Ecumenical Patriarch: Orthodoxy Does Not Fear Dialogue

On Tuesday, July 7, 2010, His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew presided over the Divine Liturgy for the commemoration of St. Kyriaki the Great Martyr at St. Kyriaki of Kontoskali. In attendance were Consul General of Greece in Istanbul, Vasilios Bornovas, numerous clergy and lay pilgrims from Istanbul and Greece, as well as former residents of Kontoskali currently living in Greece.

July 7 is also the anniversary of the falling asleep in the Lord of Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras who passed away in 1972. Remembering his predecessor, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said that "he created the Ecumenical Movement for our Patriarchate, he contracted relations with Rome, with the World Council of Churches, with all the Inter-Christian organizations, and showed the good disposition of Orthodoxy to dialogue with every man of good will, hence revealing that we do not fear dialogue, while believing that we possess the Truth."

After greeting various Orthodox and Catholic theologians who were in attendance, the Patriarch further said: "We Orthodox believe that on the foundation of the indivisible Church of the first millennium we can find a sure way to come together and unite. The Church which was founded by Christ, the Church of the Symbol of Faith, at no point in time lost its unity. We Christians are divided and want to unite in the visible unity of the Church. For this we struggle and uphold fervently Theological Dialogue between Rome and Orthodoxy, because it is not only a dialogue between Rome and New Rome, that is Constantinople, but a dialogue between Elder Rome and World Orthodoxy."

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Elder Paisios and Little Paisios

The photo above depicts "Little Paisios" playing while surrounded by his family to whom he brings much joy, especially to his mother. When doctors told her to get an abortion and not go through with childbirth because of her weak heart, Elder Paisios told her that her child's heart is so strong that it will over-power her weak heart. The woman listened to Elder Paisios putting her life in danger and gave birth to a healthy baby boy, whom she named "Paisios" in honor of the Elder.

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The Holy Monastery of Saint Euphemia in Kerkyra

The Monastery of Saint Euphemia in Mon Repo, Kerkyra is among the oldest on the Greek island, dating back at least to the 15th century. According to tradition, on the spot where the katholikon (central church) is situated today, there was an older church dedicated to Saint Euphemia. It was in these ruins that a miraculous icon of Saint Euphemia was recovered. In 1478 Antonios Mousoulis built the Monastery which operated as a coenobium. The Monastery had acquired much land and property on the island, but this mainly disappeared under the Turks in 1716. Among the properties of the Monastery was the Church of Saint Panteleimon in Μοn Repo. In older times the Monastery had about 16 nuns, but today there are only 3 who work very hard to upkeep the Monastery and give generous hospitality to visitors. The Holy Monastery celebrates twice yearly on July 11 and September 16 in honor of Saint Euphemia.

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Religion, Violence and War

Why Religion Does Not Equal War

Matt J. Rossano
July 7, 2010
Huffington Post

"After ferrying the Crusaders across the Bosphorus Straits, Byzantine Christians reported their horror at witnessing the Crusading knights and peasants skewering and roasting children on spits, as the invaders advanced from Nysea in Anatolia...to Marj Uyun in Lebanon. When the soldiers finally took Jerusalem in 1099, they celebrated their victory by burning alive all the Jews they could find, massacring Moslem women and children, and destroying most mosques and every synagogue in the Holy City. For two hundred years, claims James Reston, the Crusades unleashed 'a frenzy of hate and violence unprecedented before the technological age and the scourge of Hitler."

So goes the description from anthropologist Scott Atran's book In Gods We Trust (Oxford Press 2002, p. 289). Exhibit A among the gruesome atrocities committed in the name of religion. But are the crimes of the Christian Crusaders any worse than, say, what the Romans did after sacking Jerusalem in 70 AD? Maybe not, but there is experimental evidence showing that religious motivation can intensify violent inclinations. Brad Bushman (and colleagues) at the University of Michigan had subjects read a biblical passage endorsing violence and later found that these subjects behaved significantly more aggressively in a competitive game compared to those who believed the passage was from a (non-divine) ancient text. So would we be a more peaceful species without religion?

To my knowledge there has only been one attempt to actually quantify religion's role in war-making throughout human history. As part of a special they were airing on the subject, the BBC asked Dr. Greg Austin, a research Fellow in the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, to investigate religion's role in the history of war. Austin, with the help of colleagues Todd Kranock and Thom Oommen, conducted the War Audit, where they evaluated all the major conflicts over the past 3,500 years -- 73 wars in all. The wars were rated on a 0-5 scale for religious motivation, with 5 indicating the highest religious motivation. So for example, The First and Second Punic Wars (264-241 and 218-201 BC respectively) rated a 0, while the Crusades (1097-1291) rated a 5. While conceding that subjectivity always plays some role in these sorts of assessments, Austin and colleagues, nevertheless, maintained that the general trend they observed was "beyond debate" (p. 12).

Brace yourselves, those for whom religion equals war. The majority of all wars (44/73 or 60 percent) had no religious motivation whatsoever -- a zero rating. Only three wars -- the Arab conquests of 632-732, the much ballyhooed Crusades, and the Reformation Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries - earned a 5, and were thus considered to be truly religious wars. Only seven wars earned a rating of 3 or more -- less than 10 percent. Thus, the vast majority of all wars involved either no religious motivation or only a modest one. The authors concluded by noting that "there have been few genuinely religious wars in the last 100 years. The Israel/Arab wars were wars of nationalism and liberation of territory" (p. 16).

The authors of the War Audit claim that their work was not intended as "a piece of original academic analysis" (p. 1), but instead as something that would "stimulate discussion rather than provide the final word on the role of religion in violent conflict over time" (p. 15).

