St Justin Popovich of Chelije in Serbia (+1979)

St. Justin Popovich (Feast Day - April 7)

He was born on the Feast of the Annunciation 1894, in Vranje, South Serbia, to a family whose seven previous generations had been headed by priests (Popovich means "family or son of a priest" in Serbian). He began reading the scriptures at a young age, and as an adult carried a New Testament with him, reading three chapters every day. He studied at the Seminary of St Sava in Belgrade while St Nikolai Velimirovich (March 18) was on the faculty. In 1914, Blagoje (as he was called before his tonsure) completed the nine-year seminary program. He desired to become a monk, but postponed entry into the monastic ranks due to the outbreak of war and the poor health of his parents. He spent the war caring for his parents and serving as a student nurse.

In 1915 he was tonsured a monk under the name Justin, after St Justin the Philosopher. Shortly thereafter he traveled to Petrograd to study at the seminary; there he acquired a deep, first-hand knowledge of the Russian ascetical tradition and a lifelong love of Russian spirituality, especially that of the common people.

He then attended Oxford University from 1916 to 1919, writing a doctoral dissertation which was rejected. After a brief return to Belgrade, he entered the Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Athens. As in Russia, he used his time there not merely to study but to drink in the Orthodox spirituality of the Greek people.

He was ordained to the diaconate while in Greece, then to the priesthood after returning to Belgrade in 1922. He wept 'as a newborn babe' throughout his ordination service. One of his first labors as a priest was to translate the Divine Liturgy into modern Serbian. During this period he came to know Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky (later first hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) and St John Maximovich, both of whom were living in Serbia as exiles from the Russian Revolution.
 

Father Justin's preaching, writing and spiritual counsel became known throughout his country. In 1931 he was sent to Czechoslovakia to help in reorganizing the Church there (then under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Church), which was greatly tried and weakened by Uniatism. Realizing the people's crying need a clear exposition of the Faith in their own language, he began in 1932 his three-volume Dogmas of the Orthodox Church. The first volume was so well-received that Fr Justin was made Professor of Dogmatics at the Seminary of St Sava, where he remained, completing the Dogmas and several other books, until the end of World War II. The new atheistic Communist regime then banned him from the university system, and Fr Justin lived from that time on in various Serbian monasteries.
 
In 1948 he entered Chelije Monastery, where he remained until his repose in 1979. He became Archimandrite and spiritual head of the Monastery. It was during this period that he emerged as a great light of Orthodoxy: pious believers from all parts of Yugoslavia, from Greece, and from all over the world traveled to Chelije to hear the holy Justin's preaching and seek his counsel.
 
Saint Justin reposed in peace in 1979 at the age of 85, on the Feast of the Annunciation — the date of his birth (March 25 OC; April 7 NC). Since his repose, many miracles have been witnessed at his grave: healings, flashes of unearthly light from his tomb, and conversions of unbelievers by his prayers. His many writings are increasingly recognized as a fount of pure Orthodox teaching in the midst of our dark time.

Apolytikion
As Orthodox sweetness and divine nectar, Venerable Father thou dost flow into the hearts of believers as a wealth: by thy life and teachings thou didst reveal thyself to be a living book of the Spirit, most wise Justin; therefore pray to Christ the Word that the Word may dwell in those who honor thee.

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Monastery of St. Savvas th New in Kalymnos

St. Savvas the New of Kalymnos (Feast Day - April 7)

He was born in Thrace to a poor family. Early in life he desired to become a monk and, failing to get his parents' consent, left secretly for Mt Athos. After several years there, he traveled to Palestine, where he entered the Monastery of St George the Chozebite. In 1903 he was ordained to the priesthood. From 1907–1916 he lived in severe asceticism as a hermit on the banks of the Jordan. After living in several monasteries in Greece, he served with St Nektarios of Aegina for the last year of the Saint's life (he reposed in 1920). After six more years on Aegina, Fr Savvas moved to the island of Kalymnos, where he spent the remainder of his life. He lived in quietness and asceticism, acquiring a reputation throughout the island as a confessor and spiritual father. He slept only a few hours each night, and gave away any money that came to him the same day, since he believed that it was wrong for a monk to have money in his cell after nightfall.

Saint Savvas reposed on the Old Calendar feast of the Annunciation in 1948. Innumerable miracles and healings have been wrought through his intercession. A striking example occurred in 1957: A group of young islanders were talking about the Saint, and one of them, who doubted his sanctity, said 'If this lamp breaks I'll believe.' At that moment the lamp shattered spontaneously.

The following account is from Mother Nectaria McLees' Evlogeite! A Pilgrim's Guide to Greece:

His last words of counsel to his nuns were, "...love... is the bond of perfection," and to the abbess he said, "Love, love, love (Agapa, agapa, agapa)." Then he clapped his hands six times, saying "The Lord, the Lord, the Lord..."

In 1957 his relics were uncovered in the presence of Metropolitan Isidoros of Kalymnos, who described them as "the bones being perfectly joined, and the vestments intact." When the sepulchre was opened a divine and otherworldly fragrance covered the area, even to the outskirts of town far below. In 1961, an iconographer of the Skete of Kapsokalyvia on Mount Athos painted an icon of St. Savvas at Abbess Philothei's request. The icon arrived by ferry, and as it was being transferred from the post office to the customs house where the nuns would pick it up, the convent bell began ringing by itself and continued until the icon was brought to the monastery.'

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Apolytikion
Let us faithful praise Holy Savvas, the glory and protector of Kalymnos, and peer of the Holy Ascetics of old; for he has been glorified resplendently as a servant of Christ, with the gift of working miracles, and he bestows upon all God's grace and mercy.

Kontakion
Today the island of the Kalymnians celebrates your holy memory with a rejoicing heart; for it possesses as truly God-given wealth, your sacred body that has been glorified by God, O Father Savvas, approaching which they receive health of both soul and body.

Megalynarion
Rejoice thou new star of the Church, the offspring of Thrace and the beauty of Kalymnos, O God-inspired Savvas, fellow citizens of angels and equal of all the saints.

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An Ode To Monasticism

"Angels are a light for monks and the monastic life is a light for all men." - St. John Climacus

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Georgian Convicts Swap Cells For Monastery

BBC
April 5, 2010

Tbilisi, Georgia - Well-behaved prisoners in Georgia are being offered the chance to spend time in a monastery to serve out their sentences, as part of a plan to reduce prison overcrowding, Tom Esslemont reports from Tbilisi.

It is not hard to spot Tariel Maizeradze in the crowded chapel.

He wears a flowing red robe, while the others, the monks, sport black cassocks and neat hats.

The main difference, though, is that Tariel is not a fully-fledged monk, but a prisoner now serving out his sentence at the Father Ambrosi Khelaia monastery near Tbilisi.

Having spent four years behind bars and barbed wire, he is now allowed to roam the calm surroundings of a pine forest on the outskirts of the city, as one of the first candidates in a government-led rehabilitation programme.

A devout Orthodox Christian, he shows me around the monastery, explaining his daily ritual.

"I start every day in prayer. Then I feed the chickens and sheep. During the afternoon I usually sit together with the other monks and we discuss our faith. At 2130 we rest."

He says he also takes part in Bible study, bee-keeping, gardening and playing with the monks' pet bear.

He has swapped his prison cell for the relative comfort of the monastery and is allowed to receive frequent visitors.

His former fellow prisoners, he says, became jealous when they heard he was being moved.

"They wanted to come and spend time with the monks as well. This is a better place for me. I suppose God had something to do with my coming here."

Tariel, 50, was sentenced in 2006 to seven years for minor offences he had committed while working as a policeman.

The head of the monastery, Father Saba, insists he is ready to accept anyone prepared to ask for forgiveness - even murderers.

