwhelmed. As for example, Judas having entered into the temptation of the love of money, swam not through it, but was overwhelmed and was strangled both in body and spirit. Peter entered into the temptation of the denial; but having entered, he was not overwhelmed by it, but manfully swam through it, and was delivered from the temptation. Listen again, in another place, to a company of unscathed saints, giving thanks for deliverance from temptation, You, O God hast proved us; You have tried us by fire like as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; You layed afflictions upon our loins. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; and you brought us out into a place of rest. You see them speaking boldly in regard to their having passed through and not been pierced. But You brought us out into a place of rest; now their coming into a place of rest is their being delivered from temptation.

But deliver us from the evil one. If lead us not into temptation implied not being tempted at all, He would not have said, But deliver us from the evil one. Now the evil one is our adversary the devil, from whom we pray to be delivered.

Then after completing the prayer you say Amen; by this Amen, which means "So be it", you are setting your seal to the petitions of the divinely-taught prayer.

From his 23rd Catechetical Lecture

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A Haunting In Thessaloniki

The Creature in My Lucid Dreams

Elena M. - Thessaloniki, Greece - 1993

These events happened when I was a student, living with my parents and younger sister in an apartment building, built in 1980, of which we were the first owners. Thessaloniki is a very old town, it took its name from Alexander the Great's sister who was named 'Thessaloniki' by her father, Philip the Great after his victory against the Thessalians (some other Greeks in the central plains of the peninsula). There are neolithic remains a couple of miles from where my parents' place is. The city has been attacked by Romans, raided by crusaders, rebuilt by Byzantines, occupied by Bulgarians, Turks, Germans, you name it. There also used to be a significant Jewish community there before the war, but almost all of them were taken to concentration camps. So there's lots of history, wars, and many many violent deaths in that town. So naturally I have heard many stories of 'encounters,' and quite a few of my more imaginative friends have claimed to have experienced stuff, and/or to be psychic. I never had the slightest indication of anything paranormal, so I always thought of such talk as tall tales, and I'd make fun of them, "You should give up drugs, man, they're not for you," that sort of thing. I still do that. What I mean to say is that I'm still not entirely convinced that what happened was not entirely in my head. Any ideas would be welcome.

Anyway, at the time when this weird stuff started I was mostly partying a lot, attending classes whenever, and partying some more. So I'd usually be back home at 3 or 4 in the morning. The apartment is shaped like an H, the two vertical lines being the front and back facade. My room was at the front. I was sleeping on a couch -- didn't like beds -- along the left side of the room. The door was behind me, the wall to the right was covered with book shelves, below those were my stereo and records, opposite was a large sliding double glass door leading to a small balcony. The first time it happened, I had just fallen asleep and had what appeared to be a very lucid dream. I had the sensation that I was awake. I was lying in bed and could see the room around me as it appeared normally, dark, except for the bluish light coming through the balcony door. I also knew that there was something looking at me from the other side of the room to my right, where the shelves and the stereo were. This part was completely in the shadows, so I could only see the small red light of the sound equipment. I tried to stand up and turn on the light but my legs and arms felt heavy, like rubber and they wouldn't obey me. I was sliding on the couch arm, and the floor, and the armchair, in a vain effort to reach the switch... And then I woke up, and the room looked exactly as before, only in more sharp detail? I literally flew to the light switch and kept it on until my parents woke up hours later and I could see sunlight and hear people around the house. I dismissed the whole thing as a bad dream and forgot about it. Until next night.

Same story but worse: the moment I fell asleep I woke up again and had more blurred version of my room, the thing -- whatever it was -- was there again, on the other side of the room, looking at me. This time I knew I was dreaming so I didn't try to stand up and go for the light switch. Instead, I tried to wake up. And at first it seemed that it worked, but no, the thing was still there, everything still looked this unreal bluish color... I couldn't wake up, so I panicked and started calling for help. I finally managed to wake up for real and stayed up again with the lights on until sunrise. I was not looking forward to another night of that sort so I stayed at a friend's house the following evening. I slept like a log. No disturbances, no odd stuff happening, nada. But I still was convinced that this was a coincidence, something heavy that I ate perhaps -- although we were not really into eating at such late hours. So the fourth night I went back home to sleep. And yes, surely enough, the same thing happened all over again. It was a very strange state, the one I was in when that "dream" came. Although my movement seemed very sluggish, and everything was bathed in that eerie grey-blue light, for the rest I felt as if I were completely awake. This time my curiosity got the best of me and I did not flip out trying frantically to wake up or to reach the light switch, I just stayed where I was waiting to see what would happen. I felt the thing that was watching me come very slowly close, to the end of the couch, and get hold of my ankles. It did not feel exactly like hands with fingers were closing around my ankles, no, but something in the shadows was dragging my body slowly out of the couch, taking the covers with me as I was sliding, feet first, toward the balcony door. My plan was to let whatever was pulling me out the couch think I was still asleep, then the moment I reached the balcony door to jump on the creature and scare it away (well, all that bravery was in a dream). The moment I jumped it, I woke up. I was still lying on my couch but in the opposite direction, like, my feet were on my pillow. For that to happen I would have to stand up and lie down the other direction, since that couch was a fairly narrow one. But, as far as I know, I have never sleepwalked in my life. The following days I slept at a friend's houses whenever I could, because every time I slept at home the thing would be there. I had no idea what to do about it or what it was so I asked these friends of mine, three guys who were roommates and were into New Age stuff and I Ching and selling jewelry from their frequent trips to India (recharging their spiritual batteries, humm). I thought, at least all that could be useful for a change. And they really jumped on the occasion to help me. One of them, we call him "Captain" because he used to be in the marines, was particularly eager to help, pronounced it immediately as a haunting and offered to come and whatsamacallit? exorcise the place? Yeah. That. Of course this was out of the question, showing up at my parents' house with some hippy chanting and burning joss sticks in my room (okay, he was not a hippy, but still).