As a committed evolutionist, my pet theory is that ultimately most (maybe all) wars are about men fighting over resources critical to reproductive success (status, power, land, money, women, etc.). War requires large-scale coordination and motivation, and here is where religion can play a role -- it is a powerful unifying and motivating force. But in the absence of religion, I think it is hopelessly naïve to believe that we'll all just give up our ambitions, drop our rocks and hug. We'll find some other reason to kill each other, if we're convinced that there is gain to be had by doing so.

More so than any other creature (some would argue uniquely so), we humans have been adapted for culture. All the high-minded talk about a "common human family" is fine, but pretty useless when comes to solving real human conflicts. We are cultural creatures and it is culture that unites and divides. With that in mind, try this little exercise:

Take your pointer finger and place it on Marrakech, Morocco in North Africa. Now run your finger across the vast expanse of Northern Africa, across the Red Sea and Arabian Peninsula, now north to the Caucasus Mountains, east across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, down around India, and across the Andaman Sea to Indonesia. Ponder for a moment the multitude of nationalities, ethnic groups, tribes, cultures, languages, and life ways your finger past across. What's the only possible cultural product that these wildly diverse peoples might have in common? Like it or not, the answer is religion -- in this case Islam. You could repeat this little exercise starting in Budapest, Hungary and tracing across southern Europe, over the Atlantic to Canada, down North America to Central and South America and all the way to the tip of Tierra del Fuego -- and again the only thing all these people might share would be religion, in this case Roman Catholicism.

If you want more peace, does it make rational sense to start by getting rid of the one thing that the largest number of people have in common? Outside of kinship, nature has come up with nothing more effective for creating group cohesion than religion. Sadly, that in-group unity often carries with it greater out-group animosity. But we might take a lesson from nature. She works with what she is given, adapting structures piecemeal to fit better with the current environment. Our best shot might be to do the same with religion; working with it, adapting it so as to retain its unifying benefits while trying to minimize its tribalistic dangers. An important message from the War Audit is that religion's record on war may not be anywhere near as bad as is popularly believed, and therefore its potential for peace may be far greater than what many have imagined.

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Dracula Was A Victim Of Bad Propaganda

Dracula Was Not Bloodthirsty, Just A Victim Of Bad Propaganda, New Exhibition Claims

Vlad the Impaler, the medieval Romanian prince who inspired the character of Count Dracula, was not a blood-thirsty tyrant, he was simply a misunderstood victim of bad Western European propaganda, a new exhibition has claimed.

By Nick Squires
11 Jul 2010
Telegraph.co.uk

The show, which has just opened in Bucharest, attempts to rehabilitate Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, who ruled Wallachia in the 15th century.

"Vlad Dracula was doubtlessly cruel, but not more so than other princes of his time," said Margot Rauch, the Austrian curator of the exhibition, entitled "Dracula - Voivode and Vampire".

Vlad was born in the town of Sighisoara, in Transylvania, in 1431. He ruled over Wallachia, now a region of Romania, between 1456 and 1462 and was reputed to have killed thousands of political opponents, common criminals and captured Turkish soldiers by having them impaled on sharp wooden stakes. It is estimated he had 50,000 people put to death.

He is also said to have committed other atrocities, including torturing, roasting, dismembering and drowning his enemies.

But despite the historical evidence, according to Ms Rauch, "In fact he was a victim of bad propaganda".

She said historical studies presented in the exhibition show legends related to Vlad Dracula were "aimed at presenting eastern Europe as a primitive land and a source of evil".

The exhibition includes portraits of Vlad from the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna and the Schloss Ambras museum in Innsbruck, as well as manuscripts which depicted him as a blood-thirsty maniac.

One of the engravings, dating back to 1500, shows him having a meal under the eyes of a dozen impaled men, while others have their limbs lopped off and their heads boiled in cauldrons.

Many Romanians regard Vlad as a hero because he fought the invading Ottoman Turks.

The legends about his rule inspired Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", published in 1897, and later formed the basis of countless books, films and television dramas.

The famous image of Dracula, with his deathly pale skin, dark cape and blood-stained fangs, came largely from seven Dracula films made by Universal Studios between 1930 and 1960.

"It's time to see Vlad Dracula in another light than that given by Hollywood," said Ms Rauch.

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Ecumenical Patriarch: Halki To Reopen Next Year and EP Will Not Move

Greek Patriarch Optimistic Halki Seminary Will Reopen Next Year

FULYA ÖZERKAN
July 5, 2010
Hürriyet Daily News

Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew says he has a promise from the prime minister and Turkish authorities that the Halki seminary will reopen next year. He says he has been asked many times why he has not moved the patriarchate outside of Turkey to serve under better conditions. ‘As Turkish citizens, we are loyal, we love our country and we don’t want to leave’.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew has expressed optimism that Turkey will next year reopen a historic seminary that was shut down nearly four decades ago.

The Greek Orthodox seminary, located on Heybeliada island off Istanbul, was a main center of theological education for more than a century before Turkish authorities closed it in 1971 under a law designed to bring universities under state control. The European Union has long asked Turkey to reopen the seminary to prove its commitment to human rights as it strives to become a member of the 27-nation bloc.

“We are optimistic that our government will reopen the school next year at the latest after nearly half a century has passed since the school closed in 1971,” Bartholomew told members of the Greek Orthodox community following a religious sermon at a small chapel next to the Halki seminary on Sunday.

“We have the promise of Prime Minister Erdoğan, the minister of education [Nimet Çubukçu] and Mr. Egemen Bağış, the chief negotiator for EU talks, who have told us repeatedly that there is no legal obstacle to reopening the school,” said Bartholomew.

The government, keen to boost its bid to join the EU, has in recent years taken steps to improve the rights of its non-Muslim minorities but has so far refrained from any move on the seminary. Still, there have been positive signals that the government will reopen the school, as it has been working on a formula to bring it in line with the existing university system in Turkey. Yet it remains to be seen if Ankara will be able to open it next year during election times.

Bartholomew said the school – when it functioned before “unfortunately the authorities of our country closed it down” – served not only the needs of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate but also the needs of other Christian Orthodox churches.