"With the support of God we are able to welcome criminals who are eager to become better people and confess their sins," he said.

'Religious discrimination'

Although the scheme is being organised by the Georgian government, the initiative came from the Georgian Orthodox Church - the country's most prominent and powerful religious institution, one directly funded by the government.

However, critics of the scheme say it is too exclusive of other religions and lacks a clear organisational structure.

Levan Ramishvili, chairman of the Liberty Institute think tank, says "it is [currently] done in a discriminatory manner because the state only co-operates with the Orthodox Church.

"In our prisons we have people from various faiths and they would probably prefer to serve out their sentence somewhere else and not in [an] Orthodox monastery."

The authorities say they are not ruling out working with other religious communities.

However the priority, they say, is to find ways to rehabilitate some of Georgia's 22,000 prisoners, many of whom are minor offenders like Tariel Maizeradze.

In recent years, human rights activists have said Georgia's prisoners are kept in unsanitary conditions.

In its 2008 report, the US state department said the country's prisons and pre-trial detention centres failed to match international standards.

Poor standards

Tato Kelbakiani, assistant head of Georgia's penitentiary department, told the BBC that he was aware of the scale of the problem and that jails needed reform.

He said it was the government's intention to "release people into monasteries, but also into other schemes as well".

He also suggested that violent criminals may one day be introduced into monasteries.

"People on life sentences might also become eligible for the scheme after they have served a minimum of 20 years," he said.

For his part, Tariel Maizeradze is enjoying his comparative freedom. He even says he would consider spending more than his allotted three years at the monastery.

"I am at peace here. I don't think I'll ever become a fully-fledged monk, but I know I never want to be a policeman again either - that's for sure."

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Divine Love Surpasses Knowledge

"It is better to be a simpleton and to approach God with love than to be a know-it-all and, at the same time, be an enemy of God." These are the words of the priest-martyr, St. Ireneaus of Lyon. The truth of these words have been confirmed at all times and is also confirmed in our time. One thing must be added to this, namely, that the lovers of God are not simpletons because they know God well enough that they are able to love Him. Of all human knowledge, this knowledge is more important and greater. To this must be added that the enemies of God cannot be more knowledgeable, even though they consider themselves as such, because their knowledge is unavoidably chaotic, for it does not have a source and does not have order. For the source and order of all knowledge is God. Some of the saints, such as Paul the Simple, did not know how to read or write yet with the strength of their spirit and divine love surpassed the entire world. Whosoever approaches God with love, that person is not capable of crime. Knowledge without love toward God is motivated by the spirit of criminality and war. St. Euthymius the Great taught: "Have love; for what salt is to food, love is to every virtue." Every virtue is tasteless and cold if it is not seasoned and warmed by divine love.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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World Council of Churches: The KGB Connection

By Mark D. Tooley
March 31, 2010
FrontPage

During the 1970’s and 1980’s the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), to which hundreds of Protestant and Orthodox communions belonged, routinely espoused pro-Soviet and anti-Western stances. It even funded Marxist guerrilla groups. Critics assumed that the WCC was simply naively captive to Liberation Theology, which tried to exchange salvation for class warfare and revolution.

But a new book by a Bulgarian author reveals that the KGB and its Bulgarian intelligence affiliate exploited the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for direct influence on the WCC and the Conference of European Churches. In “Between Faith and Compromise,” Bulgarian historian Momchil Metodiev chronicles how the Soviets and their Bulgarian proxies employed the Bulgarian Orthodox and WCC to promote Soviet strategic goals globally.

“Participation of the Bulgarian church in ecumenical organizations was not inspired by the idea of interdenominational dialogue and co-operation,” Metodiev reported amid his book’s release this month. ”If, in popular perceptions, state security is classified as a state within the state, then the ecumenical activity [conducted by Soviet bloc representatives] could be classified as a church within the Church,” wrote Metodiev, who has researched Bulgarian communist archives for the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington, D.C.

According to Metodiev, Bulgarian intelligence had already identified the WCC as an “object of penetration” even before the Bulgarian and other East Bloc churches joined the WCC in 1961. He also explains in his book how East bloc intelligence services and communist committees on church affairs collaborated to influence ecumenical groups like the WCC. Metodiev writes that during the 1970’s, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, at the KGB’s behest, led this collaboration, while Bulgarian Metropolitan Pankratii of Stara Zagora did his part in Bulgaria. Nikodim, who unsurprisingly worked closely with the Soviet-front, Prague-based Christian Peace Conference, became a WCC president in 1975 after browbeating Third World delegates with threats of a Soviet-aid cut-off to their countries if they did not cooperate.

East Bloc intelligence services, working through East Bloc churches belonging to the WCC, helped to ensure that the WCC focused its critique on the United States and its allies, while deflecting any attempted interest in human rights abuses in the East Bloc. Metodiev says a rare exception was the WCC’s debate at its 1975 Assembly in Nairobi, when some delegates tried to address Soviet repression of religion. At that gathering, a Swiss delegate named Jacques Rossel proposed this brief stance: “The WCC is concerned about the infringement of religious freedom, especially in the Soviet Union. The General Assembly respectfully asks the government of the USSR to abide by Article 7 of the Helsinki Final Act.”

Even such a mild proposed criticism ignited a firestorm of controversy within the reliably far-left WCC and failed to get the required two thirds votes from WCC delegates. A satire appeared in the WCC exhibition hall spoofing the conference theme of “Christ Liberates and Unites” by opining: “Christ has liberated Jacques Rossel to make a motion, he united the East European delegates – but will he divide the WCC movement?”

Amid all this ruffling of normally calm pro-Soviet feathers inside the WCC, the delegates approved a new compromise resolution the next day that nonchalantly noted having “spent considerable time debating the alleged non-observance of religious freedom in the USSR” and concluded that “churches in the different parts of Europe live and work under greatly differing conditions.” Even this non-criticism of the Soviets was too much for the Russian Orthodox delegates, who abstained in protest over the discomfiting “atmosphere” the discussion had unpleasantly enflamed. After that 1975 episode, the WCC would largely avoid any attempt at even tacitly admitting to any lack of religious freedom in the East Bloc.

Metodiev’s book addresses the 1975 incident and also reveals that Soviet and Bulgarian intelligence ensured the selection of Bulgaria’s Todor Sabev as the WCC deputy general secretary.

Sabev was a seminary professor in Sofia, Bulgaria and founded the Institute for Church History and Archives of the Bulgarian Patriarchate for the Bulgarian church. He became almost immediately involved with the WCC after the Bulgarians joined, serving on the WCC’s Central and Executive Committees in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In 1979 he became the WCC deputy general secretary, focusing on WCC ties to Orthodox Churches and Roman Catholics until he retired in 1993. “A devoted friend and colleague, he gained the trust and confidence of all those he has worked with,” recalled then WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia when Sabev died in 2008. “He will be remembered for his kindness and openness, his readiness to serve all at all moments and under all circumstances. Because of his personality combining moral authority and human warmth, he played the role of bridge-builder between the East and the West, between Orthodox and other member churches of the WCC, between the fellowship of member churches and the Roman Catholic Church.” Of course, Kobia did not mention Sabev’s long service as an agent of East European communism.

In a report by Ecumenical News International (ENI), a WCC official tried to minimize the revelations without explicitly denying them. “These allegations are not new,” insisted Martin Robra, a WCC program director. “Even during the years of the Cold War, it was known that church representatives coming from communist countries had the obligation to report about their activities abroad to their country’s authorities.” Of course, during the Cold War, the WCC never acknowledged this situation and preferred to pretend that East Bloc churches were free agents no more manipulated by their governments than were Western churches. “WCC proceedings and policies were, as they are today, public. There were no real ’secrets’ to be disclosed,” Robra claimed to ENI. “It was far more important to nurture relationships between the churches across the ‘Iron Curtain’ that divided the nations and to support them as much as possible.”