So the three of them went into discussion on what could be done if an on-the-spot "treatment" was out of the question. The Captain insisted that before it was sent away, I had to seize the opportunity to study the thing. No way, I wanted it gone and banished. The other two were asking me if I had any old stuff in my room, like vintage jewelry and such. Well, the only thing that was old and acquired before the weird stuff started happening was actually a Chinese teapot, a very pretty one, which I had bought quite cheap in an antiques store in France and brought it home from there. But, what the hell? A haunted teapot?! It sounded ridiculous. However, the said teapot was on the shelf right above the stereo, where I first felt the thing looking at me from. Meanwhile, I tried sleeping at home with the lights on, but that turned out to be a bad idea because I got to see what the thing looked like. Not pretty. As soon as I "woke up" in my dream, the room was no longer in that grey-bluish light, but fully lit by the bedside lamp as it was in reality. The thing, a kind of shriveled up old lady or guy -- not easy to tell gender -- no more than three feet tall, and wrapped up like a bundle in black rags fell from the ceiling on the couch's back next to my head, I rolled over to avoid it jumping on my face and it grabbed my pillow and started hitting me with it on the head! We were hitting each other and I woke up again for real by falling off the couch. At that point I really had enough so I asked my friends for straight advice how to get rid of it pronto. While Captain was obviously enjoying himself a lot experimenting with all that -- he wasn't the one losing his sleep and peace -- he told me to try making the sign of the cross or a pentagram when the thing appears to see how it will react to these holy signs. If nothing else, the conscious effort would wake me up. So I did the sign of the cross when I felt it moving toward the couch (the lights were off again this time) and a huge bang, like an explosion was heard and I woke up. Captain said that it didn't like it. So next step he gave me a long chant to read while I burned incense (I was desperate at that point to get rid of it by whatever means...) at the four corners of the room. The chant/prayer was addressed to the four archangels. Just in case, I also moved the teapot to a closed display case in the salon, as far away as I could from my room. And that was it. Well, the one or the other, it doesn't matter, what matters is that the thing never showed up again, the strange lucid dreams stopped, and I was immensely happy about it.

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The Physical Signs of Demonic Possession

[Saint Gregory Palamas, displaying here a remarkable knowledge of the medical science of his day, explains with some detail in his commentary of Mark 9:17-18 the physical signs of demonic possession. This is taken from his Homily on the Fourth Sunday of Lent. - J.S.]

"Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; and wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away" (Mark 9:17-18).

Why was he foaming at the mouth, gnashing his teeth and withering away? Of all the possessed man's body, his brain suffers first and foremost, since the demon uses the spirit of the soul within the brain as a vehicle, and from there, as from a citadel, exercises power over the whole body. When the brain is afflicted, it emits a frothy, phlegm-like discharge to the nerves and muscles of the body, blocking up the outlets of the soul's spirit. As a result, shock, convulsions and involuntary movements affect all the parts of the body capable of independent movement, especially the jaws, as they are nearest to the part originally afflicted. A lot of moisture is brought down into the mouth due to the size of its pores and its proximity to the brain. Since, because of the unruly movements of the body's organs, it is impossible to breathe out in one long breath, and the breath is mixed up with the accumulation of moisture, those afflicted foam at the mouth. So the demon was foaming at the mouth and gnashing his teeth, clashing them together horribly and grinding them in a frenzy. The boy was withering away because of the demon's extreme violence. The heat of the sun's rays cause causes mist to form, but if this heat intensifies, it makes the mist disappear and disperses it completely. Similarly, the demon's violence causes moisture to come from the internal organs, but if this violence intensifies, the body's natural juices soon evaporate and the possessed person withers away.

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Q & A: Holy Communion and Confession

From a discussion with the students of the Moscow Theological Academy at the Lavra of Saint Serge with the Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and Saint Vlassios, Hierotheos Vlachos.

Question: How many times a year must one receive Holy Communion? Is the Sacrament of Confession necessarily tied to Holy Communion?

Answer: Holy Communion is not absolutely linked to Confession. In the ancient Church, people had the Grace of God in them; they were in a state of enlightenment of the nous* and they of course prayed and received Holy Communion frequently. When someone committed a sin, it meant that they had forfeited the Grace of God, in which case, they would remain outside the Temple, together with the catechumens. This is because one cannot have the Grace of God and yet deny Christ. When one sins, and especially in the flesh - and I am not referring to the carnal relations within a marriage in Christ - it shows that they are preferring carnal pleasure more than Christ and as such, are denying Christ in practice. This reduces them to the ranks of the repentants, and they will need to re-attain the state of enlightenment of the nous, following a specific procedure.

In Basil the Great and other Fathers, we notice that there were four ranks of Christians. Firstly, there were the "forgiveness-seekers", who sat outside the Holy Temple and asked for forgiveness from the Christians that went into the Temple. Secondly, there were the "beseechers", who remained in the Temple only up to the recitings of the Divine Liturgy and would depart along with the catechumens. Thirdly there were the "aligned", who remained in place until the end of the Divine Liturgy, but without receiving Holy Communion. And fourthly, there were the partakers of Holy Communion. In other words, when someone committed a sin, they would have to go through a period of repentance and repentance meant that the person had to reach the enlightenment of the nous through catharsis - he would have to alter his nous, and from a darkened state make it light again. The Bishop would then read a blessing and that person could afterwards receive Holy Communion.

That is why I mentioned that Confession is not absolutely tied to Holy Communion. If someone sins and he needs to confess, then he must confess. If there are certain sins - the so-called "excusable" ones - they are forgiven with the Service of Communion and with the prayer "...and forgive us our trespasses...." which is included in the "Lord's Prayer".

As to how many times a year one can receive Holy Communion - well, that is determined by one's Spiritual Father. That is, we go to our Spiritual Father and we open up our heart completely; we tell him all of the problems that we have, we report on the condition we are in, and he will give us the appropriate instructions. The same thing takes place here, as it does with doctors. We visit the doctor, we inform him of our ailment and the doctor will make the appropriate diagnosis and prescribe suitable medication and treatment. For example, he might tell us to abstain from certain foods because our organism can't tolerate them, and that we will be free to consume those foods only after we are cured.

It is in this context that we should also look upon Holy Communion, because to some, Holy Communion can be Light, while to others it can be fire.

The Holy Fathers say that when we place two objects - that is, mud and wax - under the sun, then the sun's rays will harden the mud and melt the wax. Although the sun's energies are the same, however, the substance of the objects is different, which is why the results are different. In the same way, God and Holy Communion become [are experienced as] Light to some, and to others, fire.