“The ecumenical dialogue is one of the priorities of the ecumenical patriarchate and human beings all over the world, because those who completed their education at the school not only served in Greece but in many countries around the world where they were sent by the church,” said Bartholomew. Turkish authorities do not recognize the Greek Orthodox patriarch as “ecumenical,” regarding him merely as the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in Turkey.

“We have been here as an institution for 1,700 years and this is a great privilege for Turkey,” said Bartholomew. He then shared an interesting anecdote from his recent meeting with the former prime minister of Canada.

“As Turkish citizens we are loyal, we love our country and we don’t want to leave, because I am asked many times,” he said.

“And only a few days ago I was asked by the former prime minister of Canada who last Tuesday visited the ecumenical patriarchate, which is our headquarters, and when we had a cup of coffee in my office, he asked me, ‘Do you think you will leave this country some day sooner or later and go somewhere else’ in order to serve the ecumenical mission under better conditions? I said, ‘No, we have never thought about this. We don’t accept this possibility. We want to stay here because our legacy is here. Our roots are here. In the last analysis, we love our country.’”

Bartholomew also expressed strong support for Turkey’s membership in the EU.

“We pray for the entrance of Turkey into the EU, the European family,” he said. “Wherever I go internationally, I support it wholeheartedly … because we do believe that Turkey is a part of Europe.”


Seminary Appeal

July 12, 2010
Kathimerini

A Turkish state minister has said Ankara should open the Greek Orthodox seminary of Halki, an island off the coast of Istanbul, to boost the rights of the country’s non-Muslim minorities, Turkey’s daily Hurriyet reported yesterday. “I personally would very much like to see the...seminary reopen...We need to permit this,” said State Minister Bulent Arinc. “We must agree to the rightful requests, the basic rights of those of different faiths, because we are not just the government of Muslims,” he added. The European Union, which Turkey aspires to join, has pressed Ankara to reopen the seminary, which has been closed for nearly four decades, to show its commitment to democratic pluralism.

Read also: The Never Ending Story of Halki Theological Seminary Reopening

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Greek Men Seek Ordination To Escape Economic Crisis

According to a report by Romfea.gr, many young men in Greece are seeking ordination primarily to be able to make a living in the future and escape the economic crisis. The original report was featured on the Greek television station "Alter".

This is a serious report in which two alternatives are being considered - is it better to don the clerical cassock and hope for an easy way out of the financial crisis or should one face their fears of possible financial insecurity?

According to Fr. George Vamvakides, spokesman for ISKE (Sacred Association of Priests in Greece): "There exists a phenomenon, due to the crisis, of many candidates coming forward for ordination for the opportunity at restoration."

"Each Metropolitan of a particular jurisdiction consider and discuss every detail. If it is judged that the candidate seeks only the opportunity at restoration in his essence, he is judged unfortunate and not ordained", said Fr. George.

Lastly, Fr. Vamvakides emphasized: "The criteria for ordination are piety and fear of God. A calling from God and a calling from the people. These are the criteria."

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'Orthodoxy or Death!' T-shirt Russian Controversy

Prosecutor's Office Urges To Consider Orthodoxy or Death! T-shirt Extremist

July 12, 2010
Interfax

A T-shirt with words Orthodoxy or Death! depicting Orthodox symbols and sculls is pressed to be considered extremist.

The Moscow Lyublino District court received a correspondent complaint from the Lyublino Prosecutor's Office after summing up results of the check conducted in the Antireligia group at social website Vkontakte.ru where the T-shirt image was displayed, the court told Interfax-Religion on Monday.

The Russian Forensic Investigation Federal Center at the Russian Justice Ministry is to hold a sociological, psychological and linguistic expertise. Once the expert report is ready, legal proceedings will be resumed to fix a court session. The group administrator is a respondent.

The experts are to answer such questions as what is the T-shirt message, if this image aims at inciting religious hostility, promotion of exclusiveness, superiority or inferiority of citizens basing on their attitude to religion.

Many Orthodox believers wear such T-shirts. The Alisa rock band leader Konstantin Kinchev puts it on at some of his concerts.

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Panagia Triherousa (Three Hands) in Nea Kios

Panagia Triherousa (Feast Day - July 12)

Nea Kios (Greek: Νέα Κίος ), is a village and the seat of the municipality of Lerna in the southwestern part of the prefecture of Argolis. Nea Kios means "New Kios", from Kios (lat. Cius) a Greek colony near the modern town Gemlik in Turkey. Nea Kios was founded in 1927 when it welcomed Greek refugees from Kios in Asia Minor.

One of the four icons these refugees brought from Asia Minor is the miraculous icon of Panagia Triherousa (All-Holy Virgin of the Three Hands) or Koukouzelisa. It is housed in the Byzantine church of "Theomana" where you can also find hagiographies by Photis Kontoglou. The other three icons brought by the refugees from Asia Minor are the 11th century wonder-working icon of Theomana-Odigitria, the icon of the Annunciation of Virgin Mary and an icon of Panagia Portaitissa.

This icon of Panagia Triherousa was brought over by Zoe Pippidou, and in order to protect it from the Turks confiscation she cut it in half.

The feast of Panagia Triherousa is celebrated with a large festival in Nea Kios on July 12th.

The original icon of Panagia Triherousa, before which St. John of Damascus (December 4) received healing of his amputated hand, was given by him to the Lavra of St Sava the Sanctified in Israel. In the thirteenth century the icon was in Serbia, and afterwards it was miraculously transported to Mount Athos to the Hilandari Monastery where it remains and is celebrated till this day.

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The Noetic Value of Fiction

by Eric Simpson
July 7, 2010
Huffington Post

My primary vocation is as a writer of fiction. I am also someone who takes Christianity seriously, but I do not write for the "Christian fiction" market, nor would I ever want to do so. Most of my fiction, when read by my religious friends, and some of which has been published in the book, Destination: Short Stories, comes across to them as maybe a bit too frank. They wonder, sometimes aloud, why I do it, what purpose it serves, and I've known some to even question or denigrate the value of fiction.