Only after the collapse of East Bloc communism did some WCC officials sheepishly admit they should have said a bit more about religious oppression under communism. But they also disingenuously claimed that their cooperation with East Bloc churches and even East Bloc governments had opened doors that facilitated the Cold War’s peaceful conclusion. “The stances taken by the WCC in favor of justice and peace did not follow any KGB script, but the Gospel of Christ, the prince of peace whom we meet among the most vulnerable and suffering people,” Robra assured ENI.

Books like Metodiev’s, based on research in communist archives, increasingly are confirming that the WCC and other religious groups did follow the KGB’s script during much of the Cold War. The question is, as the WCC continues his far-left advocacy, whose script does it follow now?

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Good and Wicked Priests

"Spiritual directors should distinguish themselves from their subordinates as much as a shepherd distinguishes himself from his sheep." Thus speaks St. Isidorus of Pelusium in interpreting the First Epistle of St. Timothy. The life of a priest always serves as an example, be it good or be it bad. By an exemplary life, a priest confirms the Gospel and, by a wicked life, he denies the Gospel. No one in this world is in such a position to confirm the truth of the Gospel or to deny it in such a manner by his life, as is a priest. A good priest is distinguished from a wicked priest by his works no less than a shepherd is distinguished from a wolf. That is why a goodly portion of good priests will be with the sons of God and a goodly portion of wicked priests will be with the wild beasts of darkness. The good shepherds of the Church, even in the last moments of their lives, were concerned about their flocks which they were leaving behind. Upon his death bed, St. Joseph the Hymnographer prayed to God: "Preserve your flock, O Son of God, created by Your right hand and protect them to the end of time. Be of assistance to the beloved sons of Your Church. Grant to Your Bride [Holy Church] eternal peace and a stormless calm." St. Antipas, burning in a blazing ox, cast out of copper, prayed to God in this manner: "Not only me, but those also who would come after me, make them partakers of Your mercy."

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Evolution, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design

By William Dembski

In 1993, well-known apologist William Lane Craig debated professional atheist Frank Zindler concerning the existence of the Christian God. The debate was published as a video by Zondervan in 1996 and is readily available at YouTube. The consensus among theists and atheists is that Craig won the debate. Still, Zindler presented there a challenge worth revisiting:

"The most devastating thing, though, that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people, the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin, there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation, there is no need of a savior. And I submit that puts Jesus, historical or otherwise, into the ranks of the unemployed. I think that evolution is absolutely the death knell of Christianity."

Zindler’s objection to Original Sin and the Fall is the subject of my just-published book The End of Christianity: Finding a Good God in an Evil World (see www.godornot.com, which includes a $5,000 video contest connected with the book). What interests me here, however, is the logic that is supposed to take one from evolution to the death of Christianity—and presumably to the death of God generally.

By evolution Zindler means a Darwinian, materialistic form of it, one that gives no evidence of God and thus is compatible with atheism (this is, in fact, what is meant by evolution and how I’ll use the term in the sequel). But Zindler is not arguing for the mere compatibility of evolution with atheism; he is also claiming that evolution implies, as in rationally compels, atheism. This implication is widely touted by atheists. Richard Dawkins pushes it. Cornell historian of biology and atheist Will Provine will even call evolution “the greatest engine for atheism” ever devised.

To claim that evolution implies atheism is, however, logically unsound (even though sociological data supports the loss of faith as a result of teaching evolution). Theistic evolutionists such as Francis Collins, Denis Alexander, and Kenneth Miller provide a clear counterexample, showing that at least some well-established biologists think it’s possible for the two to be compatible. Moreover, there’s no evident contradiction between an evolutionary process bringing about the complexity and diversity of life and a god of some sort (deistic, Stoic, etc.?) providing the physical backdrop for evolution to operate.

The reverse implication, however, does seem to hold: atheism implies evolution (a gradualist, materialist form of evolution, the prime example being Darwinian). Indeed, the atheist has no other rational options in explaining the diversity and complexity of life. The atheist may, in the face of reason, invoke pure chance to explain the emergence of life. Thus the atheist might want to say that organisms simply materialized as the result of vastly improbable thermodynamic accidents. But such appeals to chance are no better than empty appeals to divine action. “Chance did it” and “God did it” without further elaboration are equally empty. “Getting lucky” is not a scientific hypothesis.

If atheism is to offer a comprehensive worldview, it must supply a creation story, and the only such story that has any hope of being rationally compelling is a gradualist, materialist one. This may rightly be called Darwinian evolution (the adjective “Darwinian” here looks to Darwin’s original inspiration but also factors in how his ideas have been extended since). Accordingly, atheism implies Darwinian evolution. This (reverse) implication explains why intelligent design (ID) is so vehemently opposed by atheists. ID claims to find scientific evidence of intelligent agency in the emergence of biological systems. By thus challenging Darwinian evolution, ID challenges atheism.

The rationale here is a simple application of the logical rules modus ponens (If A, then B; A; therefore B) and modus tollens (If A, then B; not B; therefore not A). Thus,

Premise 1: If atheism is true, then so is Darwinian evolution.

Premise 2: But if ID is true, then Darwinian evolution is false.

Premise 3: ID is true (the controversial premise).

Conclus 1: Therefore Darwinian evolution is false (modus ponens applied to Premises 2 and 3)

Conclus 2: Therefore atheism is false (modus tollens applied to Premise 1 and Conclus 1)

Evolution is the mainstay of an atheistic worldview—is it any coincidence that the day-job of the world’s leading atheist (Richard Dawkins) is evolutionary biology? ID, by challenging this mainstay, fundamentally undermines an atheistic worldview. It’s therefore ironic that theistic evolutionists are not just hardening their support of evolution but even actively turning against ID, arguing that Darwinian evolution is more compatible with Christian theism than ID.

When I got into this business 20 years ago, I thought that any Christian (and indeed any theist), given solid evidence against Darwinian evolution (as ID is now increasingly providing—see my book The Design of Life and Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell) would be happy to trash it and move to some form of intelligent design (whether discrete creations or gradual guidance or information front-loading or whatever). But that has not happened. Theistic evolutionists have now baptized Darwinism. Thus, in the 2001 PBS evolution series, Brown University biologist Kenneth Miller referred to himself as an orthodox Catholic and an orthodox Darwinian. Francis Collins and his associates at www.biologos.org follow Miller here in trying to convince religious believers that Darwinian evolution provides the best fit with their faith.

Ironically, theistic evolutionists now make common cause with atheistic evolutionists—specifically against ID. ID has become public enemy number one for both atheistic and theistic evolutionists (the recent spate of books by both sides confirms this point—atheist Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True as well as theist Kenneth Miller’s Only a Theory). Consequently, not just the mainstream academy but the mainstream Christian academy (Wheaton College, Calvin College, Seattle Pacific University, etc. — most schools in the CCCU) have now closed their doors to ID and to hiring faculty that explicitly support it.

Shocked alumni are welcome to prove me wrong. Christians in general need to consider this: The only thing theistic evolutionists have to say to a Richard Dawkins who uses evolution as a club to beat believers is that he’s making a category mistake, trying to get science to do the work of theology (to which Dawkins would respond “so much the worse for theology”). By contrast, ID takes the club out of Dawkins’ hands and breaks it, showing that the theory of evolution on which he relies is all washed up.

