MYSTAGOGY: March 2010

Monday, April 26, 2010

Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem on the Holy Light

In an interview with the National Herald, Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem answered a few questions of interest regarding the annual miracle of the Holy Light (Holy Fire) which is celebrated in the Holy Sepulchre every Holy Saturday afternoon.

Regarding this Holy Light which although many say is a great miracle of Orthodoxy, others propose various theories to debunk this miracle, Patriarch Theophilos says the following:

"All the various perspectives and theories regarding the Holy Light come from people who are in complete ignorance, they have no religious sentiment even when they are disputed, and they do not want to receive the mystery of the divine economy, namely the Incarnation, beyond which I think all other things are redundant."

To the question about what exactly happens in the ceremony, he responded:

"The ceremony of the Holy Light is part of all the ceremonies and mysteries of our Church. The ceremony of the Holy Light is the sole and exclusive privilege of the Church of Jerusalem as this ceremony takes place at the specific site of the Crucifixion and Burial, and especially the Resurrection of Christ, in other words in the new tomb."

He further explained that the Touching of the Holy Light "is a Mystery of the Church, it is a ceremony."

To the question about what he feels when he is kneeling in prayer and this Touching of the uncreated light occurs, he responded:

"What occurs then occurs in the whole world, it is the experience which a person receives when they participate in the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist."

For more on the Holy Light 2010, see here.

M.I.A's Controversial New Video "Born Free"

Warning: Video contains Graphic Violence, Nudity and Strong Language.

For those who can stomach some nudity and violence, I thought this shocking new video by M.I.A is worth a look at as it depicts very well the absurdity of genocide from a famous artist today who once lived through it.

Read more about the video here and here.

Religions NOT Different Paths to the Same Wisdom

Separate Truths

It is misleading — and dangerous — to think that religions are different paths to the same wisdom.

By Stephen Prothero
April 25, 2010
Boston Globe

At least since the first petals of the counterculture bloomed across Europe and the United States in the 1960s, it has been fashionable to affirm that all religions are beautiful and all are true. This claim, which reaches back to “All Religions Are One” (1795) by the English poet, printmaker, and prophet William Blake, is as odd as it is intriguing. No one argues that different economic systems or political regimes are one and the same. Capitalism and socialism are so self-evidently at odds that their differences hardly bear mentioning. The same goes for democracy and monarchy. Yet scholars continue to claim that religious rivals such as Hinduism and Islam, Judaism and Christianity are, by some miracle of the imagination, both essentially the same and basically good.

This view resounds in the echo chamber of popular culture, not least on the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and in Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller, “Eat Pray Love,” where the world’s religions are described as rivers emptying into the ocean of God. Karen Armstrong, author of “A History of God,” has made a career out of emphasizing the commonalities of religion while eliding their differences. Even the Dalai Lama, who should know better, has gotten into the act, claiming that “all major religious traditions carry basically the same message.”

Of course, those who claim that the world’s religions are different paths up the same mountain do not deny the undeniable fact that they differ in some particulars. Obviously, Christians do not go on pilgrimage to Mecca, and Muslims do not practice baptism. Religious paths do diverge in dogma, rites, and institutions. To claim that all religions are basically the same, therefore, is not to deny the differences between a Buddhist who believes in no god, a Jew who believes in one God, and a Hindu who believes in many gods. It is to deny that those differences matter, however. From this perspective, whether God has a body (yes, say Mormons; no, say Muslims) or whether human beings have souls (yes, say Hindus; no, say Buddhists) is of no account because, as Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda writes, “The fundamentals or essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the nonessentials.”

This is a lovely sentiment but it is untrue, disrespectful, and dangerous.

The gods of Hinduism are not the same as the orishas of Yoruba religion or the immortals of Daoism. To pretend that they are is to refuse to take seriously the beliefs and practices of ordinary religious folk who for centuries have had no problem distinguishing the Nicene Creed of Christianity from the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism from the Shahadah of Islam. It is also to lose sight of the unique beauty of each of the world’s religions.

But this lumping of the world’s religions into one megareligion is not just false and condescending, it is also a threat. How can we make sense of the ongoing conflict in Kashmir if we pretend that Hinduism and Islam are one and the same? Or of the impasse in the Middle East, if we pretend that there are no fundamental disagreements between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?

This naive theological groupthink — call it Godthink — is motivated in part by a laudable rejection of the exclusivist missionary view that only you and your kind will make it to heaven or nirvana or paradise. For most of world history, human beings have seen religious rivals as inferior to themselves — practitioners of empty rituals, perpetrators of bogus miracles, and purveyors of fanciful myths. This way of seeing has given us religious violence from the Crusades and the Holocaust to Rwanda and Nigeria. In response to such violence, the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment popularized the ideal of religious tolerance, and we are doubtless better for it.

I understand what these people are doing. They are not describing the world but reimagining it. They are hoping that their hope will call up in us feelings of brotherhood and sisterhood. In the face of religious bigotry and bloodshed, past and present, we cannot help but be drawn to such hope, and such vision. Yet we must not mistake either for clear-eyed analysis.

When it comes to safeguarding the world from the evils of religion, including violence by proxy from the hand of God, the claim that all religions are one is no more effective than the claim that all religions are poison. As the New Atheists (another species of religious lumpers) observe, we live in a world where religion seems as likely to detonate a bomb as to defuse one. So while we need idealism, we need realism even more. We need to understand religious people as they are — not just at their best but also their worst. We need to look at not only their awe-inspiring architecture and gentle mystics but also their bigots and suicide bombers.

What the world’s religions share is not so much a finish line as a starting point. And where they begin is with this simple observation: Something is wrong with the world. In the Hopi language, the word “Koyaanisqatsi” tells us that life is out of balance. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” tells us that there is something rotten not only in the state of Denmark but also in the state of human existence. Hindus say we are living in the “kali yuga,” the most degenerate age in cosmic history. Buddhists say that human existence is pockmarked by suffering. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic stories tell us that this life is not Eden; Zion, heaven, and paradise lie out ahead.

So religious folk agree that something has gone awry. They part company, however, when it comes to stating just what has gone wrong, and they diverge even more sharply when they move from diagnosing the human problem to prescribing how to solve it. Moreover, each offers its own distinctive diagnosis of the human problem and its own prescription for a cure. Each offers its own techniques for reaching its religious goal, and its own exemplars for emulation.

Christians see sin as the human problem, and salvation from sin as the religious goal. Buddhists see suffering (which, in their tradition, is not ennobling) as the problem, and liberation from suffering as the goal. Confucians see social disorder as the problem, and social harmony as the goal. And so it goes from tradition to tradition, with Hindus seeking release from the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, Muslims seeking paradise via submission to Allah, and practitioners of the Yoruba religion seeking sacred connections — among humans, between humans and the persons of power they call the orishas, and between humans and the natural environment.

The great religions also differ fundamentally when it comes to the techniques they employ to take you from problem to goal. In Confucianism, the rules and rituals of ancient Chinese civilization foster the religious goal of social harmony. But according to Daoists, these very rules and rituals cause the human problem of lifelessness. Civilization is a vampire, Daoists claim, sucking the life out of us, depleting our qi (vital energy), and taking us to an early grave. The only way to pursue the Daoist goal of fostering life is to live in harmony with the naturalness, simplicity, and spontaneity of what Daoists call the Way.

Finally, each of the world’s religions looks to different exemplars — Christian saints, Hindi holy men — to chart the path from problem to goal. Inside Buddhism alone, these exemplars include the arhat (for Theravadins), the bodhisattva (for Mahayanists), and the lama (for Tibetan Buddhists).

For more than a century, scholars have searched for the essence of religion. They thought they found this Holy Grail in God, but then they discovered Buddhists and Jains who deny God’s existence. Today it is widely accepted that there is no one essence that all religions share. What they share are family resemblances — tendencies toward this belief or that behavior. In the family of religions, kin tend to perform rituals. They tend to tell stories about how life and death began and to write down these stories in scriptures. They tend to cultivate techniques of ecstasy and devotion. They tend to organize themselves into institutions and to gather in sacred places at sacred times. They tend to instruct human beings how to act toward one another. They tend to profess beliefs about the gods and the supernatural. They tend to invest objects and places with sacred import.

These family resemblances are just tendencies, however. Just as there are tall people in short families (none of the other men in Michael Jordan’s family was over 6 feet tall), there are religions that deny the existence of God and religions that get along just fine without creeds. Something is a religion when it shares enough of this DNA to belong to the family of religions. What makes the members of this family different (and themselves) is how they mix and match these dimensions. Experience is central in Daoism and Buddhism. Hinduism and Judaism emphasize the narrative dimension. The ethical dimension is crucial in Confucianism. The Islamic and Yoruba traditions are to a great extent about ritual. And doctrine is particularly important to Christians.