American popular culture, including the Christian subculture, is not interested in truth, beauty or the arts, but in entertainment and self-gratification. If Americans do not have a low view of art as something to merely occupy one's time a few moments, then we tend to denigrate it into formalized tools for propagating ideology. The Christian may want to see a strong moral lesson or morality play as the engine of any artistic endeavor, whether it's fiction or a play or a painting, or it isn't legitimate. Other ideologues may want to see fiction reduced to a similar function to serve their political or social agenda. Both amount to the same thing: a denigration of art in utilitarian subservience to ideology. Whether one seeks art as a means of self-gratification or as an ideological tool, the reality that genuine art can enrich the soul and enliven spiritual intelligence is lost.

So, it seems like I find myself often trying to defend that which I believe has its own value. There are many reasons I believe fiction is not only valuable, but has the capacity to be a vehicle of transformation and salvation. Here's my attempt to explain what I mean.

Fiction, like myth, conveys noetic truth, or spiritual vision, which is an aptitude that subsists in the human person quite differently than discursive intelligence. Part of the spiritual vision fiction encourages is the essential communion all people have with each other, and our relationship to nature and the earth as well. Our mutual communion can be amplified and expressed through the writer's appeal to universal themes. Fiction to this end serves as a means to envisioning experience and reality beyond the parameters of one's own circumstance, and leads to understanding his predicament more fully; it is a way to transcend ourselves in order to see ourselves more clearly. One of the most obvious and conventional claims about fiction and the use of story is that it serves as a conduit for compassion, a mapping out of what is means to put oneself in another person's shoes. In this sense, empathy is itself a form of fiction, the virtuous act of imagining what it is like to experience the suffering of another, and acting upon that implicit deceit.

Through the power of imagination, good fiction delivers us from the constraints of time and helps us to begin to envision a sense of eternity, the felt spiritual insight that there is more to reality than the succession of events that composes human history. As a Christian, I believe that God transcends His creation, that He is timeless and not under the seemingly deterministic influence of our perception of sequential time, cause and effect. I also believe that God is immanent in creation, that He is everywhere present, that He fills all things and "in Him we live and move and have our being." Fiction has the capacity to indirectly provoke us to begin to see the presence of God in all things, and to understand the world of temporal matter as an epiphany of the eternal, spiritual realm. Ultimately, I think it can initiate us into the preliminary path of appreciating the mystery of ourselves as created in God's image.

Fiction expresses the inexpressible. Personally, I find it difficult to convey concretely perceptions about reality that cannot be easily formalized or understood, such as may be evidenced in this article. Some truths are intuitive or discovered through spiritual intelligence, and lose content and meaning when set forth as points of doctrine, disparate from the context of the reality in which they exist. A truth can be a human situation itself, a description of existence, not necessarily a lofty idea.

Some time ago, I wrote a story titled, "Confession," about a young man who confesses adultery to his young wife not because of a genuine feeling of guilt and repentance, but in order to quench his own conscience. The marriage was doomed. There was no repentance, no authentic sorrow for his infidelity. On its deepest level, this story is a comment on Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, where the anti-hero commits murder, then finds redemption initially through confession. I did not set out to write my story as a comment on Dostoevsky's novel. However, I am telling the truth that in human relationships, not all confessions are redemptive, that adultery is harmful and has many ramifications. But more than that, the story is about how far we penetrate into the world as authentic people, the vulnerability of the wife who is hurt, the lack of reality and myopia in the heart of the husband. It ends on a note of intuitive doom and despair, as the husband, having confessed, retraces in his mind the surprising touch and feel of forbidden skin. Bad confessions have deep internal consequences which may never be made manifest.

While truths may be revealed to the initiated in novels, they are also veiled under layers of plot and action. A basic form of a story that tells the truth without denigrating into propaganda or trite three-act play is the parable. Jesus taught spiritual truths primarily by telling stories, which, we presume, he made up in His imagination, in order to express truth in a veiled way for those who have the ears to hear. Those with hardened hearts were not open to the noetic vision implicit in the stories of Jesus, which resulted in their further condemnation.

Given the transcendent personality of God immanent in all things, reality is beautiful, particularly human beings created expressly in His image. Beauty is unveiled through good fiction most poignantly by skillfully describing human situations, or uncovering the interior realm of human personality. This may involve a great deal of ugliness or evil or profanity, which are part of the human situation and really should not be ignored in the name of upholding some conventional and puritanical moral code; often, these are merely rules that serve to evade and conceal truth. On the other hand, of course, the satisfaction of lurid concupiscent energies in the name of truth is an equal deception and error.

Any arbitrary flip-through of prime-time television, be it network or cable, adequately speaks for itself regarding the poverty of the American approach to beauty, art and truth. I need not say more on that; I have yet to meet anyone who would aggressively defend the artistic merit or quality of most television programs (though there are recent exceptions); most t.v. is formalistic fodder created to sell unnecessary products to consumers, and very rarely contains anything of value. There are a few exceptions, but not many; yet this is the primary form of artistic expression for most Americans: the visual equivalent to watching someone solve simple algebraic problems. Boring. Building from that base, most popular novels on the market are not worth much either, they are badly composed words produced by cranks who write primarily to make money. Yet, such a novel, like a two hour movie, passes the time. If art is just decoration, or just there to pass the time, then it truly does not have much value.

It's sad to me that many of those people, like myself, who take fiction seriously are regarded by religious people as "weird" or as elitist, cultural snobs -- or worse, as irrelevant, not rooted in reality, not pragmatic, wasting time. "Nonfiction" is "hard" and valued for its pretense to the facts, and preferred. Reality television trumps carefully written fiction. The real problem, however, does not lie in the person who takes fiction seriously, but in those who hold an egregiously low view of it.