As my colleague Noel Rude has rightly pointed out, “New knowledge is always destabilizing, and the instinct for stability and the preservation of prestige and power always preclude the quest for truth.” The Christian academy is as guilty here as the non-Christian. Thus, we find theistic evolutionists not just criticizing ID but denying it any legitimacy whatsoever. How convenient, since adopting the party line grants theistic evolutionists acceptance in the secular culture denied to ID proponents. Notwithstanding, being public enemy number one among the intelligentsia (atheist, and now increasingly theist) has this advantage: we can pursue the quest for truth without a conflict of interest.

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A Miracle of Sts. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene

How A Cerebrally Dead Greek Young Man Was Reanimated!

On Bright Tuesday of 17th May 2000, His Eminence the Metropolitan of Goumenissa, Axioupolis and Polykastron Mr. Demetrios, the local authorities and a multitude of pilgrims gathered at the Holy Monastery of Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene to celebrate the feast of these three Newly-Revealed Orthodox Saints.

Closing his sermon to the congregation, the Metropolitan reported the personal testimony of pilgrims present at the congregation who had made public the outstanding experience of their miraculous healings by the Newly-Revealed Saints: Mr. Isaac Kapoulas – a policeman from Thessaloniki who had been cured from leukemia; Mrs. Aikaterini Tsotopoulou – a woman also from a suburb of Thessaloniki who had recovered from a severe craniocerebral injury; Mr. Stergios Ledas - a man from nearby Kilkis who had also recovered from heavy head injury; and Mr. Zacharias Georgousis from the local village of Vafeiohori who had been saved from an allergic shock.

Following the procession of the holy relics of the three saints, the congregation met again to listen to the astounding account by a high school pupil from the Terpni village in the neighboring area of Nigrita, Serres and his mother. The young man named Apostolos Gazepis narrated his miraculous healing from the injuries of a traffic accident on 5/5/2000, although the doctors had given up every hope for recovery and had therefore tried to persuade his parents to consent for his vital organs to be donated. The firm faith of his mother who never stopped praying for eight days to the Newly-Revealed Saints Raphael, Nicholas and Irene outside the Intensive Care Unit contributed to the reanimation and full recovery of the patient that also had the honor to see the Saints.

In her signed account of this overwhelming event, Mrs. Sophia Gazepi, mother of Apostolos, describes the tragic days until her son’s reanimation. It was on the 5th of May 2000, which was Bright Friday of the Zoodochos Pege, that her 17-year-old son Apostolos was riding a motorbike and crashed into a car. He was taken to the local hospital and then hurried to the General Hospital of Serres. Following a CT-scan of the head, the doctors informed the father that his son had suffered severe craniocerebral injury and, provided they managed to stabilize his cerebral pressure without further complications, there would be hope for recovery.

On the following day Mrs. Sophia asked for books about the miracles of Saint Raphael and began reading them and praying day and night along with the relatives and neighbours that stood by her side. In those very few moments she was allowed into the Critical Care Unit, and she blessed her son with the blessed oil from the Saints’ church.

The patient was attended by neurosurgeon Mr. Vogas. On the third day, the cerebral pressure rose high, the brain was bleeding and the young man was perishing. In their despair, his parents called for another specialist, although the attending doctor had reassured them that it was no longer a matter of medical care since the patient's condition was deteriorating. Dr. Nikolaos Baskinis was however brought from Thessaloniki, only to confirm the critical condition of the patient, especially regarding the heamatomas at the back of his head that made recovery doubtful. There was a faint hope if they operated on him, so the parents gave their consent. The operation revealed more wounds than the CT-scan and because the brain was swollen the doctors decided to leave the skull open and see what would follow. As soon as the neurosurgeons had left, the Hospital doctors announced to the parents that the young man was cerebrally dead. On Friday night, seven days after the accident, the Brain Death Determination Test was positive. The doctor on duty called the parents asking them to take courage and comfort themselves with their other child because Apostolos was dying since only his heart was beating. The mother was painfully praying to our Lord to bring her son to life as He had done with Lazarus.

All through this time, the parents, relatives, fellow-pupils, friends and acquaintances had been ceaselessly praying for Apostolos. They had talked to the Saints’ monasteries on the island of Lesvos and in the nearby location of Griva, asking for a commemoration of the young man’s name in the services. On the previous Tuesday, Apostolos’s mother had gone to the Church of the Mother of God in the town of Serres to attend the Supplication Service (Paraklesis) to the three Newly-Revealed Saints.

On Saturday there was the first evidence of relative improvement: seven Brain Death Confirmation tests were positive against two negative! By noon, his condition had further improved. Fateful visions seen by close relatives raised their hopes for the substantial assistance of the Virgin Mary and the Newly-Revealed Saints. After the 13th of May 2000, Apostolos started to recover. The neurosurgeon asked them to call him ‘Lazarus’ after that, because he had actually been ‘risen’ from death.

The medical report written by the neurosurgeon Dr. Evaggelos Vogas stated: “During his CT-exam, the patient needed intubation because of his comatose condition. The findings of the CT-scan were the following: fracture of left occipital bone with an underlying contusion of the left hemisphere of the cerebellum; extensive haemorrhagic contusions on the right frontal lobe with an ipsilateral fine subdural heamatoma; a dislocation of the median line to the left; and the receptacles of the cerebral base were closed ... On the evening hours of 5/8/2000 his Intracranial Pressure raises, which is very difficult to control ... On 5/9/2000 the patient is taken to OR for craniotomy and partial removal of contused right frontal lobe. At the end of the operation, the brain is pulsating, the subdural area is left open, while the pupils are in dilation with no reaction to light stimuli... On 5/12/2000 all Brain Death Determination tests are positive. On 5/13/2000 pupillary dilation retires and reaction to light is evident. Progressively until 5/16/2000 the patient starts breathing on his own....”

When Apostolos recovered, he had a problem with his left arm because of multiple injuries and the procedures during his intensive therapy. Among the many doctors he visited, Dr. Ilias Tsorlinis (of the Neurophysiology Laboratory) diagnosed ‘diffuse degeneration of the ulnar nerve on the left forearm, below the level of the branch projection for the ulnar flexor of the wrist, with no focal conduction block.’

One night Apostolos himself saw Saint Nicholas the Deacon in a vision talking to his father: "You have gone to so many doctors; why haven’t you come to me too?" His father answered: "How are you going to heal this?" and the Saint replied: "You know how."

In a second vision, Apostolos found himself in a chapel with icons and a table in the centre with the decapitated head of Saint Raphael. As he hesitated to approach the table, the Saint appeared in full form before him and told him how many times he had attended church lately, then grasped his arm, recited a prayer, and at this touch Apostolos’s arm was illuminated. His arm recovered fully in a short time!

In the life of Saint Symeon the New Theologian (written by Saint Nikitas Stethatos) we read: “The real visions remain in the mind for many years later, even until the end of life, as these had originally been revealed. Saint Gregory the Theologian testifies to that in his speech to Ceasarios ... And when he saw something related to his ill mother, the outcome proved that the vision had been real."

This article first appeared in Greek in issue no. 96 of 'Epaggelia' [‘The Promise’], the newsletter of the Holy Diocese of Goumenissa, Axioupolis and Polykastron, in May 2001.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
On Lesvos, ye strove in contest for the sake of Christ God; ye also have hallowed her with the discovery of your relics, O blessed ones. O God-bearer Raphael, with thee, we all honour Nicholas the deacon and Irene the chaste virgin, as our divine protectors, who now intercede with the Lord.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Ye shone on the world like stars first as ascetics, then as athletes slain for Christ, and were translated to the heights through the great torments that ye endured; and them that praise you, ye keep and protect, O Saints.