In the churches of Monasteries they depict the scene of the Second Coming. At the top of the icon is the Throne, and from the Throne emanates the Light which illuminates the saints, while from the Throne flows the river of fire that consumes the sinners. Saint Isaac the Syrian says that "hell" is God's "whip of love" - a love that mankind cannot comprehend, because their hearts are unclean and incurable. God loves both the righteous AND the sinner, but not everyone can experience God in the same manner.

Basil the Great wrote that the Light has two energies: the illuminating and the caustic, and as such, it illuminates and it burns. Whoever has eyes will avoid its caustic energy and will enjoy the illuminating energy of the Light. Those who have no eyes to see, will accept the caustic characteristic of the light. That is what will happen during the Second Coming: the righteous will perceive God's light and sinners will perceive His fire.

The exact same thing takes place during the Divine Liturgy. Some receive Holy Communion and are illuminated, while others receive Holy Communion and are condemned. The Apostle Paul says in his Epistle to Corinthians: "For this, there are among you many who are weak and sick, and a great many are reposed" (1 Cor.11:30). That is why the work of a priest is not to distribute tickets so that people might enter Paradise; he must heal people, so that when they encounter God, God will become Light and not fire to them.

We must clarify at this point the question of how frequently a healthy person and a sick person can receive Holy Communion; for example, a paralytic person. It appears that a healthy person has many more sins and a paralytic does not have as many. But that is not correct. It does not mean that a healthy person sins and a paralytic doesn't. Sins are committed with one's thoughts and one's desires as well as with the body. One can be healthy and spend all day glorifying God and live an angelic life, and the other - a sick person - can live with faithlessness and indignation. What is important, is for one to glorify God - whether in health or in sickness.

*Nous = The human nous in Eastern Orthodox Christianity is the "eye of the heart or soul" or the "mind of the heart". The soul of man is created by God in His image; man's soul is intelligent and noetic. St Thalassios wrote that God created beings "with a capacity to receive the Spirit and to attain knowledge of Himself; He has brought into existence the senses and sensory perception to serve such beings". Eastern Orthodox Christians hold that God did this by creating mankind with intelligence and noetic faculties. Angels have intelligence and nous, whereas men have reason - both logos and dianoia - nous and sensory perception. This follows the idea that man is a microcosm and an expression of the whole creation or macrocosmos. The human nous was darkened after the Fall of Man (which was the result of the rebellion of reason against the nous), but after the purification (healing or correction) of the nous (achieved through ascetic practices like hesychasm), the human nous (the "eye of the heart") will see God's uncreated Light (and feel God's uncreated love and beauty, at which point the nous will start the unceasing prayer of the heart) and become illuminated, allowing the person to become an orthodox theologian.

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Relic of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite Stolen

At noon on Monday, 15 March 2010, at the Monastery of Pentalofo Goumenissa, two unknown perpetrators broke through the plastic cover which contained the reliquary of St. Nikodemos. This was done while the monk guarding the reliquary was away for a few minutes. The perpetrators removed two of the three sections of the skull of St. Nikodemos from the side. The Kilkis police are investigating the matter. All leads have remained fruitless so far.


The Monastery of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite lies on one of the most beautiful slopes of Mt. Paiko, at an altitude of about 700 m above the village of Pentalofo, in the municipality of Goumenissa. Founded in 1981, it is a dependency of the Monastery of Simonos Petra on Mount Athos. The main church is two storeys high. The upper part is dedicated to Saint Nikodemos, while the ground level to Saints Raphael, Irene and Nicholas of Lesvos. Twenty-three monks live in the monastery today. All of them are young and personally engage in building chores and in the maintenance of already existing constructions.

The monastery is also famous for its excellent, carefully hand-made icons produced in its painting room. All the services and ceremonies are held according to the Athonite Typikon.

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The Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides: An Inconvenient Truth

3/15/2010
By Lucine Kasbarian
Assyrian Times

Recent articles in the mainstream media would have us believe that governments around the world somehow question the factuality of the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides committed by Turkey. These articles would also have us believe that the Turkish government’s latest temper tantrums over these genocides are justified. Turkey, of course, just recalled its ambassadors to protest the passage of resolutions by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee and the Swedish Parliament that acknowledged Turkish culpability for these genocides.

Despite what today’s mainstream media are declaring, the evidence proving the 1915 genocides is overwhelming. And formal resolutions affirming these unpunished crimes against humanity made appearances around the world long before 2010. Regardless of what pro-Turkish apologists would have us believe, the issue has never been about whether the Turkish regime carried out genocide. Rather, it has always been about when Turkey would be punished and deliver reparations and restitution to the rightful, indigenous inhabitants.

Powerful media elites would have us believe that the mainstream media universe has been devoid of criticism for Turkey’s unpunished crimes because such voices are either non-existent, marginal, irrelevant, fabricated or some combination thereof.

What the media elites fail to tell us is that when these critical voices -- from victim ethnic groups or elsewhere -- come forward to submit letters, opinion pieces, or quotes, they are usually denied access.

Media elites also neglect to tell us that opinions that do not reflect the official narrative spun by Turkey -- not to mention Israel and the U.S. -- largely go unpublished. Authoritative voices that would discredit mainstream media’s official narrative of the genocide issue are removed from the elite’s “golden rolodex” -- the name given to describe the small group of establishment-approved “experts” who are most frequently quoted in news stories or asked to appear on television.

The absence of dissent in the mainstream media and in the halls of power does not mean that the victims of the genocides and their descendants are insignificant, apathetic or deceitful. No, we are alive, awake and infuriated.

The media are also telling us that we should sympathize with Turkey because it feels “humiliated” by accusations of genocide. Turkey uses this word to describe its anger that its national honor has somehow been injured by such accusations. Do Turkish, Israeli and American officials know what “humiliation” means to the survivors and descendants of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides who experienced debasement and degradation during the genocidal ordeals and are forced to endure denials and demeaning treatment right up to the present day?

And how did humiliation of the victims occur? By order of the Young Turk regime, unarmed civilian subjects -- Armenian, Assyrian and Greek men, women and children -- were raped in broad daylight, in front of their families and neighbors. The tortures and violations were beyond one’s wildest imagination. Innocents were skinned and burned alive. Their tongues and fingernails were torn out. Horseshoes were nailed to their feet. They were stripped naked and sent on death marches into the desert. Women’s breasts were cut off and their pregnant bellies bayoneted. Fetuses were thrown up into the air and impaled on swords and bayonets for sport. Men were tied to tree limbs that were bent towards one another. When the tree’s limbs were released, the men’s bodies were torn in half. Women were tied to horses and dragged to their deaths.