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The Relics of Saint Euphemia the Great Martyr

The Miracle of Saint Euphemia at the Synod of Chalcedon (Feast Day - July 11)

St. Euphemia, whose relics are in the middle reliquary, was born in Chalcedon (present-day Kadköy), the daughter of devout parents, Philophron and Theodosiani. She was tortured during the persecutions of Emperors Diocletian and Maximian in the late third century.

The Saint played a major role in inspiring the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. During that council (451), St. Euphemia worked a miracle that determined the final doctrinal definition. The 630 Fathers, who gathered for this council in Chalcedon, were deliberating about the two natures of Christ. Eutyches and Dioscoros claimed that Christ possessed only a single nature. To test this teaching, the Holy Fathers inscribed the differing opinions on two separate decrees, which they placed inside the reliquary of St. Euphemia. When the reliquary was later opened, the decree of the heretics had fallen to the feet of the Saint, while the Orthodox doctrine rested in her hands. The Orthodox Church celebrates this miracle on July 11. The repose of St. Euphemia is commemorated on September 16.

According to her biography, the relics of St. Euphemia adorned many churches of Constantinople prior to its conquest in the fifteenth century. Thereafter, the relics were successively relocated to each of the Patriarchal churches. The icon of St. Euphemia records scenes from the life, martyrdom, and miraculous interventions of the Saint.

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The palace of Antiochos was originally an early fifth-century secular building, and it seems to have been transformed into a church by the first half of the seventh century, when the body of St. Euphemia was enshrined there. The church, which came to be regarded as the martyrion of the saint after her body was enshrined there, was restored and redecorated more than once. The building was a domed hexafoil in plan, richly decorated, and boasting at various periods mosaics and frescoes.

The body of the martyr Euphemia was brought to the church for safety from her native Chalcedon across the Bosporus when that city was in danger of sack by the Persians, probably in 626, and thereafter became a very popular relic in the Byzantine capital, for the body still exuded blood. The body of St. Euphemia doubtless also developed an important cult because of the tradition that her body had chosen the declaration of faith of the Orthodox party at the Council of Chalcedon. The Council of Chalcedon was of course held in the martyrion of the martyr in Chalcedon, not in her Constantinopolitan martyrion, as the Russian Anonymous variant has it. The popularity of the relic caused it to be among the first casualties of Iconoclasm, and, coffin and all, it was thrown into the sea. Miraculously rescued by faithful iconodules on the island of Lemnos, the body of St. Euphemia was restored to her church at the hippodrome in the last years of the eighth century. The history of this relic is unclear after its reentombment in the church. By the late twelfth century it is located outside the city walls, and the church at the hippodrome claims only lesser relics of the Chalcedonian martyr, including her head and her empty tomb. After the Latin conquest of Constantinople, "relics" and the jewel-encrusted arm of St. Euphemia are reported in Germany, but there is no mention of the saint's head or body in the West. These relics must have somehow escaped the Latins and remained in Constantinople, the head at the church near the hippodrome (if we are to accept the testimony of the Russian Anonymous), and the body outside the city.

From Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, by George P. Majeska (Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, 1984) pp. 259-260.



See also:
Saint Euphemia's Conversation With Elder Paisios
More on the Relation Between Elder Paisios and Saint Euphemia

Apolytikion in the Third Tone
O Euphemia, Christ's comely virgin, thou didst fill the Orthodox with gladness and didst cover with shame all the heretics; for at the holy Fourth Council in Chalcedon, thou didst confirm what the Fathers decreed aright. O all-glorious Great Martyr, do thou entreat Christ God that His great mercy may be granted unto us.

Kontakion in the Second Tone
You made fervent effort in your struggles of trial, in your struggles of faith for Christ your bridegroom. But even now, intercede with the Theotokos that the heresies and insolence of enemies be trod beneath the feet of our rulers, O All Praised, who received and kept the Decree of the 630 God-bearing Fathers.

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Cape Maleas: The Small Holy Mountain

Wikipedia: Cape Maleas

Cape Maleas is famous for its Byzantine churches and monasteries - Cape Maleas is often referred to as the "Small Holy Mountain" (Mount Athos being the largest!). Many monasteries were built in the area of Cape Maleas in the 12th century. In the 14th century the area devolved under the dominion of the Mistras area. On the Cape itself is the Chapel of Saint George, built right into the cliff's face. A few meters away lies the Monastery of Saint Irene perched on a terrace overlooking the sea. Post Byzantine buildings include Saint George Katzilieris, Saint Marina, Prophet Elias, and Saint Dimitrios. Cape Maleas hosts one of the largest lighthouses in the Mediterranean (Built since 1860).

This hardly accessible headland is frequently battered by strong winds and has claimed many shipwrecks that haunt its depths. There is a road which leads to the lighthouse. It is a difficult dirt road of approximately 20 kilometres, with the last kilometres increasingly dangerous as the path veneers precariously along the cliff edge. For enthusiastic walkers, there are paths which simplify its access. At the tope of the headland lies a Venetian fortress (altitude 600 meters).

Cape Maleas was by the ancients accounted the most dangerous point in the circumnavigation of the Peloponnesian peninusula, hence the proverbial expression: "After doubling Cape Maleas, forget your country."

See also: Saint Thomas of Mount Maleon in Peloponnesos

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On Change of Fortune and Loss of Security

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

A change of fortune strikes the hardest when it strikes unexpectedly. But, he who expects the stroke and guards himself against it beforehand, should he then be surprised?

King Charlemagne the Great ordered his sons to learn a trade and his daughters to learn to spin wool in order to be able to earn a living should their fate change.

The famous and renown Belisarius, a great general and a great conqueror, was slandered by the envious before the king and on the basis of these slanders was blinded and his estate taken away from him. The blind Belisarius sat before the gates of Rome and begged for alms saying to passers-by: "Give alms to Belisarius whom fortune raised on high but was toppled by envy and deprived of his sight!"