There is a long tradition of Christian thinkers who assume that salvation is the goal of all religions and then argue that only Christians can achieve this goal. Philosopher of religion Huston Smith, who grew up in China as a child of Methodist missionaries, rejected this argument but not its guiding assumption. “To claim salvation as the monopoly of any one religion,” he wrote, “is like claiming that God can be found in this room and not the next.” It might seem to be an admirable act of empathy to assert that Confucians and Buddhists can be saved. But this statement is confused to the core, since salvation is not something that either Confucians or Buddhists seek. Salvation is a Christian goal, and when Christians speak of it, they are speaking of being saved from sin. But Confucians and Buddhists do not believe in sin, so it makes no sense for them to try to be saved from it. And while Muslims and Jews do speak of sin of a sort, neither Islam nor Judaism describes salvation from sin as its aim. When a jailer asks the apostle Paul, “What must I do to be saved?” (Acts 16:30), he is asking not a generic human question but a specifically Christian one. So while it may seem to be an act of generosity to state that Confucians and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews can also be saved, this statement is actually an act of obfuscation.

A sports analogy may be in order here. Which of the following — baseball, basketball, tennis, or golf — is best at scoring runs? The answer of course is baseball, because runs is a term foreign to basketball, tennis, and golf alike. Different sports have different goals: Basketball players shoot baskets; tennis players win points; golfers sink putts. To criticize a basketball team for failing to score runs is not to besmirch them. It is simply to misunderstand the game of basketball.

So here is another problem with the pretend pluralism of the perennial philosophy sort: Just as hitting home runs is the monopoly of one sport, salvation is the monopoly of one religion. If you see sin as the human predicament and salvation as the solution, then it makes sense to come to Christ. But that will not settle as much as you might think, because the real question is not which religion is best at carrying us into the end zone of salvation but which of the many religious goals on offer we should be seeking. Should we be trudging toward the end zone of salvation, or trying to reach the finish line of social harmony? Should our goal be reincarnation? Or to escape from the vicious cycle of life, death, and rebirth?

While I do not believe we are witnessing a “clash of civilizations” between Christianity and Islam, it is a fantasy to imagine that the world’s two largest religions are in any meaningful sense the same, or that interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims will magically bridge the gap. You would think that champions of multiculturalism would warm to this fact, glorying in the diversity inside and across religious traditions. But even among multiculturalists, the tendency is to pretend that the differences between religions are more apparent than real, and that the differences inside religious traditions just don’t warrant the fuss practitioners continue to make over them.

We pretend that religious differences are trivial because it makes us feel safer, or more moral. But pretending that the world’s religions are the same does not make our world safer. Like all forms of ignorance, it makes our world more dangerous, and more deadly. False rumors of weapons of mass destruction doubtless led the United States to wade into its current quagmire in Iraq. Another factor, however, was our ignorance of the fundamental disagreements between Christians and Muslims, on the one hand, and Sunni and Shia Islam, on the other. What if we had been aware of these conflicts as of 9/11? Would we have committed 160,000 troops to a nation whose language we do not speak and whose religion we do not understand?

What we need is a realistic view of where religious rivals clash and where they can cooperate. The world is what it is. And both tolerance and respect are empty virtues until we actually know whatever it is we are supposed to be tolerating or respecting.

Stephen Prothero is a religion professor at Boston University. This article is adapted from his new book, ”God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter.”

The Authenticity of “Secret Mark”

[To read more about Secret Mark, see here.]

Handwriting Expert Weighs In on the Authenticity of “Secret Mark”

April 26, 2010
Biblical Archaeology Review

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON D.C. (April 26, 2010)—Handwriting Expert Weighs In on the Authenticity of “Secret Mark.”

A number of scholars have concluded that Columbia University professor Morton Smith forged the famous Clement letter containing “Secret Mark,” two passages from a secret—and different—copy of the Gospel of Mark. In a four-part treatment in Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), including contributions by eminent New Testament scholars Helmut Koester and Charles Hedrick, BAR concluded that Smith, now dead, was innocent.

Oddly enough, despite the scores of articles and books that have been written on the subject, no one had bothered to consult a handwriting expert in the language in which the alleged forged letter is written: Greek. BAR has now done so by retaining Venetia Anastasopoulou, an internationally known Greek handwriting expert who has frequently testified before Greek courts on matters of handwriting analysis and graphology.

Venetia Anastasopoulou is a member of the National Association of Document Examiners (U.S.A.) and the International Graphology Association (U.K.). She holds a Certificate in Forensic Sciences from the University of Lancashire (U.K.) and a diploma in Handwriting Analysis from the International Graphology Association (U.K.). BAR retained her to compare the handwriting in which the Clement letter was written with Greek handwriting known to be Smith’s.

In her 36-page report, now available for download on the BAR Web site, Anastasopoulou compares numerous letters, parts of letters and words in the Clement letter with Smith’s Greek handwriting, and concludes that “It is highly probable that Morton Smith could not have simulated the document of ‘Secret Mark.’”

Visit http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/secret-mark-handwriting-analysis.asp to download a full copy of Anastasopoulou’s handwriting analysis of “Secret Mark.”

For additional information, please visit http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/ or contact Dorothy D. Resig at 1.800.221.4644. ext. 242.

Did I Find King David’s Palace?

by Eilat Mazar

There can be little doubt that King David had a palace. The Bible tells us that Hiram of Tyre (who would later help King Solomon build the Temple) constructed the palace for David: “King Hiram of Tyre sent envoys to David, with cedar logs, carpenters and stonemasons; and they built a palace for David” (2 Samuel 5:11). Nine years ago I wrote an article in BAR suggesting where, in my opinion, the remains of King David’s palace might lie. I proposed looking in the northern part of the most ancient area of Jerusalem, known as the City of David....

Read the rest of the article here.

Kneeling In Church On Sundays

by the late Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens

Preamble

The issue of kneeling on Sundays continues to engage clergy and laity, due to the fact that diametrically opposite views have been formulated concerning this practice.

On the one hand there are those who claim that this practice is prohibited by the Sacred Canons. In particular, Canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Synod states that no kneeling should be practiced on Sundays and during the period of Pentecost. According to this canon, kneeling, it states, is not consistent with the joyous and paschal character of these days, because kneeling is an expression of repentance and of godly sorrow.

On the other hand, there are others who make the opposite claim. They argue that kneeling at the time of the blessing of the Bread and the Wine, at the point we say “Your own from Your own we offer…,” is not a kneeling of sorrow, but of worship which is done because of the miracle which is effected at that moment by the God of our worship.

There is also a third category of theologians, who claim that kneeling on Sundays is neither recommended nor prohibited. It is simply tolerated, wherever it is enforced and observed.

There is no doubt that those Christians who kneel on Sundays do not do this out of irreverence, but out of great piety. They do it because they have been taught that at the point when we say “Your own from Your own we offer…” awe-inspiring mysteries take place: the Bread and the Wine that are used in the Eucharist are changed by the invocation (epiklesis) of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ. At the same time, however, it is certain that these Christians have not read the Sacred Canons, and have not studied the Holy Fathers. They simply behave according to what their Christian conscience dictates, without realizing that their behavior violates the order of the Church.

In the following paragraphs, we try to present in an analytic and objective manner the various aspects of this issue in an attempt to specify what is right and should be followed by the faithful Christians.

A. What Does The Term Kneeling (In Church) Mean?

The Sacred Canons on lesser and proper kneeling: Before we proceed to the next step, it is useful to observe what the Sacred Canons mean by the term kneeling in church. To begin with, kneeling in church is an ancient religious custom, whereby the people who are at prayer express their faith. Such kneeling is distinguished by two types:

Firstly, there is the kind when a person that prays bends the knees while holding the body upright and looking towards the foreground. This position is usually accompanied by simultaneous crossing oneself. It is the position we take at the Vespers of Forgiveness, i.e. the Vespers of Pentecost. (Indeed, the first prayer of this Vespers alludes to this in saying, “offering supplication by bending the neck and inclining the knees”).

Secondly, there is the type when a faithful rests on his knees on the ground, places his hands on it and bends down his forehead onto the earth, or when he is standing up and decides to go down on the knees to the point that his face touches the floor and then stands up again. This is repeated several times.

Kneeling and Repentance: The first kind of kneeling is called a minor repentance, and the second, major repentance, or prostration or ground prostration. Major repentances are practiced in the Presanctified Divine Liturgies, at the point when the Holy Gifts pass by the faithful. Greater use of them is made by monastics, and sometimes spiritual masters impose these major repentances as a penance on those Christians who have sinned and repented for their sins. Saint John the Faster introduced this custom of penances, and called the major type of (church) kneeling simply kneeling. Basil the Great closely identified repentance with the prostration.

When do we kneel and when do we not kneel in church: A differentiation is made between the minor and the major types of kneeling in the Kollyvadian Book of Liturgical Rubrics of the erudite economos Fr. George Regas of Skiathos, where we read the following: “Repentances are of two kinds, minor and major. The minor ones are the prostrations we do when we cross ourselves and bow only our head without bending the knees. These minor repentances are done each day and on many occasions throughout the day without ceasing. The major repentances are characterized by the bending of the knees. These are never allowed on a Saturday or Sunday (apart from the Feast of the Precious Cross), but are done only during the Great Lent and on any day except Saturday and Sunday.”[1]

Kneeling and the four types of repentant persons: From what has been said so far, we gather that prayer which is accompanied by repeated kneeling has the meaning of repentance, i.e. the return of a sinner. It is known that in the ancient Church the repentant persons were subdivided into four types:

Firstly, there were those who mourned. These people remained outside the church nave and invited other faithful to pray for them.