Those Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks who were not exterminated, enslaved in harems, or kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam were driven from their indigenous lands. Those who survived the death marches spent the rest of their lives in exile, uprooted from their culture and civilization, grieving for their slaughtered families and yearning for their ancestral homeland.

Media elites are giving voice to embroidered Turkish “humiliation” and not to the real humiliation of the victims, survivors and heirs who live with constant anguish in the face of torture, dispossession, contempt and indifference. Media elites are defending Turkey when it is the martyrs and their heirs who deserve mercy and compassion.

In spite of Turkey’s efforts to humiliate the victims at the time of the genocides -- and to prolong this humiliation up to the present day with cultural theft, trivialization and scape-goating -- the dignity of the victims and their descendants has, remarkably, remained intact.

Turkey’s genocidal crimes have gone unpunished. While continually profiting from the homes, farms, lands, properties, institutions and possessions confiscated in 1915, Turkey even accuses the victims and survivors of the crimes that it itself committed. And media elites portray ongoing survivor grievances as nuisances that impede “progress.”

It is the genocide deniers -- the rulers and lobbies of the U.S., Turkey, Israel, and Azerbaijan -- who are the ones impeding progress. Their denial, duplicity and audacity do not mean that the genocides’ victims and their heirs have been defeated. Denying the truth does not invalidate it. Fictional Turkish “reconciliation” initiatives foisted upon Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks will never take the place of genuine atonement and restitution, which are necessary for true progress to be made.

To these deniers and obstructionists we say: “Your tactics are transparent. The perpetrators, beneficiaries and enablers of the ongoing genocide against the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek peoples will be brought to justice. You can hide from the truth, but you can't hide the truth. We will persist, and the truth will prevail.”

----

Lucine Kasbarian is a descendant of Armenian and Assyrian genocide victims and survivors, and the author of Armenia: A Rugged Land, an Enduring People (Dillon Press/Simon & Schuster)

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Europe Urges Turkey To Recognize Ecumenical Patriarchate

Europe Is Asking Ankara To Recognize the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Other Religious Minorities

03/16/2010
NAT da Polis

A ruling of the European Commission for Democracy says in fact that the title "ecumenical" Patriarchate of Constantinople is universally recognized and it does not understand the insistence of Turkish authorities in denying a historically established fact. Europe’s warning useful to Erdogan's in his battle to reform the constitution.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The European Commission for Democracy has made a ruling urging Turkey to recognize as from time immemorial the entire international community has done, the status of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its historical role as it was already defined the sixth century. In the same ruling the legal status of all religious minorities in Turkey is recognized.

The committee, the so-called Venice committee, named after the lagoon city where it gathered the day before yesterday, is part of the Council of Europe, which brings together 47 states, including Turkey.

The Turkish authorities, since the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, have refused to recognize the religious status of the See of Constantinople, considering it simply as a single diocese of the Orthodox community and the recognizing the Patriarch of Constantinople the sole function of the pastor of his community.

This ruling, observes the noted journalist, editor of www.amen.gr Nikos Papachristou, in addition to restoring the historic right of Constantinople, lays the foundation not only for the reopening of the Theological School of Halki (pictured), but also to change the current situation, for which the metropolitans must be Orthodox Christians of Turkish nationality.

The Commission states that the title "ecumenical" from the Patriarchate of Constantinople is universally recognized and that it does not understand the insistence of Turkish authorities in not recognizing a historically defined fact that is accepted throughout the world. This committee links the work of the theological school to the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and has called for its immediate reopening. It explicitly calls on Turkey to legally recognise the Ecumenical Patriarchate and all the religious communities present in Turkey. The discussion was attended by two representatives of the government from Ankara, whose arguments were rejected.

The committee also reminded Turkey of compliance with Article 9 of the Treaty on Human Rights, which establishes the right to religious freedom, which must not hinder the exercise of religious functions and the See of Constantinople to be titled the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Certainly, it is said in the ruling, Turkey is not obliged to recognize the ecumenical title, but it can not, however, force anyone to deny this historical title that is defined and universally accepted. And on that point, the grand jury said they did not understand the legal reasons for which Turkey refuses to recognize the historic role of the patriarchate.

The ruling rejected Ankara’s appeal to the Lausanne Treaty, in so far as it makes no mention of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and therefore places no restriction on the exercise of its role. In this regard, committee members commented that the Treaty of Lusanne (1923) is now superseded and surpassed by recent treaties on the rights of man. So continuing to invoke it is a sign of defensive positions that have long been exceeded.

The sentence, though once again condemns Turkey for breach of human rights, in essence, does not displease Erdogan, who can now reproach the godfathers of the old bureaucratic nomenclature, concentrated in the judiciary and the Supreme Court, a mentality that is not appropriate to European dimension, and may invoke the need to accelerate the reform of the Turkish Constitution, widely seen as responsible for all the ills of Turkey.

It may be coincidence, but at last Thursday’s meeting in the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, that included the Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, who is also responsible for the religious foundations, and all the spiritual leaders of religious minorities, including Bartholomew, when asked by reporters about the reopening of the Theological School of Halki, the same Arinc replied that the Erdogan government has decided to allow its reopening.

Hopes are born for a real springtime for religious minorities in Turkey.

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Why Are We Here On Earth?

Why are we here on earth? To show our love for God. To learn to love God more than sin. That by our inconsequential love, we may respond to the greater love of God. Only God's love is a great love and our love is always inconsequential. God abundantly showed and shows His love for man both in Paradise and on earth. This brief earthly life is given to us as a school and as an examination to question ourselves as to whether we will respond with love to the great love of God. "Every day and every hour, proof of our love for God is required of us," says St. Isaac the Syrian. God shows His love for us every day and every hour. Every day and every moment we stand positioned between God and sin. We have either to give our love to God and elevate ourselves among the angels or to choose sin and fall into the gloom of Hades. Alexis, the Man of God, loved God more than he loved his parents, his wife and riches. He spent seventeen years as a beggar far away from the home of his parents, and another seventeen years Alexis spent as an unknown and scorned in the house of his parents. He did this, all for the sake of the love of God. The merciful God responded love for love for these thirty-four years of suffering. He gave Alexis eternal life and joy among His angels in the heavens and glory on earth.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Saint Patrick and Unceasing Prayer of the Heart

In his Confession, Saint Patrick describes with some detail his glorification before being chosen by God to be a missionary to the Celts. Though he was a simple and uneducated youth, and though a slave, he was also a true Christian ascetic and lived his daily life as a hesychast. This, together with his persistent prayer, brought him through the purification of his heart to the illumination of the nous, as is borne witness through the gift of unceasing prayer. Below are two passages from his Confession which reveal the stages by which he acquired this unceasing prayer:

16. "But after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of Him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time."