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St. Eutychius and the Condemnation of Heretics After Death

At the very beginning of his patriarchal service, St Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople (feastday April 6), convened the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), at which the Fathers condemned the heresies cropping up and anathematized them. Among them was Origenism. When the debate began whether heretics like Origen could be anathematized after their deaths, he supported the opinion that they could be by calling upon the Third Book of Kings (in some translations, called The First Book of Kings 13: 1-8 and the Fourth Book of Kings (in some translations, called The Second Book of Kings 23:16). 15 anathemas eventually were thus pronounced against Origen.

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6,000 Martyrs of the St David Gareji Monastery

6,000 Martyrs of the St David Gareji Monastery (Feast Day - Bright Tuesday)

In 1616 the Persian shah Abbas I led his enormous army in an attack on Georgia. Having quenched his thirst for the blood of the Christians, he arranged a hunt in the valley of Gare (Outer) Kakheti. He encamped with his escorts in the mountains of Gareji and spent the night in that place.

At midnight the shah’s attention was drawn to a flaming column of lights advancing up the mountain. At first he took it to be an apparition. He was soon informed, however, that a famous monastery was situated in that place and on that night the monks were circling their church three times with lighted candles in celebration of Christ’s Holy Resurrection. Immediately the shah commanded his army to march to the monastery and destroy all those found celebrating.

That same night an angel of the Lord appeared to Abbot Arsenius of David-Gareji and told him, “Our Lord Jesus Christ is calling the brothers to His Heavenly Kingdom. On this night great suffering awaits you—you will be killed by the sword. He who desires to prolong his earthly life, let him flee, but he who thirsts to purify his soul for eternity, let him perish by the sword, and the Lord God will adorn him with the crown of immortality. Tell this to all who dwell in the monastery, and let each man choose for himself!”

The abbot informed the monks about his vision, and they began to prepare for their imminent sufferings. Only two young monks feared death and fled to a mountain not far from the monastery. At the chanting of the Lord’s Prayer near the end of the Paschal Liturgy, the monastery was completely surrounded by Persian warriors. Abbot Arsenius stepped out of the church and approached their leader to request that the monks be given a bit more time to finish the service and for all the brothers to receive Holy Communion.

The Persians consulted among themselves and agreed to honor this request. The fathers partook of the Holy Gifts, encouraged one another, and presented themselves clad in festive garments before the unbelievers. First the Persians beheaded Abbot Arsenius; then they massacred his brothers in Christ without mercy.

After the Persians finished killing the monks, they were organized into several regiments and made their way towards the other monasteries of the Gareji Wilderness. Halfway between the Chichkhituri and St. John the Baptist Monasteries the Muslims captured the two young monks who had earlier fled and demanded that they convert to Islam.

The monks refused to abandon the Christian Faith and for this they were killed. A rose bush grew up in the place where they were killed and continued to fragrantly blossom through the 19th century, despite the dry and rocky soil.

At the end of the 17th century, King Archil gathered the bones of the martyrs with great reverence and buried them in a large stone reliquary to the left of the altar in the Transfiguration Church of David-Gareji Monastery. Their holy relics continue to stream myrrh to this day.

The brothers of the Monasteries of St. David of Gareji and St. John the Baptist received a blessing from Catholicos Anton I to compose a commemorative service for the martyrs and to designate their feast day as Bright Tuesday, or the third day of Holy Pascha.

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In the wilderness of David-Garejeli in Georgia there were twelve monasteries, in which monks had lived the ascetic life for centuries. In 1615, Shah Abbas I invaded Georgia, laid it waste and slew innumerable Christians. One day, while out hunting at dawn on Easter Day itself, he saw the light of many candles shining in the hills. This was the monks of all twelve monasteries in procession all round the Church of the Resurrection, walking with candles in their hands. When the Shah discovered that it was monks, he asked in disbelief: 'Isn't the whole of Georgia put to the sword by now?', and ordered his generals to go and slaughter the monks at once. An angel of God appeared to Abbot Arsenius, and revealed their imminent death to him, and Arsenius informed the brethren. They then all received Communion in the Holy Mysteries and prepared for death. Then the attackers arrived, hacked the abbot to pieces when he came out ahead of the others, and then killed all the rest. They all suffered with honour and were crowned with unfading wreaths in 1615. Thus ended the history of these famous monasteries, which had been like a flame of spiritual enlightenment in Georgia for more than 1,000 years. There remain just two today: St David and St John the Baptist. The King of Georgia, Archil, gathered the remains of all the martyrs and buried them. Their relics are to this day full of myrrh for the healing of those in sickness. - Prologue of St. Nikolai Velimirovich

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How An Atheist Came To Believe in the Resurrection

Investigating Easter

By Lee Strobel

I saw plenty of dead bodies as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, but I've never seen anyone come back to life. That was the stuff of mythology and legend. After all, we live in a scientific age. Belief in a resurrection was simply untenable.

At least, that's what I thought until I checked the facts for myself. Using my legal training, I investigated the most audacious claim of history: that Jesus of Nazareth returned from the dead and thus authenticated his claim to being the Son of God.

After nearly two years of research, I found my atheism cracking. Here's some of what I discovered:

First, there's overwhelming evidence Jesus was executed. In addition to multiple, early, independent confirmation in the New Testament documents (which, incidentally, I gave no special treatment), there are also five sources outside the Bible. Even atheist historian Gerd Lüdemann called Jesus' death by crucifixion "indisputable."

Second, we have resurrection accounts that date back so early they can't be legendary - because legends take time to develop. A.N. Sherwin-White, the great classical historian from Oxford, said the passage of two generations was not even enough time for legend to grow up in the ancient world and wipe out a solid core of historical truth.

Yet we have a creed of the early church, recorded in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, that confirms Jesus died, was buried, rose and appeared to named eyewitnesses, including skeptics. Scholars from a wide range of theological belief have dated this creed to within a few years of Jesus' death - and therefore its underlying beliefs go back even further. It's like a historical news flash!

Concluded eminent scholar James D. G. Dunne: "This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus' death." It would be unprecedented for a legend to develop that fast and wipe out a solid core of historical truth.

Third, there's the empty tomb, which is implicit in the early creed and reported in the earliest Gospel.

Scholar William Lane Craig points out that the site of Jesus' tomb was known to Christians and non-Christians alike. If it weren't empty, it would have been impossible for a movement founded on the resurrection to have exploded into existence in the same city where Jesus had been publicly executed and buried just a few weeks earlier.

Moreover, the empty tomb was implicitly admitted in the early claim that the disciples had stolen the body. Why would Jesus' opponents manufacture such a cover story unless they were trying to explain away the inconvenient truth that the tomb was empty?

Nobody had a motive for stealing the body, especially the disciples. They wouldn't have knowingly and willingly allowed themselves to be tortured to death for a lie.

Finally, scholars Gary Habermas and Michael Licona have enumerated nine sources reporting the resurrected Jesus appeared to the disciples:

• Paul confirms Jesus appeared to him, and then Paul met with the apostles and they agreed their teaching about the resurrection was the same as his.

• The early creed confirms the disciples (plus 500 others!) encountered the risen Jesus; indeed, many scholars believe two eyewitnesses cited in the creed, Peter and James, were the ones who gave the creed to Paul.

• Peter declared to a crowd in Jerusalem just weeks after Jesus' execution that "God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it." Three thousand people agreed and the church was born.

• Matthew, Mark, Luke and John independently confirm his post-resurrection appearances. These first-century, eyewitness-rooted Gospels have regained respect in recent years. Scholar Craig Evans, who has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, said that "there's every reason to conclude the Gospels have fairly and accurately reported the essential elements" of Jesus' resurrection.

• Early church leaders Clement and Polycarp were taught by the apostles. Clement said the apostles had "complete certainty" about the resurrection; Polycarp repeatedly confirmed the resurrection.