Secondly, there were those who simply listened to the services. These people entered only the narthex, and listened from there the reading of the Scriptures.

Thirdly, there were those who bended the knee or knelt to the ground. These people remained in this position in order to indicate their repentance.

Fourthly and finally, there were those who remained standing.

These types of repentance indicated people who had humbled themselves and were seeking God’s mercy. They symbolized human falling into sin and standing up against it. The falling to the ground indicated contrition and compunction, whereas the standing up indicated deliverance and salvation. As Basil the Great writes, “Each day by practicing kneeling to the ground and standing up again we show that through sin we fell to the earth and through the love for mankind of our Creator we were recalled to heaven.”[2]

B. What The Sacred Canons And Their Interpreters Say

What to do or what not to do on Sundays: Sunday was always distinguished from any other day as a day of joy and celebration, because of the Resurrection. This is why on Sunday we do not fast, and when we go through a period of fasting and do not use oil, Sundays and Saturdays are exempted. The 66th Canon of the Holy Apostles stipulates: “If any clergyman is found to be fasting on a Sunday, or on a Saturday, except on Great Saturday, he should be defrocked.”[3]

Why we should follow the Sacred Canons: One may ask, why do the Canons deal with such matters and do not leave the people free to do what they like and what they wish? The question is plausible. Nevertheless, we should not follow on all matters what we like, but what is right. Otherwise there will be no order in the Church and the symbolic actions will not be observed, in spite of their essentially dogmatic content. The ever-memorable professor of Liturgics John Foundoulis had this to say: “The position one takes in the Divine Liturgy should not be determined by our own personal piety and disposition, but by the Tradition of the Church, on the basis of the meaning which is given to every liturgical position and at every moment of the Church’s worship.”[4]

On Sundays we neither kneel nor fast: Along with fasting, the Sacred Canons prohibit all kneeling on Sundays.

What the Canons say: Saint Irenaeus writes: “The practice of not bending the knee on a Sunday is a symbol of the Resurrection, through which we were delivered by the Grace of Christ both from our sins and from the death which was put to death by Christ himself.”[5]

In a similar fashion pseudo-Justin bears witness in his 115th answer to the prohibition of all kneeling on Sundays. ´This custom was initiated in Apostolic times as blessed Irenaeus, the martyr-bishop of Lyons, says.”[6]

Of great importance for this matter is Canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Synod, which stipulates: “Because there are some persons who kneel in church on a Sunday and during the days of Pentecost, with the view to preserving uniformity in all parishes, it seemed best to the Holy Council that prayers should be offered to God while standing.”[7] In other words, the Holy Synod stipulates that on Sundays and during the period of Pentecost Christians should pray in Church standing.

Canon 90 of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod is even clearer. Here is what is specified: “We have received it canonically from our God-bearing Fathers not to bend the knee on Sundays when we honor the Resurrection of Christ. Since this observation may not be clear to some of us, we are making it plain to the faithful, that after the entrance of those in holy orders into the sacrificial altar on the evening of Saturday in question, let none of them bend the knee until the evening of the following Sunday, when, after the Entrance in the Vespers, we bend the knees again, and begin to offer prayers to the Lord. For inasmuch as we have received it that in the night succeeding Saturday was the precursor of our Savior’s rising, we commence our hymns at this point spiritually, ending the festival by passing out of darkness into light, in order that we may hence celebrate en masse the Resurrection for a whole day and a whole night.” In other words from the evening of Saturday, after Vespers, until the Vespers of Sunday we are obliged not to kneel when we pray. Here is Balsamon’s comment on this Canon: “The Resurrection of Christ took place on Saturday evening, i.e. before Sunday had dawned, so that what relates to the feast might start at night and end towards the light and so the vigil of the Resurrection is celebrated through the entire night and day.”[8] Indeed, it is known that the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated during the days of the Great Lent, except on Saturdays and Sundays. The reason for this is that the Divine Liturgy is a template of the Resurrection and the Kingdom of God.

What the Fathers say: Let us now see what the Fathers say about this matter. Peter of Alexandria says this in his Canon 15: “As for Sunday, on the other hand, we celebrate it as a joyous holiday because of Him who was resurrected on it, on which day we have not even received instruction to bend the knee.”[9]

St. Nikephoros the Confessor stipulates through his Canon 10 the following: “One must bend the knee for the sake of bestowing a kiss on Sunday and throughout Pentecost, but one ought not to make the usual genuflections.”[10]

Basil the Great says in his Canon 91: “We offer our prayers on the first of the Sabbaths (Sunday) in a standing position.”[11] And he goes on to explain the reasons which obligate us not to make the major genuflections on a Sunday and during the entire period of Pentecost. These reasons are basically the fact that Sunday is the day of the Resurrection of our Lord and consequently we are obligated to remain standing in an upright position as resurrected persons. Besides, every Sunday is a symbol of the eighth day, i.e. of the age to come and for this reason the Church trains and teaches the faithful to remember the age to come and to be prepared to welcome it in an upright position which indicates vigilance. “In which (Sunday) the upright position of prayer should be preferred as the stipulations of the Church have trained us to do, so that by a sort of active reminder our mind might transmigrate from the present to the future realities.”[12]

The minor kneeling (genuflection) or repentance used in worship. St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite is the one among the Fathers who clarifies that the prohibition of kneeling on Sundays does not include the minor kneeling, the so-called minor repentance, which we make when we venerate the holy icons. The Church does not forbid practicing this type of genuflection in church on Sundays. This is why we hear, “Come let us worship and prostrate before Christ…”[13] These minor prostrations which are done in veneration are not forbidden. The major kneeling, however, which involves bending the knee to the ground and touching the floor with the forehead, is forbidden, because it is contrary to the paschal and eschatological character of Sunday, i.e. to the joyful and festive spirit, which, on this account, is incompatible with any sense of mourning or contrition which is indicated by the major kneeling. This why the Church sings: “This is the Day which the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in It.”[14]

C. Other Views

There are theologians, however, who do not agree with what we wrote above. Here are their main arguments. When the Myrrh-bearing women met with the Risen Lord they fell on his feet and venerated Him. It was a Sunday when this took place. It was on the Mount of Galilee that the eleven Disciples venerated the Lord in the same way after His Resurrection. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians, describes the gathering of the church for worship where each believer “falls down with his face onto the ground to worship God.”[15] Here, of course, it is not clarified whether the Apostle refers to the Sunday gathering for worship.

Serious arguments for major (proper) kneeling on Sundays: Such arguments, biblical, historical and canonical, are provided by Professor P. Trempelas in his book “Kneeling on Sundays.”[16] In this book, the wise professor invokes the witness of Codices 865 and 2055 of the National Library of Greece concerning the Hierarch who “makes three repentances.” Nevertheless this detail is not serious enough as to justify kneeling on Sundays. The same observation applies to the Typikon (Book of Liturgical Rubrics) of the 12th-13th century which has been published by Dimitrievsky and makes mention of “a triple kneeling of the priest.”[17] For these references, however, Matthew Vlastares’ comment made in the Pedalion (Rudder) is important: “The typika (rubrics) which are made by the founders of monasteries should be observed as long as they do not contradict the canons.” The same professor tries, on the basis of Canon 91 of Basil the Great, to render relative the upright position in Sunday prayers by writing that the opinion of the Holy Father is derived “from the unwritten tradition,”[18] although Canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Synod had preceded it. At the same time the ever-memorable professor appeals to the witness of the Typikon of St. Savva, saying that it foresees for Sundays “bending of our knee and bowing towards the earth.”[19] Nevertheless in the edition of this Typikon of the year 1771 that was printed in Venice by Hierodeacon Spyridon Papadopoulos, the exact text reads as follows: “bending and bowing unto the earth.”[20] Indeed, it is known that Trempelas’ arguments were offset by other counter-arguments through the special study of Metropolitan Hezekiel the Thessaliotis in the journal Ekklesia.[21] Finally, with regard to the argument that in the ordinations, which usually occur on Sundays, we kneel down, it should be carefully observed that the most important codices do not refer to kneeling, either of the candidate or of the people. The later liturgical practice speaks of the kneeling of the candidate, but not of the people.

In addition, the ever-memorable Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos in his book “The Period of the Pentecostarion” insists on the distinction of various forms of kneeling. He clearly states, regarding this matter, that “this manner of combining the upright position with the bowing down in worship does not contradict the stipulations of the Church but satisfies a deep psychological need. This need is the worshipful prostration in the face of the one who already stands before us, under the species of bread and wine, namely, our King and Savior.”[22] And it seems that the solution to the whole problem is hidden behind this point.

Professor Basil Anagnostopoulos of the Theological School of Halki in his monograph “Kneeling at the Consecration of the Immaculate Mysteries of the Lord on Sundays: The Tradition of the Theological School of Halki” deposits his living memories from the School, where all the Patriarchs and Rectors of the last decades, such as the Patriarchs Maximos and Athenagoras, Melito of Chalcedon, Germanos of Thyateira, Gennadios of Elioupolis, Michael of America, as well as the two last Rectors of the period of his studies and the two of the period of his professorial service, used to kneel on Sundays. Ezekiel the Thessaliotis, however, deposits the witness of Polykarpos of Trikke and Stagoi (as Deacon to Patriarch Anthimos VII) according to which in the Patriarchate “no one ever bent the knee on a Sunday, because they regarded this custom as alien and strange to Greek Orthodoxy.”[23] Also, Archimandrite Eusebios Matthopoulos, the founder of the Zoe Brotherhood of Theologians, honored the custom of kneeling, having taken it from his Geronta Fr. Ignatios Lampropoulos.