25. "And on a second occasion I saw Him praying within me, and I was as it were, inside my own body , and I heard Him above me—that is, above my inner self. He was praying powerfully with sighs. And in the course of this I was astonished and wondering, and I pondered who it could be who was praying within me. But at the end of the prayer it was revealed to me that it was the Spirit. And so I awoke and remembered the Apostle’s words: ‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we know not how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for utterance.’ And again: ’The Lord our advocate intercedes for us.’"

The entire text can be read here.

Apolytikion in the Third Tone
O Holy Hierarch, equal of the Apostles, Saint Patrick, wonderworker and enlightener of Ireland: Intercede with the merciful God that He grant unto our souls forgiveness of offences.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
The Master revealed thee as a skillful fisher of men; and casting forth nets of Gospel preaching, thou drewest up the heathen to piety. Those who were the children of idolatrous darkness thou didst render sons of day through holy Baptism. O Patrick, intercede for us who honour thy memory.

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The Jesus Prayer and the Hindu Mantra

by Dionysios Farasiotis

One of the greatest spiritual gifts that Elder Paisios gave me was his guidance along the mystical path of the Jesus Prayer. This started at the beginning of our acquaintance and continued until his repose twelve years later. The Jesus Prayer consists of the repetition of the phrase "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." The Jesus Prayer is not recited as a Mantra, but as a prayer to the Person of Christ.

Prayer, as I learned, is a relationship between two persons, God and man, who move towards each other. Thus, the swiftness or slowness with which a person advances in prayer depends on both the human and divine wills. Neither the freedom of God in His sovereignty nor the freedom of man in his free choice are ever violated. For his part, man offers his good intention, his labors, and his desire to draw near to God. God, in turn, offers His grace....

When yogis claim that the Jesus Prayer resembles their own mantras, they are in fact trying to fit the Jesus Prayer into their own Procrustean bed. Of course, there are similarities, but there are also enormous differences-both a table and a horse have four legs, but to conclude that they are consequently the same would be an error of the crudest sort. But this is just the kind of error the yogis make when they claim that the Jesus Prayer is a kind of mantra. A brief examination of the essential differences between the Jesus Prayer and a mantra should provide those with an open mind the wherewithal to draw the proper conclusions.

First, consider how the Orthodox tradition understands the meaning of the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." The word "Lord" is the name for God most frequently encountered in the Old Testament in the oft-repeated formula "Thus saith the Lord ..." or in the commandments: "I am the Lord thy God". When Orthodox Christians call Jesus Christ, "Lord," they are confessing that He is the God of the Old Testament Who spoke to the patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Word is the Person who gave the law to Moses. In other words, the One who spoke to the prophets was none other than the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who later took flesh and was united with human nature in the Person of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, when we say "Lord Jesus Christ"-with faith, with all our heart's strength-we come under the influence of the Holy Spirit, as Saint Paul says: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3).

Having recognized the existence of the true personal God outside and beyond his own self, from this God a Christian asks "mercy." The elder once told me, "Mercy contains all things. Love, forgiveness, healing, restoration, and repentance all fit within the word 'mercy."' It is the mercy of God that brings about repentance, purification from the passions, the illumination of the nous, and, in the end, theosis. From my journey I have learned that salvation comes from the mercy of Christ, the unique Savior of mankind, rather than from my intelligence, my prideful endeavors, or the techniques of yoga. Salvation and theosis are so very precious that it is impossible for anyone to make any effort or do any ascetic labor that would be equivalent to even the smallest fraction of their value.

Indeed, from my conversations with other fathers who were laborers in the Jesus Prayer and from my own experience, I know full well that prayer is a gift from God. Nothing is accomplished by human labor alone, for Christ said, "Without Me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5), and as the Apostle James bears witness, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17) Even as God granted us existence, in the same way He gradually grants us to know Him and be united with Him through prayer, leading us ultimately to life eternal.

Now, consider how the yogis view a mantra. First of all, there are many mantras, and each refers to one of the many gods of the Hindu pantheon such as Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, or the goddess Kali. There is not one standard explanation given by yogis for the mantras; rather, their explanations are tailored to the receptivity of each listener. For beginners who are not disposed to worship idols, yogis give a pseudo-scientific, mechanistic explanation: they claim that the benefit accrued by repeating the mantra is due to certain frequencies produced by its pronunciation, which cause spiritual vibrations that activate spiritual centers within man. (However, the existence of such centers in man can only be taken on faith-if someone willingly chooses to believe such a claim.) For those who are inclined towards psychological interpretations, the yogis present the repetition of a mantra as a type of auto-suggestion that enables the practitioner to program his inner world according to positive models. When addressing those who have become more involved with Hinduism and now believe in many gods, the yogis claim that the worshipper receives the blessing of whatever god is being invoked.

What constitutes the infinite distance separating the Christian Jesus Prayer from the Hindu mantra, however, is that which lurks behind the name of the god being invoked in a mantra and invited into the soul. Through the mouth of the Holy Prophet David, God declares, "All the gods of the nations are demons" (1 Psalm 95:5)––In other words, behind the names Krishna, Rama, or Shiva are demons lying In wait. Once they are invoked by the use of the mantra, the door is open for the devil to begin his theatrical productions, using sounds, images, dreams, and the imagination in general in order to drag the practitioner deeper into deception.

Another significant difference between the Christian Jesus Prayer and the Hindu mantra is the diametrically opposed viewpoints of the two faiths regarding techniques and the human subject. I recall a conversation I had with Niranjan after he had given me permission to begin to practice some supposedly powerful yoga techniques. I said to him, "It's fine practicing the techniques, but what happens to the human passions of greed, lust for power, vainglory, and selfishness? Aren't we concerned about them?" "They disappear," he replied, "through the practice of the techniques." "Do they just disappear like that, on their own?" I asked. "Yes, they disappear automatically, while you are practicing the techniques."