So convinced were the disciples that they were willing to die for their conviction that Jesus had risen -- not because they had faith in it, but because they were in the unique position to know for sure that it was true.

Even atheist Lüdemann conceded: "It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ."

He would claim these were hallucinations or visions, yet I don't find that credible. Hallucinations occur in our brains, like dreams. People can't share hallucinations, yet Jesus appeared to groups three different times.

Were these visions by grieving disciples? This wouldn't explain the conversion of Saul, an opponent of Christians, or James, a skeptic. Neither was primed for a vision, yet each died proclaiming Jesus had appeared to him. Besides, if these were visions, the body would still have been entombed.

My books analyze objections that many skeptics, including myself, have raised. None, in my view, overcome the affirmative evidence. So I reached the verdict that the resurrection really happened - and that's why I'm celebrating my 29th Easter as a follower of Jesus.

Lee Strobel, author of the bestselling "Case" series has created the new resources "The Case for the Resurrection" and "The Case for Christ Study Bible."

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Siberian Pastor Converts Community to Orthodoxy

Renowned Siberian Pastor Converts His Community to Orthodoxy

Irkutsk, 5 April 2010, Interfax – Pastor Igor Zyryanov from the Irkutsk Region, after 18 years of working at Protestant meetings and two years of pastoral missionary work, converted to Orthodoxy together with his family and community.

"It wasn't easy for us, but now and in the future we will further study and follow the Lord on the Orthodox thousand-year path. But the most important is that now we enjoy plenitude as I was searching for 18 years and couldn't find, was drinking but couldn't quench my thirst, was eating but couldn't satisfy hunger," Zyryanov writes in his article "The Lord Took Me Home!" published at the Irkutsk Diocese website.

According to him, members of his community until this moment "were floating on the river of Protestantism and suddenly our horizon broadened and the infinite ocean of Orthodoxy has opened for us."

After finishing school, Zyryanov practiced as an extrasensory expert and opened his own cabinet. Since the 1990s he started visiting meetings of the Blagaya Vest Protestant Church as he first thought to attract new clients. The future Orthodox believer considered Christ "a great extrasensory expert."

Zyryanov was going around villages as a missionary and delivered about four thousand sermons. However, he soon was disappointed with Protestantism. He considered Protestant communities "pieces, fragments of the Church as if it was a church, but damaged, without plenitude," and he could not find "a Church with a capital "C".

Several years of reading the Holy Fathers and talking to Orthodox priests, who "dramatically differed with their humility and kindness from Protestant pastors filled with pride", led Zyryanov to a decision to convert to Orthodoxy. Thus he, his family and the Bayanday village community have become Orthodox believers. Today Zyryanov is a member of the village parochial council of St. Michael.

More About Igor Zyryanov

A Siberian evangelist, Igor (pronounced eager) lives in Ulan Ude, a city about a thousand miles east of Krasnoyarsk and just north of Mongolia. Igor has a background in the occult, his mother having been a witch who passed on demons to her son in the womb. As a young man he took up a job as a village folk healer. He says that the demons in him would negotiate with the demons oppressing a client; the result was some form of temporary relief from whatever the problem might have been. Igor as a young man encountered the gospel message, which he embraced. The result was that he was delivered from the demons who lived in his body, and he felt for the first time in his life a freshness and purity that was as wonderful as the dawning day. Igor took up the work of an evangelist, specializing in reaching out to people dealing with the same occult forces that had dominated his life. In his ministry he has experienced supernatural visions and healings. He worked with the Buryat people, sharing the Gospel, distributing Bible recordings produced by Gospel Recordings, training others, and organizing fellowship groups. The Office of International Evangelism supported his ministry last year with a grant of $2,000 from the Siberia Unreached Peoples ECO.

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Jesus Good / Church Necessary: Churches Fail Because People Fail

Without a Church There Would Be Very Little Christianity

Those who praise Jesus but attack his organisation are missing out on so much, says Charles Moore.

02 Apr 2010
Telegraph.com.uk

Jesus good/Church bad. It is an old and simple message. It helps to explain the Reformation. The very word "Protestantism" is a reminder of this. The protest was made against the Church, by people who sincerely believed that they were acting on behalf of Jesus.

The modern version of the same message – current since the 19th century – is that all Christian churches, not just wicked old Rome, are bad, since God does not exist. But Jesus is good. In this week's Spectator, Matthew Parris, who calls himself a "Protestant atheist", says that Jesus was a man whose teachings have "transfiguring energy", an "undismissibly real man". Jesus is "a colossal embarrassment" to the Church.

In his new "story" (his chosen word), The Good Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, the novelist Philip Pullman imagines that Mary gave birth to twins. One was Jesus, "strong and healthy". The other was Christ, "small, weak and sickly". Jesus preached the unvarnished truth. The envious Christ was the real Satan, tempting his brother in the wilderness, scheming to invent Jesus's divinity, so that he could found the Church of lies.

"Jesus good/Church bad" is a powerful message because it is partly true. All churches are staffed by human beings. All human beings are – to use a word of which atheists disapprove – sinners. Therefore all churches fail, often grotesquely – as with child abuse by priests – to live up to their calling. Their calling is higher than any other, so their failure is the more apparent and shocking.

In England, we are particularly susceptible to the message because of our version of liberty. We like to think the best moral law is no law at all. We want to be Robin Hood, having fun in the greenwood and shooting bad rich people with our longbows. Horrid old churches, with their crabby rules and organised hypocrisies, are on the side of the Sheriff of Nottingham. We don't want blessing of clergy, except from indulgent, fat, jolly old Friar Tuck.

But when Pullman and Parris and all the other non-believing Jesus-freaks tell us how much they love the man from Nazareth, I find myself asking how they know what he was like. The answer – unless they claim a revelation by the God in whom they do not believe – can only be that they have read the Gospels. And why were these Gospels written, and why do they continue to be propagated to the ends of the earth? Because of Christians. Because, from earliest times, the followers of Jesus Christ kept his two names together, working them into their persecuted symbols. They did not merely believe that Jesus was a good man, but that, at Easter, Jesus Christ rose from the tomb. They developed the idea that he was God.

Do these atheist Jesus-groupies, so fiercely sceptical of priestcraft, not realise that the "good man Jesus" they admire is conveyed to them only through the words of the adherents of the "scoundrel Christ", whom they hate? And if the Church is such a scoundrel, why has it allowed the Gospel tales of Jesus to be read out every day in church since the days of the Roman Empire? It is an odd way to deal with a "colossal embarrassment".

Since it is the Church which brought forth these texts, why does Parris-Pullman (that sleek intellectual engine) trust them, or bits of them? How can even these great authors confidently extract their manly, truthful Jesus, and then throw away all the other stuff – virtually the whole of John's Gospel, for example – in which Jesus preaches what they must regard as theological rubbish?

The reality is that a body of religious and moral beliefs cannot cohere, or spread, without people to care for it. You can argue that the shoes of the fishermen whom Jesus chose as his apostles were never supposed to turn into the red slippers of the Pope, but you cannot sensibly say that all will be well if what Jesus taught can just be left lying around for clever chaps like Parris-Pullman to adorn a tale. You have to work together for Jesus. Organised religion can be a very horrible thing, but the alternative is not true religion and virtue, but disorganised religion and moral confusion.

At 5.20pm on Thursday of last week, I happened to go into Westminster Cathedral, just before Mass. The next morning, I heard that, at exactly that time, about 200 yards away, a boy had been murdered. Sofyen Belamouadden, 15, was chased by a mob of youths into Victoria Underground station and stabbed in front of 600 commuters.

It was an extreme example of the powerlessness of modern society to deal with savage evil, of the "broken Britain" which David Cameron says he wants to mend.