A serious argument in support of the non-absolute character of the prohibition of kneeling on Sundays, which is put forth, is the Church’s praxis, whereby she transferred, through its pertinent authority and apparently for pastoral reasons, the Vespers of the Sunday of Pentecost when all believers kneel, from the vesperal hours of the Sunday of Pentecost when believers also kneel (because there is no prohibition of kneeling on this occasion, according to Canon 90 of the Sixth Ecumenical Synod) to the morning of the Sunday of Pentecost. Therefore, according to this view, the prohibition of kneeling on Sundays does not have an absolute character, but can be overlooked on account of spiritual-pastoral expediency. The position of Trempelas is indeed, that “since the transference of the Vespers to the morning was allowed, the prohibition of kneeling is of relative force and tolerable of exceptions and flexibility.” Also, St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite writes, that the prayers of kneeling should not be said in the morning because in this way the prohibition of kneeling is thereby abolished. “Hence when we read these prayers in the morning, we do it wrongly and sinfully and in contradiction to the Sacred Canons.”[24] In addition, it is known that the Church has accepted the liturgical repentances on Sunday worship. At this point we should remark that we regard of special importance the observation of Professor Trempelas that the Sacred Canons which prohibit kneeling on Sundays do not impose penalties for possible transgressions of the specific stipulation.

Professor Ioannes Foundoulis attributes the introduction of the custom of kneeling to Russian influence, which was exerted upon our customs most probably by Queen Olga through the practice that was established in the Palace chapel and was transmitted from there to the parishes. In Russia, this custom was introduced at the time of Peter the Great and was due to European influence. The same distinguished Greek liturgist, criticizing the support of this custom, writes: “The tragic aspect of this case is not that some faithful and even some clergy bend their knee at the consecration of the Precious Gifts, but that this is taught and encouraged by the teachers of the Church in spite of the Sacred Canons and the ages long ecclesiastical tradition and order. Our piety in worship is bound to the liturgical order and consists in our coordinating ourselves to the rhythm and the pattern of common prayer. Otherwise we cause disarray and arbitrariness by not obeying the ecclesiastical institutions and not trying to understand their spirit, but, rather, to introduce our personal pietistic and pious-looking practices which are alien to our ecclesiastical tradition.”[25]

D. The View of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece at its meeting of October 1999 included in its agenda the topic entitled, “Liturgical precision, orderliness and unity, and ballot vote on a Constitution for a Special Synodal Committee of Liturgical Regeneration” with Metropolitan Nikodemos of Patrai as chairman on account of his tempered knowledge of liturgical matters. The Most Reverend Metropolitan Nikodemos presented to the Synodal body the conclusions of the 10 member Committee which had examined the above topic under his chairmanship. On the matter of kneeling the Committee proposed the following: “That kneeling on Sunday is not required at the consecration and is not imposed. It is simply tolerated.”

This view was based on a combination of the two opposing views that were outlined above, because it was determined that neither those who over-emphasize the absolute character of the prohibition of kneeling on Sundays are right, nor do those who bend their knees at the awesome moment of the consecration ignore “what the Spirit (of the sacred Canons) says to the Churches.” In other words, the Holy Synod took the view that according to the rule (canon) Christians should not kneel on Sundays at the moment of “Your own from Your own we offer…” because this is what the Sacred Canons suggest because it is characteristic of these days to stress the Resurrection. Nevertheless, kneeling can be tolerated by concession (kat oikonomian), because it does not indicate any irreverence, but rather indicates great reverence and conscientious recognition of the awe-inspiring sacrifice which takes place on the Holy Table at the invocation (epiklesis) of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

What St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite says: We prefer to base our view not so much on the exercise of concession for those who bend the knee, or less on the absolute potency of the prohibition, but mainly on the distinction of the two senses of “kneeling” – as they were explained above and as St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite had explained the Canon. Here is what he writes in his interpretation of Canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Synod. “Note, however, that the present Canon is not referring to those genuflections which among us are more commonly called major repentances, which, properly speaking, are called prostrations that are made before kissing the icons of the saints or before the awesome sacraments and are not prohibited neither on a Sunday nor on the days of the period of Pentecost as Canon 10 of St. Nikephoros says. Indeed this is what the sacred hymns also say on occasions: 'Before You we fall down who was raised from the Tomb,' or 'Come let us worship and fall down before Christ the risen One…' and other such like hymns.”[26] And St. Nikodemos continues: “In my view the Canon does not refer to this kind of genuflection, but to the genuflection wherein while bending our knees we pray, as we do, for instance, during the evening of Holy Pentecost.”[27]

That is to say, yes the literary meaning of kneeling is the attachment of the knees to the ground, but this should be avoided on Sundays, because the Sacred Canons explicitly prohibit it and therefore, both clergy and laity should bend their body deeply when the consecration takes place in order to indicate that they stand before the sacrament in a spirit of veneration and worship. In this way, neither the Sacred Canons are infringed, nor is the pious disposition of the faithful overlooked or criticized.

Certainly we understand that this solution may cause the reaction of those who are used to kneeling to the ground on Sundays. This matter, however, has to do with pastoral and liturgical discipline, because people should be taught rightly why the Sacred Canons prohibit kneeling in church on Sundays. This is the duty of the clergy, who are required to undertake the responsibility to teach the faithful what is right and to use the liturgical sermon to educate their parishioners. There is no reason to allow the infiltration into the Divine Liturgy of personal and sentimental elements which change its character. Also, there is no need to try to find on every occasion pretexts or explanations of deviations which are not approved by the Church. The Divine Liturgy is not a personal affair. The Church lays down the order and she has specified that paschal character of the Divine Liturgy which stresses the Resurrection and which has been from the beginning associated with Sunday. We do not need to prove the paschal character of the Divine Liturgy which is connected with the Resurrection and the Last Things (eschatology). Besides, the Church prohibited the celebration of the Divine Liturgy on days of fasting and this, of course, has been today restricted to the period of the Great Lent, but the primary sense still remains intact: the Eucharist is an eschatological event and cannot be anything else but a celebratory occasion, full of joy and radiance.[28]

------------------

[1] See his Typikon, Thessalonica, 1994, p. 42.

[2] Ralles-Potles, Syntagma, vol. 4, p. 286.

[3] Translator’s note: See the Πηδάλιον Ἀγαπίου Ἱερομονάχου καὶ Νικοδήμου Μοναχοῦ (3η ἔκδοσις, Ζάκυνθος, 1864), ἐκδ. Ἀστήρ, Ἀθῆναι 1970, σ. 82. The English translation of the above, i.e. The Rudder of Agapius and Nikodemus, translated by D. Cummings, published by The Orthodox Christian Education Society, Chicago Illinois, 1957, p.110 gives the number 64 for this Canon, because, as it states it is so number in the majority of editions. However, the more recent editions of the Sacred Canons (Ἱεροὶ Κανόνες) of H. Alivizatos (1949) and Bl. Feidas (1997) give the number 55 to this Canon.

[4] Ioannes Foundoulis, Liturgics, p. 237.

[5] Εἰρηναίου, Ἀποσπάσματα ἐξ ἀπολεσθέντων ἔργων, ΒΕΠΕΣ, vol. 5, 1955, p. 174, 15-17.

[6] ΒΕΠΕΣ, vol. 4, 1955, p. 128.

[7] The Rudder, p. 196.

[8] The Rudder, pp. 394-5.

[9] The Rudder, pp. 754-5.

[10] The Rudder, p. 965.

[11] The Rudder, p. 855.

[12] The Rudder, p. 855.

[13] The Introit of the Small Entrance of the Divine Liturgy.

[14] The 3rd Antiphon of the Divine Liturgy.

[15] I Cor. 14:25.

[16] Ἡ Γονυκλισία ἐν ταῖς Κυριακαῖς, Τύποις Φοίνικος, Ἀθῆναι 1948.

[17] Ἡ Γονυκλισία ... ενθ. αν. σ. 8. Πρβλ. Αlekej Dmitrievskij, Opisanie Liturgitseskich Rukopisej, I, Τυπικά, Kiev 1895 (repr. Hildesheim 1965), p. 812.

[18] Εκκλησία, τευχ. 33-34, 1948.

[19] Εκκλησία 25-26 σ. 198.

[20] p. 5.

[21] Εκκλησία 33-34, 1938.

[22] Περίοδος Πεντηκοσταρίου, Το Εκκλησιαστικόν Έτος 2, έν Αθήναις 1973, σσ. 94-95.

[23] Ekklesia, issues 33-34, 1948, p. 280.

[24] Pedalion, p. 151.

[25] Ioannes Foundoulis, Liturgics, pp. 239-240.

[26] The Rudder, p. 965.

[27] Ibid.

[28] On this see further the article of The Most Reverend Metropolitan John of Pergamon in the journal Synaxis, 51 (1994) 88-89. See also, Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos, Sacred Tradition Regarding Kneeling: A Theological Reference to the Jewish Sabbath and to the Lord’s Day, Athens 2000.