What an astonishing assertion: physical exercises can wipe out the inclinations that a person's soul acquired in life through conscious choices. But, in reality, man, as a self-determining and free moral agent, can change the conscious aspect of his personality and his moral sense only by the use of his own free will to make conscious decisions in real-life situations. Any external means to automatically induce such a change in a person's consciousness without his consent circumvent man's free will, obliterate his volition, and destroy his freedom, reducing man to a spineless puppet manipulated by a marionettist's strings. Hinduism's relentless insistence on properly performed techniques with automatic results degrades man by depriving him of his most precious quality: the self-governing free will. It restricts the boundless human spirit within a framework of mechanical methods and reflexes.

Orthodox Christian Faith, on the contrary, recognizes and honors the gift of human freedom as a divine trait. This recognition and approach help man to be actualized as a free being. Precisely on account of the human freedom to choose, man's often- unpredictable responses can't be limited to the mechanical reflexes of a closed system, but can innovatively turn in any spiritual direction that he, as a free subject, wills. This is why Orthodoxy is not adamant about techniques and methods. In freedom and with respect, Orthodoxy seeks the human heart, encouraging the individual to do what is good for the sake of the good, and pointing out the appropriate moral stance of the soul before God, which an individual can then freely choose to embrace.

Genuine spiritual development entails a deepening familiarity with God and with one's own self, acquired through moral choices that a person freely makes in the depths of his heart. Spiritual progress is a product of man's way of relating to himself, to his fellow man, and to God by the good use of his innate moral freedom. This is why Christ calls out, "If any man wills to come after Me, let him freely deny himself" (Matt 16:24)––that is, without being deceived, without being psychologically compelled, and without being forced, all of which are inappropriate to the spiritual nobility of Christian life.

Father Porphyrios had a small parrot that he taught to pray in order to illustrate the absurdity of some Christians' empty repetition of the words of prayer, as well as the ridiculousness of the opinion commonly presented in Eastern religions that someone can make moral advances by physical exercises or breathing techniques. Every so often, the parrot would mechanically say, "Lord, have mercy." The elder would respond, “Look, the parrot can say the prayer, but does that mean that it is praying? Can prayer exist without the conscious and free participation of the person who prays?"

The Gurus, Young Man, and Elder Paisios by Dionysios Farasiotis, St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2008, pp 276-285.

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Georgian Monasteries Offer To Take In Prisoners

By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Tbilisi

Officials in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia have announced a scheme to let prisoners shorten their jail terms by spending time in a monastery instead.

The scheme for petty criminals has been proposed by the country's Orthodox Church and government officials.

It comes as prisoner numbers in Georgia continue to rise and so too does the popularity of the Church.

It is unclear how many prisoners will be allowed to become monks or if they have any choice in the matter.

Overcrowding

To say that the Orthodox Church plays an important and influential role in Georgia is an understatement.

Some 80% of its population are said to be Orthodox Christians and its leaders have at times played a part in politics.

Now the Church has gone a step further by directly offering to help reform certain criminals by handing them a cassock and allowing them to serve out their sentence as monks.

In a joint statement, officials from the prisons ministry and the Church said they would work together to select the convicts they thought would benefit most from spending time in a monastery.

They said the purpose was to liberalise the criminal justice system, but the reality is that prisoner numbers are rising fast in Georgia.

A report last year by a penal reform organisation said the incarceration rate had risen by 300% since 2004 and that jails were badly overcrowded.

A senior cleric told the BBC he believed the Church played a positive role in society and that the scheme could work.

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Max Keiser on the Greek Crisis

Max Keiser lashing out against Goldman Sachs, defending Greece!

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Christian Serbia Maintains Its Faith In Folklore

While Serbia is a deeply religious nation, it also happens to be steeped in superstition. The BBC's Mark Lowen finds that folklore, legends, old wives' tales and stories of medieval military glory are part of daily life for many Serbians.

4 February 2010
BBC News

Belgrade's Saborna Cathedral is a gorgeous little place, its vaulted ceilings adorned with gilded frescoes and its baroque facade decorated with intricate mosaics.

Its beauty is such that I didn't mind getting up at an ungodly hour on a freezing Saturday morning for the enthronement of the new Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The only downside was being stuck next to undoubtedly the least musical member of the congregation. My ears suffered for the next hour or so as she sang out of sync and out of tune.

I tried to move away from my tone-deaf and rhythmically challenged neighbour, but to no avail. Physically, there was no space left.

The ornate cathedral was bursting with believers, their eyes closed in worship, breaking their concentration only to make a sign of the Orthodox cross, or to kiss the hand of the new Patriarch as he passed by.

It was a holy occasion for a deeply spiritual nation - 85% of Serbs declare themselves Orthodox.

Myth and folklore

Religion and ethnicity have always been fundamentally linked in this region. If you were Serb, you were Orthodox, and if you were Croat you were Catholic.

After decades of suppression under communism, religion again flourished as the 90s began - but it also fed ethnic division, playing its part in the Yugoslav wars that ensued.

As modern Serbia has emerged from the ashes of Yugoslavia, Orthodoxy remains central to the Serb identity.

Turn back many centuries, though, before the Christianisation of Slavs, and it was Paganism, not Orthodoxy, that commanded a widespread following.

With it came myth and folklore - some of which still live on for this nation of believers, as I've come to discover.

Invited for dinner by my landlord in early January, he handed me a belated Christmas gift of a wallet. No sooner had I opened it, than he gasped, grabbed it back and quickly put a token 20 dinar note (around 20 pence) inside. "It's bad luck to offer an empty wallet to somebody," he told me.

It was my first taste of Serb superstition. But there were many more...

Never place your handbag on the ground, or you'll become penniless.

Don't even think about going outside with wet hair, or your brain will become inflamed.

And if you dare to sit on the corner of a table, you'll never get married.

If you do find your future spouse (which would, incidentally never happen if you let somebody sweep the floor with a broom in your direction), you'd better not sing at the table, or your other half will go mad.