There are all sorts of arguments to be made about such deaths – about unrestricted immigration, inhibited policing, family breakdown. I don't propose to go into them here. But what should surely be common ground is that the state, however important, cannot cure all the ills which give rise to such horror.

Nowadays, we have the state, we have commerce and we have individuals. What we notoriously lack is community. Community is made up of all those things which people do together – schools, families, clubs, teams, political parties, charities. Throughout the history of civilisation, community has been bound together by religion. Now we are trying to make do without it, and we are not doing very well. We thought that moral imperatives would easily survive without the "mumbo-jumbo". It turns out that they haven't.

After the news of Sofyen's murder, I turned again to the communion service which Christians say every day, everywhere. Its form is remarkably similar across the different denominations.

The service starts by asking people to admit and repent of what they have done wrong. Then it thanks and praises God for the good things they enjoy. The Bible is read out, with its teaching about how to love God and neighbour. Prayers are said for the people that most need them – clergy, our political leaders, the poor, family, the sick, the dying. Money is collected for the needs of those who lack it.

Then the story of Jesus's last supper is told. The bread and wine are consecrated in memory of the sacrifice which he made, when he was judicially murdered, for everyone. The people share bread and wine. The priest sends them out into the world in peace.

At the very least, this universal ceremony restates uniquely and communally what human beings owe to one another, which is what "society" means. Many do not share the belief which lies behind it. But it seems utterly destructive to scorn the faith which produces such a ceremony and insult those who take part in it. Jesus good/Church necessary.

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Catholic Celibacy Turns Some to Orthodoxy

Catholic Celibacy Requirement Turns Some to Orthodoxy

April 3, 2010
Barnabas Powell
Chieftain

If Catholic priests were married, this sex abuse scandal would never have occurred. I've heard such sentiments a great deal lately — usually from Catholics — but I have my doubts.

I'm no psychologist, but I suspect the predators involved weren't the marrying type to begin with. Marriage of clergy should be considered, but on its own merits.

When I was a teenager seeking a church to call my own, I did so with an eye toward ministry. My quest for the apostolic faith led me to Messianic Judaism, then Rome.

I was awed by the Tridentine Latin Mass I experienced at a breakaway, traditionalist parish, and met with the priest to discuss both conversion and seminary.

I ultimately couldn't proceed with either prospect, however, because I felt a call to ministry and to marriage.

Just when I began to accuse myself of moral cowardice for allowing personal desires to keep me from what seemed the Church, my studies led eastward.

In the ancient, apostolic Orthodox Church, I learned married men could be priests. More importantly, I discovered this wasn't some progressive concession to modernist pressures, but a practice going back to St. Peter.

This apostle with a mother-in-law (Mark 1:30) was bishop of Antioch before going to Rome, and his native Christian East resisted pressure to mandate clerical celibacy when the teaching arose in Latin circles generations later.

Eastern clergy owe tremendous gratitude to a celibate monk and bishop from Egypt named Paphnutios, who stood against Western delegates at the Council of Nicea when they proposed celibacy for all priests and deacons.

This Western trend continued unabated, particularly after increasing claims of papal supremacy provoked a schism in 1054, ending Eastern influence on Latin practice.

For centuries, Rome ordained married men on condition they cease conjugal relations with their wives, but even this concession (perhaps never very practical), was nullified by the 12th century, when Roman councils closed the priesthood to married men.

It became the practice of East and West for bishops to be chosen solely from the celibate clergy (which in the East means monks or widowed priests), but any notion of requiring celibacy of Eastern priests died with a Constantinopolitan council in 692.

Still, there are certain canonical requirements in the Eastern tradition intended to prevent scandal. While married men may be ordained priests, priests may not marry.

The choice for marriage or monasticism must be made prior to ordination because a suitable candidate for ministry should have reached the point of maturity where he's decided whether to embark on family life.

This also prevents pastoral conflicts of interest, not to mention other improprieties that might arise from priests dating parishioners.

My single seminary classmates had to postpone ordination until after marriage. I think all would agree this made sense.

In keeping with Paul's instructions to Timothy (I Timothy 3:2-4), a candidate for priesthood can only have been married once. The same goes for his wife.

Although the Eastern tradition allows remarriage for laity (without annulments), clergy must meet a different standard.

Likewise, if a priest is widowed or divorced, he may not remarry unless he returns to lay status. This is a difficult proviso, and admittedly forces some tough decisions.

Finally, like our Levite forerunners, Orthodox clergy abstain from marital relations during our course of service in the temple — the eve of celebrating the Eucharist.

If Rome ever reconsiders clerical celibacy, it can look east for a working model from its own past.

In the meantime, let's remember that the vast majority of celibate priests uphold the trust vested in them and deserve our deepest respect. They shouldn't become victims of prejudice.

I could never be a bishop, but I cannot imagine being a priest without my wife. Not only would I perish without her moral support, but having a family also helps me better relate to my parishioners, whose struggles I share.

Barnabas Powell is pastor at St. Michael's Orthodox Church. He may be reached at barnabaspowell@yahoo.com.

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Paschal Litany on Mount Athos for Bright Week

On Bright Monday some monasteries on Mount Athos and Karyes hold litanies with their miraculous icons and holy relics. The others do this on Bright Tuesday.

For centuries the litany with the miraculous icon of Axion Estin in Karyes takes place after the Divine Liturgy on Bright Monday. The procession, the route of which was established in 1508 and is still for the most part followed faithfully, leads to all the surrounding monasteries, sketes and cells from its center in Protaton. Offerings of bread, cheese and wine are made at their stops. At each stop a Gospel is read and the Apolytikion of the Saint honored by each monastery, skete and cell. A stop is made at Koutloumousiou where everyone spends the night and the return is made on Bright Tuesday. Upon the return to Protaton a Trapeza is offered. In 1488 the fathers of Dionysiou Monastery criticized these processions as being for gluttons and drunkards, but then their crops and gardens were destroyed by hail and they were rebuked. Koutloumousiou Monastery did the same, but then sickness struck and buildings such as the Trapeza of the monastery were destroyed.

It should be noted that the monasteries consider these litanies essential for the good production of their gardens and vineyards. When it was not done in the past, the "wrath of God" was manifested.


















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Glorify God, Don't Describe Him

by St. Cyril of Jerusalem

If any man should attempt to speak of God, let him first describe the bounds of the earth. You live on the earth, and you do not know the limit of this earth where you live.

How then will you be able to form a worthy thought of its Creator? You behold the stars, but you do not behold their Maker.

Count these which are visible, and then describe Him who is invisible, "Who tells the number of the stars, and calls them all by their names" (Ps. 147:4)....

The sun is a work of God, which, great though it be, is but a spot in comparison with the whole heaven; first gaze steadfastly upon the sun, and then curiously scan the Lord of the sun.

“Seek not the things that are too deep for you, neither search out the things that are above your strength; think upon what is commanded you” (Eccles. 3:21-22).

But some one will say: “If the divine substance is incomprehensible, why then do you discourse of these things?” So then, because I cannot drink up all the river, am I not even to take in moderation what is expedient for me?

Because with eyes so constituted as mine I cannot take in all the sun, am I not even to look upon him enough to satisfy my wants?

Or again, because I have entered into a great garden, and cannot eat all the supply of fruits, wouldst thou have me go away altogether hungry?

I praise and glorify Him that made us; for it is a divine command which says: “Let every breath praise the Lord” (Ps. 150:6).

I am attempting now to glorify the Lord, but not to describe Him, knowing nevertheless that I shall fall short of glorifying Him worthily, yet deeming it a work of piety even to attempt it at all.