Source: Translated by Protopresbyter George Dion Dragas and edited by John Sanidopoulos

The Ascetic and the Thief

There was an ascetic elder and anchorite, who had been leading an ascetic life in a desert place for seventy years, in fasting, chastity and vigil. Although he labored for God for so many years, he was never accounted worthy to receive a vision or revelation from God. Thinking about this and bearing this in mind he said, "Perhaps my ascesis is not pleasing to God for some reason I do not know, and my work is unacceptable; and on account of this I am not able to receive a revelation or behold any mystery."

Contemplating these things the elder began to ask and supplicate God even more, praying and saying, "Lord, if my ascesis is pleasing to you and you accept my deeds, I - a sinner and unworthy one - ask of you, to grant even unto me a drop of your gifts, that I may learn from the appearance of a mystery that you have heard my prayer, so that emboldened and enlightened I may live out my ascetical life." As the holy elder was praying and asking these things, he heard the voice of God say to him, "If you desire to see My glory, go to the inner desert and mysteries will be revealed to you."

When the elder heard this, he went out of his cell and went far from there. A thief then came across him who, upon seeing the abba, violently rushed at him desiring to kill him. And when he caught him he said to him, "It's a good thing I ran into you, Elder, so that I can finish my job and be saved. For we thieves have this custom and law and belief: that he who commits one hundred murders will surely go to paradise. So I, having labored hard, have murdered ninety-nine, and lacking one more I have tried hard to finish my hundredth and be saved. So I really owe you and thank you, because today I will delight in paradise because of you."

And when the elder heard the thief say these things, he was beside himself and was afraid at this sudden and hopeless temptation. And turning the eyes of his mind towards God and reflecting on these things he said, "Is this Your glory, Lord and Master, which You promised to show me Your servant? What counsel is this You have given me, to leave my cell and be informed by this dreadful mystery? With such gifts you pay the recompense for the ascesis which I underwent for Your sake? Now I truly know, Lord, that all the labor of my ascesis was in vain; and every one of my prayers before You was considered as abhorrent and a desecration. However, I thank you for Your philanthropy, Lord, that, as You know best, You chastise my unworthiness, as is needed, because of my uncountable sins and you have given me over to the hands of a thief and murderer."

Saying these things the pitiful elder thirsted greatly and said to the thief, "My child, since I am a sinner God has given me over to you for you to kill me and for you to have your way, as you have desired, and I to be deprived of life, as the evil man that I am. For this I ask you to do me a favor - a slight wish - and give me a little water to drink, and then cut my head off." When the thief had listened to the elder, willing to fulfill the elder's wish he put his sword back into its sheath, as he had been holding it out. And he pulled out a flask from his bosom and went to a river that was close by so as to fill it up and take to the elder to drink. And there where he went to fill the flask, he gave up his soul and died. So, when a little time passed and the thief did not come, the elder pondered and said, "Perhaps he was sleepy and fell asleep and that is why he is slow in returning and I will be able flee to my cell. But seeing as I am old, I am afraid, since I do not have the strength to run, and as one weak I will become tired and he will catch up with me. Then I will anger him and he will want to torture me without pity, cutting me in many pieces while still alive. Better I do not leave, but go to the river to see what he is doing." So the elder went thinking about such things and found him dead, and when he saw him he marveled and was taken aback. And lifting his hands toward heaven, he said, "Lord Who loves mankind, if You do not reveal to me this mystery, I will not lower my hands. Therefore, pity my toil and reveal to me this thing."

As the elder prayed these things, an angel of the Lord came and said to him, "Do you see, Abba, this dead man who lies before you? For your sake he was taken by sudden death, so that you may escape and he not kill you. Therefore, bury him as one saved. For obeying you by returning his murderous sword to its sheath in order to bring you water to quench the flame of your thirst, he pacified the wrath of God and was accepted as a worker of obedience. And his divulgence of the ninety-nine murders was counted as confession. Therefore, bury him and consider him among the saved. And by this, know the expanse of God's philanthropy and compassion. And rejoicing, go to your cell and be avid in your prayers, and do not feel sorrow and say that you are a sinner and deprived of revelation. For behold, God has revealed a mystery to you. And know this too, that all the toil of your ascesis is acceptable before God; for there is no toil that is done for God's sake that does not come before Him." Having heard this the elder buried the dead man.

From a Gerontikon manuscript of the Holy Monastery of Philotheou

Source: Hagiorite Witness - a Trimonthly publication of the Holy Monastery of Xeropotamou. June - August 1989, volume 4

Top Ten Things to Build a Bridge and Get Over

1. Nobody knows why anybody does anything. Imagine the time this one will free up. You don’t need to figure out what happened to Aunt Bertha as a child to make her so mean and crabby; why your s.o. dumped you; why your neighbor ignores you. We humans are a product of our upbringing; environment, genetics and hormones. We do what we do when we do it. Let it go. Don’t take it personally.

2. Nobody owes you a thing. When you think about all the time, love and attention it took to get where you are today you’ll see that you can never repay the debt. Your mother and father who raised you; your teachers who pushed and believed in you; your friends who supported you; your community which nurtures you. Question is – what have you given back in return?

3. You’ll be balanced when you’re dead. Not a moment sooner. Balance schmalanace. We chase it like the Holy Grail. What’s the big deal if you work too hard some weeks and goof off others? If you’re passionate about something maybe you’d rather have more of it in your life. Your kids won’t knock over a bank if you miss a few softball practices. Exercise is overrated and TV’s not evil incarnate

4. Multi-tasking is an oxymoron. Don’t be intimidated by colleagues who do five things at once. Studies on "Attentional Blink" show that we don’t actually do more than one thing at a time. We switch our attention rapidly between projects. A one man band plays many instruments passably but none well. Better to be a maestro than a journeyman.

5. You don’t deserve anything you have. See # 2. Entitlement is a very unattractive quality. No matter how hard you worked or how much you planned you were never in control of the outcome of your efforts. God and luck and the support of others, along with your own hard work, played big parts.

6. You’re ordinary. Relax it’s a compliment. Ordinary people are reliable, industrious and consistent . Superstars are a pain in the rear especially when they read their own press. Who would you rather call at 2 AM when your car breaks down, Tony Robbins or your brother-in-law Al? Imagine the ride home.

7. You’re not a victim you’re a volunteer. (Unless we’re talking about a trainwreck or a typhoid epidemic). The old saw about nobody being able to take advantage of you without your permission is true. If you don’t want something to happen in your life don’t set it up in the first place.

8. You’re right. Life isn’t fair. But it’s always interesting and instructive if you keep an open mind.

9. There is no meantime. No place where time stands still and standards are lowered and second best is good enough. There’s only now. What are you going to do now?

10. Gratefulness is second to Godliness. Cleanliness is waaay down the list. Get down on your knees and look at your life. Oh, the places you’ll go!

Source

If You Want To Avoid Cancer, Live Like A Monk

A Foolproof Anti-Cancer Diet... With Just One or Two Drawbacks

December 6, 2007
The Times

If you want to avoid cancer, live like a monk. That is the inescapable conclusion from research into one of the world’s most renowned monastic communities.

The austere regime of the 1,500 monks on Mount Athos, in northern Greece, begins with an hour’s pre-dawn prayers and is designed to protect their souls.

Their low-stress existence and simple diet (no meat, occasional fish, home-grown vegetables and fruit) may, however, also protect them from more worldly troubles.

The monks, who inhabit a peninsula from which women are banned, enjoy astonishingly low rates of cancer.

Since 1994, the monks have been regularly tested, and only 11 have developed prostate cancer, a rate less than one quarter of the international average. In one study, their rate of lung and bladder cancer was found to be zero.

Haris Aidonopoulos, a urologist at the University of Thessaloniki, said that the monks’ diet, which calls on them to avoid olive oil, dairy products and wine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, helped to explain the statistics. “What seems to be the key is a diet that alternates between olive oil and nonolive oil days, and plenty of plant proteins,” he said. “It’s not only what we call the Mediterranean diet, but also eating the old-fashioned way. Small simple meals at regular intervals are very important.”

Meals on the peninsula, which the Prince of Wales has visited regularly and which can only be reached by boat, are ascetic and repetitive affairs that have changed little over the centuries, although there are variations between the 20 monasteries.

The monks sit in silence while, from a pulpit, passages from the Bible are read in Greek. They eat at speed – as soon as the Bible passage is over, the meal is officially completed.

The staples are fruit and vegetables, pasta, rice and soya dishes, and bread and olives. They grow much of what they eat themselves. Agioritiko red wine is made locally from mountain grapes. Dairy products are rare – female animals are banned from the autonomous semi-state.

Life on Athos has changed little over the past 1,043 years. Breakfast is hard bread and tea. Much of the day is taken up with chores – cleaning, cooking, tending to crops – followed by a supper, typically of lentils, fruit and salad, and evening prayers.

Some of the seaside monasteries specialise in catching octopus, a delicacy that is softened up by bashing on the rock. Fish also feeds the Athos cats, protected by the monks for their mouse-catching prowess. Of all domestic animals, only cats are exempt from the ban on females. Some of the monks live in hillside huts or cliff-side caves perched above the sea as satellites of the main establishments, perhaps the closest that modern Christianity gets to medieval hermits. They depend for their sustenance on handouts of bread and olives.