The righteous Job says: "Is not a man's life on earth a drudgery? Are not his days those of a hireling?" (Job 7:1). Therefore, one must be as a watchful guard and prepared for all that may happen. What is there that cannot happen to a man? And yet, in every suffering one must have hope in God. On the dunghill in all his festering sores, the Righteous Job cried out: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him!" (Job 13:15).

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Essential Differences Between 'East' and 'West'

DIFFERENCES IN THE RELIGIOUS THINKING BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE WEST

by Father Archimandrite Raphael Karelin

The English poet Kipling began his poem with the words: "Oh, the West is West, and the East is East, and they will never move from their places, until heaven and earth appear at God's Last Judgement". Here by East and West we must not understand the parts of the world, which are divided geographically by the Ural and Caucasian Mountains. Rather, by East one must understand to be that extensive region, which was occupied by the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and then by Byzantium and the countries of the Near East (here it is possible to include both Egypt and Ethiopia), and by the West the Western European powers and generally all countries of West European culture.

The Holy Fathers metaphorically said: "Light began to shine from the East"; the East symbolically represented Paradise, Eden, a country of eternal Divine Light. The West is young in a cultural-historical sense. The West is young. The East is old. The West is active. The East is contemplative. The West is all into emotions, all in motion, all very dynamic. However, the East is deep into itself; it appears that it does not want to remove its sight from the treasures which it possesses. The West is impulsive, is into searching, is into daring. The East keeps what it has. The West daydreams and fantasizes. The East searches everywhere for eternal ideas under what is visibly covered. The West dresses its saints in snowy garments, crowns their heads with wreaths of roses, but the East sees holiness equally both under rags and under gold. It sanctifies neither the rags of the poor, nor the monk's simple shirt, nor the rich dress of the tsars - it's as though it does not see the external.

The West sends regiments of crusaders to liberate Christ's Tomb. The East sends monks into the deserts of Egypt and dwellings of Mt. Athos. The West bares the sword against the enemies of the faith. The East provides spiritual warriors for the invisible fight with the demons. The West, in order to suppress evil, creates such institutions as the Inquisition, and the East – great philosophical systems.

The peak of western theology – is Blessed Augustine, a brilliant poet and thinker; but he is thoroughly psychology oriented. Eastern theologians: Saints Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa – are mystical. Augustine, his school brilliantly showed man in his fall and agony of searching, and the Eastern theologians showed man in his transfiguration. The West, by the mouths of its saints, sang a majestic hymn to God; the East, in a mystical silence, contemplated about God. The West was reaching out to the azure skies, and the East searched so as to meet God in the depths of the heart.

Western ascetics tried to imitate Christ outwardly; the Eastern ones considered that there is only one way to imitate Christ – by acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit: man, having acquired the Holy Spirit, only by grace, invisibly, becomes comparable to Christ. Western ascetics with songs on their lips went to Golgotha; the Easterners made life itself a Golgotha, invisible to the world.

Some of the western ascetics imagined Christ so vividly, that they identified themselves with Him; on their hands and soles of their feet wounds appeared, from which ran blood. Stigmata was revered by Catholics as a sign of holiness. But the holy ascetics of the East tried to see only one thing – the sea of their sins and considered a terrible pride to compare oneself with Christ.


The West resembled the young soldier, who bared his sword, the East – the old man, whitened with the gray hair of wisdom. The West wanted to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth, to build a paradise on earth by earthly means. The East always paid tribute – to Caesar what is Caesar's – and prepared the way to the Kingdom of Heaven in man's heart, the passage not into the earthly Kingdom, but the eternal one.

For the West the battle with evil was the earth, this temporary life with all its events and troubles, while for the East it was the human heart, which it saw as being deeper than the entire visible world.

The West is active, but all its activity is turned externally. The East turned the dynamics of the spirit into itself. Western civilization is like a wide wave of light, but scattered light, light that is refracted through earthly prisms of different colors. But the East is the concentration of light at one point, and this is why this light has the special quality (energy, strength) to be converted into a flame. The West loved the earth, and in heaven he saw the earthly (earth). The East loved heaven and in the earthly (earth) he saw the symbols of heaven; in the temporary he searched for the signs of the eternal.

Already the third bishop of Rome – Saint Clement, the successor of the holy apostle Peter, compared the Church with the army and called Christians to strict discipline, so that this army would be victorious. But in the East the Fathers said: "Conquer yourself – this is the highest of all victories". The ascetic teaching of the Eastern Fathers is a strategy of this spiritual fight (struggle) – fight with demons, with one's own passions. For the army to be victorious it is necessary to have centralized control, a strong authority is required and unconditional subordination, this is why the West created the Church structure, similar to a monarchy. For the fight with the age-old enemy of humanity the East searched for another force – this is the force of humility, in which the true power of the spirit is manifested.

The West is oriented to external might: by external means it created various organizations, affected influence on culture, everywhere it looked for allies – in the world of arts, in literature, in politics, in society. But the East said: "True good can be created only with God's grace" and therefore it always rejected questionable allies; outwardly it seemed poorer, more helpless, weaker than the West; however, it did not look for power nor might of the world, but it searched for Christ, Who conquered this world.

The asceticism of the West fills the souls of ascetics with enthusiasm and with admiration, the asceticism of the East – with repentance. The West, in the beauty of the world, desires to contemplate God's beauty. For the East God is Unutterable, Unknowable and Inexpressible. God, for the East, is not like anybody or anything from His creation – He is an eternal secret. The Western ascetic wants to embrace God, and the Eastern pleads only for one thing – the forgiveness of sins; searching in prayer for any kind of exalted states – this for him is already a sinful effort.