For the Lord Jesus encourages my weakness, by saying, "No man hath seen God at any time" (John 1:18).

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What Is "Bright Week"?

Bright Week, otherwise known as Renewal Week, begins on Pascha Sunday and ends on the following Sunday of Thomas. The name probably originates from the fact that the newly baptized catechumens from Pascha are newly illumined and bright. For them it is a time of regeneration and renewal. These newly baptized in ancient times wore all white for a week, hence the week sometimes being called White Week.

The seven days of Bright Week are seen as one day, a continuous Pascha celebration. According to the 66th canon of the Council in Trullo: "From the holy day of the Resurrection of Christ our God until New Sunday (i.e. Thomas Sunday) for a whole week the faithful in the holy churches should continually be repeating psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, rejoicing and celebrating Christ, and attending to the reading of the Divine Scriptures and delighting in the Holy Mysteries. For in this way shall we be exalted with Christ; raised up together with Him. For this reason on the aforesaid days that by no means there be any horse races or any other public spectacle." According to Bulgakov, in Imperial Russia, the taverns used to be closed during Bright Week, and no alcoholic beverages were sold. Furthermore, because of the continuous paschal celebration, there should be no fasting this week. And as the above canon states, this is a time of renewal for all Orthodox Christians and not just the newly baptized. It is a time for the faithful to bear spiritual fruit and generate new virtues for our own illumination as well.

In the Roman Empire, especially in Constantinople, this week had special joy and was celebrated with great pomp and splendor. The emperor would call the newly-baptized and the poor to a rich meal, while on Bright Thursday the Patriarch would have an honorary dinner for the clergy. Rich gifts were distributed by the emperor and official visitations were made. Prisoners with light offenses were released as well. These traditions are somewhat carried out today in Greece where state officials visit hospitals and military camps, and military sanctions are lifted.

The services of Bright Week are done joyfully and with the Royal Doors fully open. This unblocked view of the altar symbolizes the open door of Christ's empty tomb as well as the rent veil of the Jewish Temple, which was torn apart at the moment Christ died. The Gospel of John and Acts are read as well, which are the two New Testament books of renewal and beginnings.

Read more here.

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Bright Week Customs In Northern Greece

The second day of Easter in Giannitsa of Pella revives the custom of "Kounies" or "Swings" (Κουνιές). It is believed that riding a swing is good for one's health and an abundant harvest.



On the third day of Easter, Bright Tuesday, in Kalyvia Limenaria of Thassos is called "For Rain In April" (Για βρέξ΄ Απρίλη μ΄). It is an ancient custom to pray for spring rain. Residents of the community and visitors celebrate with folk dances and large pots of rice cooked with meat that is distributed to everyone.


On the same day in Ierissos of Halkidiki there is the following tradition called in Greek "Του μαύρου νιου τ΄ αλώνι" or "the black threshing floor":

After the failure of the Greek revolution in Halkidiki in 1821, the village of Ierissos, which took part in the 1821 Greek War of Independence in Macedonia, was burnt down and 400 persons were killed. According to one tradition, they were taken to a place called "the black threshing floor" and were made to dance under the swords of the Turkish soldiers. With every turn a man was beheaded. According to another tradition, the notables among others, afraid for more reprisals escaped to the mountains. When Easter arrived, it is said that the city of Ierissos appeared deserted without its inhabitants. The Turks sent for them and informed them that if they came back they would not be prosecuted in any way. On Tuesday after Easter Sunday those that had left returned. When they reached a threshing floor at the outskirts of the town, the Greeks were obliged to pass under an arch formed by the swords of Turkish soldiers, in order to show how they are subjugated to the Ottoman rule. A young man ashamed for this humiliation in front of the eyes of his loved one, seized the swords and was killed by the Turks on the spot. The dance has been danced in Ierissos every year on the first Tuesday after Easter at a place known as the "threshing floor of the black lad". It was danced of course during the Ottoman period and the reference to the young man´s loved one is meant to be an allegory of liberty.


On Bright Wednesday in the Municipal District of Eleutheron west of Kavala there is an emotional and reverent custom called "Mazidia" (Μαζίδια) that takes place dating back to Ottoman times. The faithful process with icons from the Byzantine Church of the Archangels, which is the oldest church in the region of Mazidia, to the picturesque Church of Sts. Raphael, Nicholas and Irene.

There is a blessing of artoklasia and holy water with prayers to the Risen Christ to bless the crops and a fruitful season. After venerating the icons, the procession returns to the Church of the Archangels.

Then the big feast begins in the village square. The dancing begins with the priest leading followed by the villagers. This is a tradition that goes prior to Ottoman times.



On Bright Thursday in Kalis Vrysis of Drama the icon of the Resurrection of Christ is processed around the farming areas to protect the village from all evil, especially from the extremely dangerous hail storms that could devastate the spring crop.


After Easter in Mikropoli of Drama an event called "Celebration of God" (Γιορτή του Θεού) takes place at the Chapel of St. George with a dinner there.


On the Monday of Thomas in Sitagroi of Drama the Pontic people continue their old tradition of visiting the graves with red eggs, distributing sweets and singing songs.

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The Burning of Judas in Greece

The Burning of Judas is a folk custom done in various places throughout Greece and other places. It is typically perfomed after the midnight service on Easter Sunday, though sometimes done on Good Friday or Easter Sunday afternoon after the Agape service.

Below is one account of a British tourist to Crete:

The run-up to Cretan Easter in Loutro is a time for the children of the village. For the whole week beforehand they are busily occupied in making an over-life-sized and quite fearsome effigy of Judas. They collect the wood for an enormous bonfire, and burn Judas at the stake on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. Everyone, locals and visitors alike, gathers round the bonfire as Judas is consumed to the accompaniment of roaring cheers, exploding firecrackers, and the occasional burst of gunfire.

I do not know if this is the custom everywhere: I've only experienced Cretan Easter in Loutro.

Anyway, two years ago I was in Loutro at Easter, staying for the first time in a new studio attached to the Porto Loutro hotel. The lamppost on which Judas was hung was right outside the studio window, so I decided to watch the excitements from my own personal ringside view.

Wow! There was Judas, going up in flames about six feet from my face. I quickly shut the window (which became so hot I was afraid the whole of my little building would be consumed in the conflagratio), and continued to watch in awe as the fire roared and the cinders flew.

It was soon over; Judas dwindled into a pile of ashes to loud cheers from the children, and the bonfire slowly died.

Next day, Easter Sunday, is feast day. Stavros always cooks several lambs and goats on spits behind the hotel, Alison and her friends make a variety of wonderful salads, and everyone who is around is welcome to sit down and partake. The wine and beer flow liberally. Plans for walks that afternoon somehow don't seem so pressing any more...

Here is another account from the ritual in Sifnos:

This custom is sometimes enacted on the evening of Kali Paraskevi (Good Friday) , simultaneously with the bearing of the Epitafios through the streets, though it was observed by this author on the island of Sifnos in 1993, on the Sunday evening after the midday Easter feast, with music following it.

For this ritual, an effigy of Judas Iscariot is fashioned, somewhat like a scarecrow, of old rags stuffed into clothing with a knob-like 'head', the man like figure then affixed to a long pole and borne through the streets by a team of young men. At some point the effigy is set afire and there is a great din of firecrackers, as after (during) the midnight mass (Anastasis).

Though criticized by some as an anti-semitic ritual, and said to be known in some places in Greece as 'The Burning of the Jew', it is possible that those doing the translating of the ritual title are confusing the Greek word for Judas (Ioudhas-pronounced Yoo-dhas), with the Greek word for Jew (Ioudhaios-pronounced Yoo-dhay-ose).

Burning of Judas in Chania, Crete


Burning of Judas in Kalymnos

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