On holidays and feast days such as Christmas and Easter, when other Greeks are feasting on roast meat, the monks prefer fish, their only culinary luxury. Father Moses of the Koutloumousi monastery, one of the 20 organised cloisters scattered over the Athos peninsula, said: “We never eat meat. We produce most of the vegetables and fruit we consume. And we never forget that all year round, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we don’t use olive oil on our food.”

The olive-oil routine, which also applies to wine and dairy products, appears to have no religious significance, but is a way of eking out their supplies.

All the monks stick to the rigorous fasting periods of the Orthodox Church, in which a strict vegan diet is prescribed for weeks at a stretch.

Michalis Hourdakis, a dietician associated with Athens University, said: “This limited consumption of calories has been found to lengthen life. Meat has been associated with intestinal cancer, while fruit and vegetables help ward off prostate cancer.”

The lack of air pollution on Mount Athos as well as the monks’ hard work in the fields also played their part, the researchers said. There was no mention, however, of whether the absence of women had any effect on the monks’ renowned spiritual calm.

Salad days: Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday

Breakfast: Hard bread, tea
Lunch: Pasta or rice,vegetables, olive oil
Dinner: Lentils, fruit and salad, olive oil. Red wine

Monday, Wednesday and Friday: no olive oil

Holidays and feast days: Fish and seafood

Saint Joannicius of Devic

Saint Joannicius of Devic (Feast Day - April 26)

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Joannicius was a Serb from Zeta. As a young man he was overwhelmed with love for Christ. He left his home and family and withdrew to the region of Ibar at the mouth of the Black River into a narrow cave in which, according to tradition, before him, St. Peter of Korish lived a life of asceticism. When his fame began to spread among the people, he fled to Drenica and hid in the thick forest of Devich. Here St. Joannicius spent years in solitude, in silence and in prayer. According to tradition, the Serbian Prince George Brankovich brought his mentally ill daughter to him whom the saint healed. Out of gratitude, George built a monastery on this spot, known today by the name of Devic. The holy and wonder-working relics of Joannicius repose in this monastery. In this monastery, more recently, the nun Euphemia, the famous and God-pleasing hermitess lived a life of asceticism in Devic. The nun Euphemia is better known in the area of Kosovo by the name: The Blessed Stojna. She died in the Lord in the year 1895 A.D.

Miracles

The saints are alive and their God-given power does not diminish in time. St. Joannicius of Devic works miracles today even as he did during his life on earth, some five-hundred years ago.

A certain Milosh from Hercegovina prepared to travel to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage to the holy shrines. As he was about ready to depart on his way, St. Joannicius appeared to him in a dream and told him not to go to Jerusalem. Rather than go to Jerusalem, it would be better for you to go to Devic, explained the saint, and there, to restore my church and place it in order. Milosh obeyed the saint and arrived at the neglected Devic, cleaned it, placed it in order and again, made it possible to sing praises to God. At Devic, Milosh was tonsured a monk and remained there until the end of his life.

During the First World War and the Austrian occupation, a Hungarian officer with a detachment of soldiers came to Devic. The officer ushered Damaskin, the abbot of the monastery, before the reliquary of St. Joannicius and asked him what was under the slab? "Holiness," replied the abbot. "What kind of holiness?", the officer laughed. "Some things are hidden under there." He then ordered the soldiers to strike the slab with pick axes and to overturn it. While this was being done, the officer was seized with pain around his waist. He lay down in bed and before evening of the same day, he died. The frightened soldiers left there work undone and fled the monastery.

Read more on Devic Monastery here.

Elder Paisios on Marriage and Divorce

Elder Paisios on Marriage:

"At the center of the family must be Christ. Problems are untangled by the spiritual father. A couple must have the same spiritual father.

Elder Paisios on Divorce:

-Why, Elder, are couples divorcing?

-People divorce, my child, because they are selfish and egotistical; from nothing else. Any other reason comes from the evil one in order to justify oneself.

Monk Moses the Athonite on Marriage and Divorce:

"Marriage is an arena for exercising humility, mutual leeway and mutual respect, and not the parallel journey of two egotisms despite a lifelong coupling and coexistence. The devil dances for joy whenever there is no forgiveness in human weaknesses and in everyday mistakes."

Patriarch Ilia II: 'Most Trusted Man in Georgia'

By Ivan Watson
April 26, 2010
CNN

Tbilisi, Georgia (CNN) -- At the end of a Sunday church service that lasts more then three hours, the frail spiritual leader of Georgia's Orthodox Christians emerges through the doors of Holy Trinity Cathedral's ornate wall of icons, and steps towards the waiting congregation.

The crowd surges forward. Hundreds of men, women and adolescents, reach for Patriarch Ilia II. Guided by bodyguards, the bearded cleric works his way through the sea of arms, touching and blessing his admirers' hands as he slowly walks out the cathedral to an armored limousine. Teenagers chase after the vehicle, as the patriarch drives away.

Mariam Turbanidze and her seven-year old son Nikolos stood watching the car disappear, oblivious to the pouring rain. Her family traveled hours from the Black Sea port city of Batumi to attend Sunday's service.

"The patriarch is Nikolos' godfather," Turbanidze explained. She proudly held up a framed church document as proof.

Ilia II has led one of the world's oldest Christian communities for more than 30 years. In a country that has suffered four wars in the past two decades, and experienced harrowing political and economic transformation, the patriarch is seen by many as a respected source of stability.

According to a 2008 poll published by the Tbilisi-based International Centre on Conflicts and Negotiation, 94.2 percent of Georgians surveyed ranked Ilia II the most trusted man in the country.

Born Irakli Shiolashvili, Ilia II was crowned "His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia" in 1977, when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union.

He assumed leadership of a church that Soviet authorities had targeted and repressed for decades.

"Many spiritual figures were persecuted and shot. Many churches were closed and some were destroyed," Ilia II said.

He spoke to CNN at the patriarchate's residence in downtown Tbilisi, a three-story building full of icons and church artifacts that had been seized and used as a police headquarters during Soviet times.

"After the liberation of Georgia from the Soviet Union, of course conditions improved. The people go to church, especially the youth," Ilia II explained.

In the last 20 years, the church in Georgia - and its leader - have become some of the most powerful institutions in the country.

In December of 2007, the patriarch announced he would personally baptize newborns in an effort to battle Georgia's declining birthrate. Thousands of people turned up to mass baptisms, during which smiling parents watched as robed priests plunged screaming babies into ornate vats full of holy water.

Irma Amirejibi and her husband Giorgi were among those to answer the patriarch's call. They already had four daughters and decided to have a fifth. Last year, their youngest daughter Nino was baptized by the patriarch.

"We think that with this baptism the patriarch's kindness will bless our family and protect my family in the future," Amirejibi said, as she balanced wriggling Nino on her lap.

Official statistics show that in 2008, Georgia had its highest number of births in nine years. Ilia II claims partial credit for the surge in births.

"I have already baptized about 5,000 children," he said. "Parents decided to give birth to these children because they had a chance to be the patriarch's godchildren."

In person, Ilia II is visibly frail. His voice is at times barely audible and he keeps his eyes averted from bright lights. But the patriarch speaks unapologetically about his position of authority in a country where 84 percent of the population identifies itself as Orthodox Christian.

"The patriarch is not a person who needs a government office," Ilia II said. "That is why the most objective ideas can be expressed by the patriarch and the church."

In his sermons and speeches, Ilia II periodically veers from spiritual advice to outspoken commentary about political events.

Addressing thousands of worshippers at a Sunday service last month, Ilia II denounced a hoax news report on Georgian TV about a fake Russian military invasion. He called the controversial program, which spread panic throughout the population, a "crime against humanity."

After Georgia lost a brief-but-bloody 2008 war with Russia, Ilia II was the highest ranking Georgian dignitary to meet face-to-face with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.

In a recent interview with CNN, the cleric accused Medvedev of failing to follow through on a pledge to allow some of the 30,000 ethnic Georgians displaced by the fighting to return to their homes in Russian-controlled territory.

"First of all he said that refugees must return to their homes. This was very happy news," Ilia II said. "But it is a fact that these words remained just words. And they were not fulfilled. He [Medvedev] is soft-spoken and clever."

In March 2008, Ilia II helped negotiate an end to a hunger strike led by opposition parties against the Georgian government.

"It is tradition that the church has to moderate. The church has to calm down everything," said Alexander Rondeli, a political analyst with the Georgian Foundation for Strategic Studies. "He [Ilia II] is playing this role quite well."

Throughout his career, the patriarch has made political missteps. Three years ago, he called for restoring the monarchy in Georgia, which was dissolved in 1801 when Russia annexed the Georgian kingdom.

Georgia's political elite offered a tepid response to the proposal. Then in 2009, with the patriarch's blessing, two descendants of the Georgian royal family were married in Holy Trinity Cathedral. Less than two months later, the couple were reported to have separated.

Ilia II says his greatest accomplishment has been to help unify Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"Society was divided into separate pieces," he said. "My aim was to unify the people, to make them one nation. And I knew that would happen."