The Western ascetic sees the light, which descends upon him from the outside (this is the vision of Francis of Assisi and others), and the Eastern sees Light, which lights up his heart from the inside; and as such he quivers, before God's favor, as unworthy of it.

Western ascetics, demonstrating repentance, walked in cities in groups, entire societies, which were called "repentants" (or "penitents"); on streets and squares they removed their clothing and, in the presence of enormous multitude of people, would strike (flog) themselves with ropes and belts until they bled, and the ecstatic crowd glorified them as great saints of God, heroes of the faith. The Eastern – in the silence of the deserts offered repentance, invisible to the world; once one of the great Egyptian Fathers loudly sighed in church during prayers, but immediately he caught himself and, after turning himself to the nearby monks, said: "Forgive me, brothers, I am not yet a monk" – because repentance, as all virtues, must be secret.

For the West the main thing is works (deeds). The works, for him, are of value: just as the good deed and so also the sin have a specific, clear structure (form) and a value. For the East the main thing is the spiritual state, and works are only its manifestation. Therefore, for the East even a small deed can be great, if it proceeds from a pure heart, and a great podvig (spiritual exploit or struggle) is negligible, if it is not dedicated to God or done by unworthy means. The morals of western ascetics are based on "the principle of quantity": who, outwardly, made more good deeds; the morals of the East are based on the purity of the heart, known only to the One God.

The West attempted to realize the idea of God's Kingdom on earth, but with the methods of government: incentives, sanctions, intrigues and the like, transferred into the Church, profaned the purpose itself. "The end justifies the means" – this unwritten Jesuit motto with the greatest clarity and assuredness expressed the mood of those who are truly ready to build an "earthly paradise" by any means, at any price. However, the Eastern Church taught: a pure purpose, pure methods, a pure subject, this is how it was formulated by St. Dionysius.

The West says: "Love and do deeds of self-sacrifice" and the East, first of all, cleanses the heart with the fear of God in the struggle with the passions, for the acquisition of the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the East there is only one monastic rule, one idea: the monk renounces the world and becomes a person who prays for it; the monk is like a star that rose from the earth to the heavens – he is far from everybody and shines for all.

Western monks serve people and society. During many years, Hospitalers* took care of travelers and the monks of the order of Francis, "Franciscans", and educated children. The Jesuits were involved in politics, instruction of youth and similar works.

Once, Catholic monks were asked whether they read ascetic literature. They were surprised and answered that such books were used only by professors and the teachers of history, and that their duty is to obey the father superior. The studying of the Jesus Prayer and of spiritual contemplation, in the West, are almost non-existent. Culture, science, society itself are constantly undergoing a change; that is why the face of Western Christianity is constantly changing: there rules the principle of modernism, there the ecclesiological teaching about evolution is accepted, new dogmas are born and new revelations are expected.

* A member of a religious order known as the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, that originated in the early 11th century in a hospital built in Jerusalem to care for the crusaders and pilgrims.

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The Plane That Almost Crashed: A Passenger Recounts

This is a true account of events as described by a passenger aboard a plane, returning from the Holy Land on the 29th August 2003:

We had a magnificent time. The previous day we had celebrated the Dormition of our Lady at her church where her resting place is, since this feast is celebrated in Jerusalem on the 28th August, that is, 13 days later than the date celebrated in Greece. We lived through a unique experience. Late in the afternoon we packed our bags and took part in the all-night vigil at the Holy Sepulcher. Soon afterwards we boarded the bus which was waiting for us just outside the old city.

The weather was good and the sky clear and starlit. When we eventually boarded the plane - if I remember correctly it was a twin engine Airbus - I noticed that its lights were twinkling all the time. I thought that some wire was not making contact properly, and I sat deeply into my seat. When we took off the problem was less noticeable. I was sitting with my mother on the left side of the aircraft, in front of the wing.

Twenty minutes later we heard a loud noise and the aircraft started trembling and leaning on one side and then the other. The pilot told us in Hebrew and then in English to remain seated and fasten our seatbelts. The stewardesses did the same. In the beginning we did not pay much attention to this, until I turned and saw one of the engines on fire. Pieces of burning metal were strewn in the air. After a reassuring preamble I showed it to my mother and my other friends. We tensed somewhat, but we didn’t show our concern. As I have learned afterwards, some of us started praying with the Jesus Prayer ['Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me'].

A few minutes later the pilot confirmed that we had lost the left engine and that he was going to try to land at Eleftherios Venizelos airport in Athens, using the other engine.

Less than twenty minutes later we heard a similar, less loud noise and felt the same strong vibrations, mixed with turbulence. Some people, sitting on the right hand side shouted: "The engine is on fire!"

The atmosphere in the plane which up to then was mostly calm changed into panic. The aircraft was losing altitude quickly. I remembered that the noise which I was hearing, like a whistle, resembled whistle bombs make when falling. The stewardesses, who had started offering refreshments, secured the trolleys and ran to their seats, fastened their seatbelts and put their heads on their knees.

Several people with heart problems and some elderly were taking pills two at a time. Spouses were publicly confessing when and where they had committed adultery and were asking for forgiveness. Grandfathers and grandmothers were asking for forgiveness from their grandchildren because they had not included them in their will, and grandchildren were apologizing for past inappropriate behavior. They were all receiving forgiveness. Friends were revealing that they had lied and calumniated against each other.

The plane started leaning on one side and we realized that the pilot was trying to turn back to either Tel Aviv, or Cyprus.

One priest stood up and said: “Do not be frightened, my brothers, let us pray. God will not abandon us”. The other priests put on their epetrachili [priest stole] and started reading prayers, some others were reciting the Jesus Prayer and the rest divided themselves into two groups and started reading the Supplication to the Panagia (Paraklisi tis Panagias) and the Salutations to our Lady (Hairetismoi) on the left and the right hand side of the cabin. We placed our hopes in our Lord and felt a lot better.