And whatever happens, make sure you call a newborn baby ugly. If you say it's sweet, the infant will be plagued by bad luck.

Above all, though, beware of the draught. Ladies who expose their stomachs to cold air will end up with frozen ovaries and never be able to have children.

Sit next to an open window and you'll have an eternally stiff neck. Even at the height of summer, you see older Serbs frantically closing windows on public buses.

There is even a Serbian saying: many have died from draughts, but nobody has died from a bad smell.

Vampire legend

When swine flu hit Serbia last year, people put their faith in natural remedies and sales of garlic soared - appropriate, perhaps, for a country which saw one of the world's first known vampires.

In the early 18th Century a local peasant, Peter Plogojowitz, died in eastern Serbia. In the week following his death, nine other villagers mysteriously passed away too.

Plogojowitz was blamed, his body exhumed and a stake driven through his heart.

So perhaps it is understandable that hordes of Serbs would tune in to watch a bizarre transvestite prophet on national television in the 90s.

The mysterious Kleopatra shot to fame predicting the future of anything from marriage problems to the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovan war.

But it is when nationalist politicians have harnessed the power of belief that Serbia has known some of its darkest moments.

Slobodan Milosevic gained power by whipping up patriotic frenzy, evoking the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

The facts are still debated, but it has taken on a legendary status for this nation of believers, who are taught how their brethren died as martyrs on the fields of their cherished southern province, defending Christian Europe from the marauding Ottomans.

And President Milosevic led his people into wars, rekindling that old legend of the Greater Serbia.

Still today, Serbs' obsession with legend and myth means they often turn to the past for inspiration, rather than the future, searching for lost power and prestige.

I have been told by Serbs how they were eating with cutlery long before the rest of Europe and, spuriously, that they invented tweezers in the 12th Century.

It shows, perhaps, the uncertainty they feel about the road ahead for their country, smaller and weaker than it once was.

For this proud nation, it is somehow comforting to believe.

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Saint Ambrose the Confessor

St. Ambrose the Confessor (Feast Day - March 16)

Saint Ambrose the Confessor (in the world Besarion Khelaia) was born in 1861. He received his primary education at the theological school in Samegrelo and graduated from Tbilisi Seminary in 1885. He graduated and was ordained to the priesthood in the same year. Fr. Ambrose served as a priest in Sokhumi (in northwestern Georgia) for eight years, at the same time teaching the Georgian language in schools and directing the activity of various philanthropic societies. In 1896 he was widowed, and in 1897 he enrolled at the Kazan Theological Academy.

While in Kazan, Fr. Ambrose followed both the literary-cultural life of the city and the Georgian national independence movement with great interest. He researched the history of Georgia from primary sources and composed several essays based on his findings. His essay, entitled “The Struggle Between Christianity and Islam in Georgia,” was so compelling to one professor that he recommended that Fr. Ambrose continue exploring this theme and present his research for a master’s degree.

In 1901 Fr. Ambrose completed his studies at the Kazan Theological Academy, and in the same year he was tonsured a monk and returned to Georgia. Together with the greatest sons of his nation, he fought tirelessly for the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church. As a punishment for his uncompromising commitment to this goal, Fr. Ambrose was exiled to Russia in 1905.

Upon his return to Georgia, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and appointed abbot of Chelishi Monastery. Chelishi Monastery had at one time been a center for theological education in Georgia, but many years had passed since then and the monastery’s student body was rapidly shrinking. Before long it would be completely deserted. But with the blessing of Bishop Leonid of Imereti (later Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia), St. Ambrose gathered a number of gifted young people to study at the seminary and began to instruct them in chanting and the reading of the Holy Gospel.

St. Ambrose devoted much of his time and energy to finding and restoring the old manuscripts of Chelishi Monastery. Once, while passing through the monastery yard, he heard a muted sound coming from beneath the earth. He began to dig at that place and discovered an ancient copy of the Holy Gospels. It was the “Chelishi Gospel,” a famous Georgian relic from the 9th or 10th century.

Soon St. Ambrose joined the Tbilisi Synodal Council and was enthroned as abbot of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Tbilisi. But in 1908 he was accused of conspiring in the murder of the exarch Nikon and deprived of the right to serve in the Church. The prosecutors exiled him to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Ryazan, where he spent over a year under strict guard. In 1910 St. Ambrose was acquitted and again permitted to serve in the Church.

In 1917 Archimandrite Ambrose returned to Georgia and rejoined the struggle for an autocephalous Georgian Church. Within a few months the Church's autocephaly was proclaimed. He was consecrated Metropolitan of Chqondidi, later to be transferred to the Tskum-Abkhazeti region. In 1921 St. Ambrose was enthroned Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia.

The Soviet government began to persecute the Church not long after St. Ambrose’s enthronement. Some 1,200 churches were plundered, converted for other purposes, or destroyed. A great number of clergy were arrested, exiled, and later shot to death.

On February 7, 1922, Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrose, the spiritual father and chief shepherd of his nation, sent a memorandum to participants in the Conference of Genoa (In 1922 representatives of thirty-four nations met in Genoa, Italy to discuss the economic reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe and to improve relations between the Soviet Union and Western Europe.) in which he defended the rights of the Georgian Church and nation. Every word of his appeal was penetrated with distress for the fate not only of his motherland but of the entire human race. St. Ambrose assured his audience that a nation and government deprived of Christian virtue would have no future and pleaded for help in this time of misfortune.

The receipt of such a memorandum was unprecedented for the Bolshevik regime, and in response the officials had St. Ambrose arrested. Nevertheless, he fearlessly criticized the government’s complaisance with acts of crime, injustice, and sacrilege.

In response to one of the Bolshevik interrogations, the patriarch asserted, “Confession of Faith is a spiritual necessity for every nation— persecution increases its necessity. Faith deepens, being contracted and accumulated, and it bursts out with new energy. So it was in the past, and so it will be in our country. Georgia is no exception to this universal law.”

St. Ambrose spoke these remarkable last words to his persecutors: “My soul belongs to God, my heart to my motherland, and with my flesh you may do whatever you wish.” The court sentenced the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia to seven years, nine months and twenty-eight days in prison.

At the end of 1924 St. Ambrose and the other members of the Synodal Council were granted amnesty, but their grave experience had already taken its toll. The Georgian flock lost its faithful shepherd in 1927.