At 77, the patriarch is not a young man. Many Georgians now worry about the health of the elderly priest who has helped guide his country through 19 stormy years of independence. Succession to the patriarch could pose a significant challenge, said political analyst Alexander Rondeli.

"Someone else has to be better or at least of the same caliber [as Ilia II]. This is the problem," Rondeli said.

Ilia II is not only a national symbol. He is a leader whose interests extend far beyond faith and politics. During Sunday prayer services, the choir in Holy Trinity Cathedral performs a choral piece called "Kyrie Eleison."

It features a female soloist, backed by an all-male choir. Their full-throated harmonies echo off the stone walls of the huge church, triggering goose bumps among listeners.

The composer of this hauntingly beautiful hymn is the man standing at the front of the cathedral in front of thousands of worshippers: Patriarch Ilia II.

Ghost and Demonic Sightings Highest in 25 Years

Ghost Sightings Highest in 25 Years

Spooky sightings of ghouls, ghosts and evil spirits are higher than they have been in the past 25 years, according to a new report on haunted Britain.

26 Apr 2010
Telegraph.co.uk

There have been nearly 1,000 reports of demonic activity in the past quarter of a century, with Yorkshire the nation's most ghostly county.

Encounters with devils, demons and evil spirits are as widespread today as they were in medieval times, researchers claim.

The research was led by the UKs leading authority on the unexplained Lionel Fanthorpe who studied various archives and websites as well as his own reports to identify all sightings and recordings of supernatural beings with satanic qualities.

The study found that despite being in time of accelerating technology, 21st century Britons have not turned their back on ghouls, boggarts, hell-hounds, witches, wizards, banshees and black magic curses, with a whopping 968 reports of demonic activity in the past 25 years.

The report indentifies Yorkshire as the centre of ghostly goings-on demonic activity with 74 reports of demons, including Uncabus and Succubus (male and female demons that make sexual attacks on sleeping victims), instances of demonic possession and sightings of hell hounds, water demons and demons with repulsive forms such as ghouls and werewolves.

Sightings of demons in Yorkshire have included a hideous shadow-like hell-hound with no discernible facial features which collided with a car between Northallerton and Leeming Bar on the A684. A sea-going water demon has also been reported off Filey Bay in Yorkshire. Witnesses claimed to have seen a ghostly creature with a long neck, a vast serpentine body and glowing eyes.

Devonshire rated second in the study with 57 reports of sinister activity, mainly from encounters with or sightings of demons with devil like qualities.

On Dartmoor there have been reports that the demonic shape of a man named Stephens who committed suicide still appears and bodes ill for those who encounter it his grave. The apparition is described as hideously skeletal and dressed in the ragged remnants of a grey robe.

Third in the ghoulish league table is Somerset, which hosts the highest number of monsters and has 51 sightings or reports of demonic entities, with Wiltshire coming in fourth with 46 sightings of demons.

Wiltshire is one of the most popular areas for sightings of phantom dogs, shucks or hell-hounds. At Black Dog Hill near Black Dog Woods in Chapmanslade, there are reports of a huge black hound with eyes like red hot coals.

People in Inverness report sightings of 13 water ghosts in the last 25 years, evil spirits whose main purpose is to lure their victims into dangerous water and then drown them. The water ghosts contribute to the area's overall total of 39 demonic beings and one of the most notorious water ghosts resides in the area of Boat of Garten, which lies on each side of the River Spey, near Chapeltown and Tulloch Moor. The paranormal reports from Boat of Garten involve an ancient, inscribed stone visible when the river is at its lowest. According to legend, the stone is cursed and guarded by a malevolent water-demon, or kelpie-type entity, who protects it savagely. Anyone touching it or attempting to move it is said to become prey to this aquatic, demonic being.

The Demonic Britain report was carried out for the latest DVD release of US TV series Supernatural, normally broadcast on the cable channel Living.

Lionel Fanthorpe said: "This report clearly shows we are a nation still rich in sightings and reports of devils, demons and evil spirits of various forms."

"The present human population is many times greater than it was in the past. Therefore the more people that there are, statistically, the more potential encounters they might have with these unpleasant, non-human entities.

Top 10 ghostly sightings by area:

1 Yorkshire 74

2 Devonshire 57

3 Somerset 51

4 Wiltshire 46

5 Inverness 39

6 Dorset 37

7 = Norfolk 32

7 = Lancashire 32

8 = Sussex 30

8 = Derbyshire 30

9 = Essex 29

9 = Suffolk 29

10 Lincolnshire 24

700 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming

The following papers support skepticism of "man-made" global warming or the environmental or economic effects of. Addendums, comments, corrections, erratum, replies, responses and submitted papers are not included in the peer-reviewed paper count. There are many more listings than just the 700 papers. The inclusion of a paper in this list does not imply a specific position to any of the authors. This list will be updated and corrected as necessary.

See here for the list.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

On Idleness and the Apostolic Love for Labor

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

REFLECTION

The devil quickly finds work for idle hands and an angel quickly finds work for diligent hands. In this world of constant movement and constant change, whether he wants to or not, man must always be busy, be it either with good works or evil works. The idle man, actually is not lazy. He is a diligent worker of the devil. An idle body and an idle soul is the most suitable field for the devil's plowing and sowing. St. Anthony the Great said: "The body needs to be subdued and immersed in prolonged labors." St. Ephraim the Syrian teaches: "Teach yourself to work, so that you will not have to learn to beg." All of the other Holy Fathers, without exception, speak about the necessity of work for the salvation of the soul of man. The apostles and all the saints give to us an example of continuous and concentrated spiritual and physical labor. That the idle man, by his idleness, does not extend his life on earth but shortens it, is clearly shown by the longevity of many saints, the greatest laborers among the laborers in the world.

HOMILY: About the Apostles' Love for Labors

"Nor did we eat food received free from everyone. On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked so as not to burden any of you" (2 Thessalonians 3:8).

First fulfill then teach. All the apostles and all of the saints of God adhered to this rule. Thus, the Apostle Paul, even before he spoke the command: "If anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10), declares for himself and for his assistants in preaching that they did not eat anyone's bread for free, rather by effort and labor earned their bread. "Night and day we worked!" Behold the true laborers! Behold the honey-bearing bees of Christ! Daily and nightly toil: where is their time for sin? Daily and nightly toil: where is their room for sin? Daily and nightly toil: where can the devil weave his nest of passions? Daily and nightly toil: where is their cause for scandal?

In certain Egyptian and Palestinian monasteries, there lived about ten thousand monks. They all lived off the labor of their hands: from weaving beehives, baskets, door mats and from other types of handiwork. Daily and nightly toil and daily and nightly prayer. When a monk sold his beehives in town for a higher price than the price which the abbot designated, for that, the monk experienced punishment. For the ascetics it was not a matter of enrichment but only for the most essential nourishment and the simplest clothing. In this, the ascetics were and are the true followers of the great apostle.

O, my brethren, let us flee from slothfulness [idleness] as from a cave of wild beasts. If by some chance we fall into a cave of wild beasts, let us quickly flee from it, before the wild beasts totally seal off the entrance. The cave is the dwelling place where the slothful man seeks rest. The wild beasts are evil spirits who, in such a dwelling place, feel more at home there than near their king in Hades.

O Lord, Who are wonderful in all the works of Your creation, awaken us from slothfulness and encourage us to nightly and daily labor by Your encouraging Holy Spirit. Amen.

See more here.

Interview About Elder Ephraim's Book on Elder Joseph the Hesychast

The video above is an excellent interview with the renowned homilist and author Fr. Stephanos Anagnostopoulos in which he speaks about the book he published titled My Elder Joseph the Hesychast and Cave-Dweller. He also has some things to say about Elder Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona, whose experiences and memories this book recalls and who is the compiler's spiritual father.

He has known Elder Ephraim of Philotheou since 1962, which was after the falling asleep of Elder Joseph the Hesychast in 1959. Fr. Anagnostopoulos emphasizes the fact that since the falling asleep of Elder Joseph the Hesychast, Elder Ephraim has transmitted faithfully the teachings of his elder to all the monasteries he oversaw on Mount Athos and established in Greece and North America. Elder Ephraim entrusted all his memories of Elder Joseph to Fr. Anagnostopoulos to put them in a book in a proper arrangement and with proper editing. He worked on this book for two and a half years before publishing it. Originally the manuscript of Elder Ephraim was over 1,000 pages, but Fr. Stephanos was able to condense it to about 450 pages. It took two and a half years because there were many repeated stories of Elder Joseph that needed editing and they needed to be arranged in chronological order. He also wrote the Prologue. In his Prologue his aim was to reveal to the reader what authentic Orthodox monasticism is.

When asked what people living in the world would get from reading this book, he responded in short that they will receive an understanding of true spiritual life, of what it is to love prayer and self-control, of what Christ accomplished on the Cross by pouring out such grace upon His Saints who are even our contemporaries. It is basically a small taste of heavenly realities. When those in the world reflect on the life of Elder Joseph, it will inspire everyone to do the small things, compared to his great things, to receive the same grace of the Holy Spirit.

Most of the over one hour interview recounts the life and teachings of Elder Joseph. Many questions are also asked to clarify his life and teachings. At the 23, 28, 33, 35, 38, 46, 52, and 59 minute mark in the video there is also some beautiful video footage of life on Mount Athos.