In 1995 the life of Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ambrose (Khelaia) was discussed at an expanded council of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Church. In recognition of his great achievements on behalf of the Church and nation, Ambrose was canonized as “St. Ambrose the Confessor.”

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"Your Law Is Within My Heart"

If we fulfill the law of God in our thoughts, how much easier would it be then for us to fulfill it in our deeds? That is, if we do not transgress the law of God in our thoughts, how much easier would it be not to transgress it in our deeds? Or still, if our hearts, tongues, hands and feet are with God, then our entire body cannot be against God. Heart, heart, prepare your heart for God. Consecrate it to God; worship God; fulfill the law of God in it; unite it with God; and all the rest will follow and will be governed by the heart. It is not he who holds the spoke of the wheel that steers the wheel, but he who holds its axis. The heart is the axis of our being. Speaking about the commandments of God, the Venerable Hesychius says, "If you compel yourself to fulfill them in your thought, then you will rarely have the need to strain yourself to fulfill them in deed." That is, if you set your hearts on God, as on an axis, then the wheels will easily and comfortably follow the axis. In other words all of man will follow after his own heart. "Your law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:9), says the all-wise David.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Fr. Daniil Sysoyev's Murderer Is Killed

Priest Sysoyev's Murder Solved, Hitman Killed in Makhachkala

Moscow, 16 March 2010, Interfax - The Russian Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee (POIC) has identified the murderer of Orthodox priest Daniil Sysoyev, who was shot dead at the St. Thomas Church in Moscow in November 2009, the committee spokesman told Interfax.

Some time ago police killed a man, who was under investigation for criminal involvement, at a road patrol post in Makhachkala after the man opened fire, the spokesman said.

He held a passport in the name of Beksultan Karykbekov, as well as an airgun reconverted for 9-millimeter cartridges.

"Investigators received conclusive evidence that it was this pistol that killed Sysoyev," the POIC said.

Fr. Daniil Sysoyev was shot dead on the night of November 19 in the Church of St. Thomas in south Moscow. Earlier he had received numerous threats from Muslim radicals dissatisfied with his rhetoric concerning Islam and his missionary efforts among Muslims.

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Battling The Antichrist By Outlawing Microchips

By Joseph Laycock
March 16, 2010
ReligionDispatches

We can rest safe, knowing that our government wants us to be safe from forced implantation of microchips. But it's not about civil liberties, it's about dispensational paranoia and fear of the "Mark of the Beast."

ast month, Virginia lawmaker Mark Cole, a Fredericksburg Republican, sponsored a bill in the House of Delegates to prohibit the involuntary implantation of microchips into human beings. “My understanding—I’m not a theologian—but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” said Cole. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”

In spite of some ridicule, Cole’s bill passed the Virginia House of Delegates by an overwhelming 88-9 majority—because, as his fellow Republican David B. Albo opined, “The fact that some people who support it are a little wacky doesn’t make it a bad idea.”

Cole is not alone among state legislators nationwide. Wisconsin, California, and North Dakota have already passed legislation to protect their citizens from unwanted subdermal implants. A similar bill has just passed the house in Tennessee. The Georgia State Senate also passed an anti-microchip bill last month, sponsored by two Chips: Republican State Senators Chip Pearson and Chip Rogers, both Baptists and active in their churches.

Beast 2.0

The sponsors of these bills, all of them Republicans and outspoken conservative Christians, claim that preventing the forced implantation of microchips is a civil rights issue: they seek to protect citizens from unwanted bodily intrusions by employers and especially what they depict as a big brother-esque government. Yet the technology to embed radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips into animals and people has existed since the early nineties, and so far no one has attempted a forced implantation of the populace.

There are, of course, purely secular reasons against forced implantation of RFID chips and in favor of policies that particularly protect the truly vulnerable. But the true impetus behind these laws (give Cole points for honesty here) appears to lie squarely in Christian dispensationalism and speculation about “the mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.

Conjecture about the mark of the beast has evolved alongside technology for at least the last forty years, merging with Orwellian concerns about how new technologies can enhance the power of the state. Of all innovations, those dealing with information and communication have held a special appeal for dispensationalist theories.

According to Robert C. Fuller in Naming the Antichrist, the Southwest Radio Church warned as early as 1975 that “The Beast” was the name of a supercomputer created to control the global economy. That same year, Christian dispensationalist Colin Deal expressed a similar theory, warning that “The Beast” could assign everyone on Earth an invisible “laser tattoo.” Similar technological suspicions were expressed by Emil Gaverluk and Patrick Fisher in Fiber Optics: The Eye of the Anti-Christ (1979) and David Webber and Noah Hutchings in Computers and the Beast of Revelation (1986).

The Mark of Paranoia

The first person to suggest that the mark of the beast could be a microchip may have been Peter Lalonde in his One World Under Anti-Christ (1991). However, the association of microchip technology with the mark of the beast was thoroughly hammered into the American consciousness by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ bestselling Left Behind Series. The eighth installment of the series, The Mark (2000), describes how the Antichrist’s new world order will require everyone to be implanted with a microchip or be guillotined by a “loyalty enforcement facilitator.” The Mark sold over three million copies by 2004.

That same year, the FDA approved the VeriChip, an RFID chip that can be implanted under the skin into human beings, marking them with personal data that can be read through a scanner. The VeriChip Corporation, now part of the company PositiveID, has suggested that this technology could have useful applications such as storing a patient’s medical data and—in apparent confirmation of apocalyptic anxieties—commerce. A VIP club in Barcelona has allowed customers to use Verichips as debit cards. “Marked” beachgoers can leave their wallets at home and simply have their arm scanned to purchase a drink.

The appeal of anti-microchip legislation is part of a larger narrative that equates “the beast” with foreign interests acting through the federal government; a theme that plays well in a political climate marked by populist anger and millenialist paranoia. Advocating laws because they will hinder the actions of the Antichrist, as preposterous as it seems, is made possible by a highly-politicized American subculture that has been profoundly influenced by the dispensationalist imagination. It is not an accident that the sponsors of anti-microchip legislation have admitted their concern about the mark of the beast. By making clear that their concerns are not purely secular, these legislators are able to build support from an energized evangelical base. Opponents can mock these politicians as paranoiacs, but among voters who have read The Mark, concern about the Antichrist is a political asset, not a liability.

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