Old Calendarism and the Monastery of Esphigmenou

by Elder Theoklitos Dionysiatis

The Resurrection of Christ was considered and continues to be considered by many as a fable, due to a lie that was said by a small number of Jews. When the soldiers of the guard brought the incredible news of the Resurrection to the archpriests, they in turn gave them large sums of money and instructed them to say that “while we were asleep, His disciples came and stole His Body”. And the Evangelist Matthew adds: “And this claim has been perpetuated by the Jews to this day”. One major lie passed on into history. We encounter many such lies in world history.

It was also a lie that gave birth to Old Calendarism, which, to this day, continues to undermine the work of Orthodoxy, through the influence that these schismatics exert on naïve Christians. And what is this lie? The lie is that two Local Synods, under Patriarch Jeremiah II, in 1583 and 1593, which had been convened in order to condemn the audacious invalidation of the Oros (term) of the First Ecumenical Synod regarding the celebration of Holy Pascha, an invalidation which had been adopted by the Papacy, and also supposedly condemned the Calendar change. And how was this lie concocted?

Thanks to a forgery by an early zealot, Jacob of New Skete (Neasketiotes), to the manuscript of the code of the Holy Monastery of Saint Panteleimon, No. 772!

By using these supposed anathemas as scare tactics, the cunning zealots of the Holy Mountain were supposed to intimidate the naïve Christians. And the schism was based on this lie, in the same way that all schisms stem from absurdities, forgeries and frauds that are used to deceive those who are gullible or ignorant.

In brief, we can say that the history of the Old Calendarist schism is straightforward. After the end of World War I, ca. 1919, the Orthodox nations of the East had, for economic reasons (wishing to promote commerce), desired to adjust the Julian Calendar to the so-called Gregorian one, which preceded it by 13 days. In Greece also, we encountered such “fermentations” that were prepared by the governments of that era, which were aimed at convincing the Church accordingly. The Church however refused to abandon the Julian Calendar. But the rebellious government of Plastiras, despite the objections of the Church, proceeded by Royal Decree to establish the Julian calendar, adjusted by 13 days. Thus, the presence of two calendars caused problems. For this reason the State Church of Greece, in agreement with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the other Orthodox Churches, accepted this Revised Julian Calendar. And thus the 10th of March 1924 was renamed as the 23rd, while the Pascha celebration dates remained unchanged.

This is the whole story. It was natural that this change would cause a disorder and confusion in the people’s conscience. Those however who had some common sense accepted the explanation that had been given and calmed down, since Orthodoxy had not become de-natured, either in its dogma or in its traditions. Those however who were overcome by a spirit of distrust and in their latent egotism suffered from the syndrome of: “even if you convince me, you will not convince me”, would kick up a fuss, claiming that the Church had supposedly fallen into heresy. Thus the phenomenon of “Old Calendarism” was created. This was nothing new for the Church; after all, we encounter plenty of other such schisms in Her history, which had been caused for trivial reasons, such as that of the “Old Paschites” (a paschal schism of the early Church), for example.

The 5,000 – 6,000 monastics of the Holy Mountain, after examining the issue in extreme detail, were led to the conclusion that the Orthodox Faith had not been hurt by the Calendar change, although for various other reasons they decided to continue to observe the Old Calendar, without however severing ecclesiastical relations with the Local Churches which had taken the leap of 13 days, acknowledging them as being equally Orthodox. A large enough number of monks, outside the environment of the monasteries, became “zealots”, while a few hieromonks left for the cities where they were to preach that the addition of 13 days that the Church had accepted was heresy; without taking into consideration the fact that the Church would not have agreed to innovate, had the State not acted in haste without consulting the Church and proceeded to innovate, with the resulting confusion of having two calendars.

I write these things in relation to the issue of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou, for those who ask. Already in a previous article, I have replied to these points. Here, I will repeat that the Holy Athonite Community respects the zealots’ freedom of conscience and tolerates them, even though they are schismatics and, according to the Holy Mountain’s Charter, should be expelled from the Holy Mountain.

The case of the Esphigmenou Monastery however is different. The Esphigmenite zealots may stay in the Holy Mountain. However, they are not allowed to stay inside an Establishment of the Holy Community. They must: either agree with all Holy Monasteries or disagree, in which case, as schismatics, they must leave of their own accord.

Yesterday I received a letter from a friend of mine who wrote that the Prior of the Monastery of Esphigmenou, in an interview given to a state TV station, had said: “When Athenagoras was Patriarch, we had the fiery articles of the Elder Theokletos Dionysiates. Now that these things are happening, he remains silent”.

I do not know the present Prior. I did know, however his predecessor Euthemios, as I also wrote in a previous article in the newspaper “Orthodox Press”. In this case, however, it is my duty to reply to the Prior’s puzzlement. It is true that I used to write fiery articles (all of them together being the size of a large book) against the Pro-Papist statements of Athenagoras. Today what can I write about? That many people out of ignorance interpret the various social relations and meetings of the current Patriarch with the Papists as co-officiating and common prayer? There was a lot of talk about Ravenna. If, despite the explicit warning that had been given that only Orthodox should come forward for Holy Communion, certain Papists did not take heed and despite this warning, proceeded to receive Communion, does this mean that the Patriarch did this on purpose? We must be very careful before we accuse our ecclesiastical leaders that they are supposedly ecumenists just because present-day conditions may lead them to meet with, be amiable towards, or courteous to the heterodox.

I wish they had been there to see the extremely Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostom II, who had truly waged a war against Athenagoras, address the Anglican Archbishop inside the Metropolitan Temple or accept an honourable salutation by an Armenian cleric. What would those who protest and condemn Patriarch Bartholomew as an ecumenist say then? I also read in the “Orthodox Press”, but also received this statement in person, of a protest regarding Esphigmenou, signed by five Christian associations who are not Old Calendarist. So, are these people moved by the possibility that the Esphigmenite zealots might be removed from the Holy Establishment, but are not concerned with or feel sad about their fallacy, with the fact that they are schismatics or with the fact that they are exposing Orthodoxy’s radiance? They want to believe that they are guardians of Orthodoxy; but in that case, why don’t they take care to preserve its truth from alterations which stem from irresponsibility or exaggeration? Either the Esphigmenites are deceived and must be helped, so that they can come to their senses, or they are Orthodox, in which case the members of these five associations should follow them in their beliefs. Do they believe that St. Mark of Ephesus or Gregory Palamas would protect them, now that the Esphigmenites are cutting asunder (schism) the Church? Do they know that Gregory Palamas had suggested to the Elders of the Holy Monastery of Lavra not to coenobise Akindynus, simply because he showed some indications of holding on to some fallacious beliefs? Let those of the five associations read my book “St. Gregory Palamas” and the reprint of the Archbishop of Athens Chrysostom I, entitled “Examination of the Calendarist Accusations”. Let them also read the doctorate thesis of the present Archbishop of Athens, in order to see in what way a series of lies and frauds had been built from that original lie, as the devout Gervasios Paraskevopoulos had written to me.

I wrote this elsewhere and I will repeat it here as well. Back in 1965, when Kontoglou, Archbishop Chrysostom and I, were all of us fighting Athenagorism, the Prior who preceded the present one, called Euthemios, came to our Monastery and was ordained a Deacon and then a Priest, acquiring his zealotist mindset. Why? Five years later, he turned once again into a zealot. Why? Perhaps because he read that Athenagoras had made Pro-Papist statements in public? When he was being ordained by the hands of a pro-Athenagoras bishop, did he not know this? Had he not commemorated Athenagoras for five whole years? This is what zealotry is!

The Russian Nicetas Struve, in his book, “Russia Today” writes: “Something for which Russia has no reason to be jealous of America, is the presence of approximately fifty heresies in Russia going under the name of G.O.C. [Genuine Orthodox Christians]!” So, is this our sensitivity towards Orthodoxy? Instead of protesting in favour of the deceived ones who, as schismatics, are losing their soul, since not even the blood of martyrdom can wash out schism, the correct action would be for us to enlighten them so they can return to the Church of Christ, abandoning their para-churches. I say these things, because many people ask for my opinion, being one of the older Hagiorites who has seen many things.

With the love of Christ,
Theokletos Dionysiates, monk
Holy Mountain

Source: Newspaper “Orthodox Press”, 28 February 2003

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Monday, April 26, 2010

Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem on the Holy Light

M.I.A's Controversial New Video "Born Free"

Religions NOT Different Paths to the Same Wisdom

The Authenticity of “Secret Mark”

Did I Find King David’s Palace?

Kneeling In Church On Sundays

The Ascetic and the Thief

Top Ten Things to Build a Bridge and Get Over

If You Want To Avoid Cancer, Live Like A Monk

Saint Joannicius of Devic

Elder Paisios on Marriage and Divorce

Patriarch Ilia II: 'Most Trusted Man in Georgia'

Ghost and Demonic Sightings Highest in 25 Years

700 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of "Man-Made" Global Warming

Sunday, April 25, 2010

On Idleness and the Apostolic Love for Labor

Interview About Elder Ephraim's Book on Elder Joseph the Hesychast

Old Calendarism and the Monastery of Esphigmenou

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