Non-Christian passengers, a lot more scared than us, thought we had been singing and believed we had gone crazy.

This soothing attitude was suddenly broken by the voice of the captain: “As you have already realized we have lost the second engine a while ago, we have emptied our fuel tanks, and we will try to return to Ben Gurion airport but...” He suddenly stopped. We froze... It is one thing to imagine something awful is about to happen and another thing to have it officially confirmed! After the initial uncomfortable moments we continued our prayers from where we had left off. I was surprised that people, who seemed not to believe, had started praying feverishly.

I started to behave rationally, to the point of being accused of insensitivity. Hoping to console those who had been crying, I explained calmly: “We will all die one day. This cannot be changed. What is important therefore? How many years we will live and how we will live them. We all want to live for many years, but if God has decided otherwise, this cannot be changed. Besides, there is nothing we can do to save ourselves and that we have not done. Therefore, let’s accept that today we will be called to account for our lives. What therefore is left for us to do? To honestly pray and ask sincerely for the forgiveness of our sins. But we must also place our hope in God. Why? Because, His infinite love for us would not permit something to happen to the detriment of our souls. That means that if He decides to take our souls today, He will take us at the best moment of our lives. Most of us have confessed and took Holy Communion yesterday; therefore, we are ready as much as we will ever be. Think about what would have happened had we not been ready? Those of us who visited the Holy Land did not do it as tourists but as worshippers. Do you think the Lord and our Lady, for whom we had made this trip, will abandon us?"

Turbulence was continuing again quite strongly. We were flying low; I could distinguish the islands and the far away terrain. Then suddenly, the same priest who had pressed us to pray got up and said in a loud voice, full of conviction and with tears in his eyes:

“My children, please believe me. I can see our Lady, huge, standing in front of us, holding the plane by the belly!!!. We will be saved! We will be saved!" And weeping he said: “Let us pray to thank her!”

Then all the passengers took heart and started chanting the Paraklisi, louder and happier this time. Even the stewardesses realized that something good was happening and they were consoled, looking amazed at us.

Soon, we could see clearly the buildings in Tel Aviv, since we had already been flying very low. The runway was covered in white foam and many ambulances were already standing by. No other plane was in sight. They had obviously given us priority to land. We seemed to descend very quickly compared with other times.

When the plane touched down it miraculously stopped after 50 meters, without anyone of us moving from his place even by a centimeter. Even in a car, when one breaks suddenly, the passengers move forward. Nothing like this happened. The plane did not stop according to the law of physics, but as if it was placed softly on the ground!
We all started praising the Lord and our Lady. Only the stewardesses had began having panic attacks.

After a while we got off the plane, accompanied by police, doctors and nurses, and went to the waiting rooms. We had been offered refreshments and the officers were trying to comfort some people. Our mouths were dry, but none of us cared! We were alive, thanks to our Lord’s providence, and we were feeling very thankful for this.

In the days that followed, I continued to be thankful. I was seeing everything as God’s creation; I would love it and admire it. I had stopped being angry and immersing myself in superficial things. I was trying to respond to God’s love by behaving with leniency, without judgment and helping others, as much as I could.

Unfortunately a week later, I returned to my daily routine. I am embarrassed to say but I could not preserve inside me the same unique feelings of serenity, prayer, love, gratitude.

(I have decided to write about this true experience at the instigation of a dear friend, as a show of gratitude to our Lord, and as an effort to spiritually support my brothers who maybe wavering. Please forgive the personal note of the account. I merely wished to describe my feelings and the events exactly as we had lived through them. Thank you for your understanding.)

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Translated by: Olga Konaris Kokkinos
Edited by: John Sanidopoulos

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Questioning the Question

by Hank Hanegraaff

In Proverbs 26 Solomon tells us that we are not to answer a fool according to his folly, or we’ll make fools of ourselves. On the other hand, Solomon continues, answer a fool according to his folly, or the fool will think he is wise in his own eyes (vv.4–5)—he’ll think he has uncovered some wisdom. We often find this sort of thing with questions that are raised in order to denigrate the notion of an eternal Being, an Intelligent Designer, or an uncaused first Cause.

One of those questions is “Can God create a rock so heavy that he can’t move it?” That question is a classic straw man that has most Christians looking like the proverbial deer in the headlights. At best, the question challenges God’s omnipotence; at worst, it undermines His existence.

At the very outset, however, we should recognize a problem with the premise of the question. While it is true that God can do anything that is consistent with His nature, it’s absurd to suggest that He can do just anything. God can’t lie (Hebrews 6:18). God can’t be tempted (James 1:13). God can’t cease to exist (Psalm 102:25–27).

Furthermore, just as it is impossible to make a one-sided triangle, so it is impossible to make rocks too heavy to be moved. What an all powerful God can create, He can obviously move. Put another way, not even an omnipotent God can do the logically impossible.

A wide variety of similar questions are raised to undermine the Christian view of God. Therefore, it’s crucial that we learn to question the question, rather than simply assume that a question is valid.

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Turkey: Christians in Danger

July 8, 2010
John F. Cullinan
National Review

Bishop Luigi Padovese, stabbed to death last month, is the latest victim of Turkey’s growing hostility to Christians

For all the attention Turkey has gotten lately, very few Americans are aware that the Roman Catholic bishop serving as apostolic vicar of Anatolia was stabbed to death and decapitated last month by an assailant shouting, “Allahu Akbar! I have killed the great Satan!”

There are fewer than 60 Catholic priests in all of Turkey, and yet Bishop Luigi Padovese was the fifth of them to be shot or stabbed in the last four years, starting with the murder of Fr. Andrea Santoro in 2006, also by an assailant shouting, “Allahu Akbar!” (An Armenian journalist and three Protestants working at a Christian publishing house — one of them German, the other two Turkish converts — were also killed during this period.)

What’s going on? Why has traditionally secularist Turkey, with its minuscule Christian community (less than 0.2 percent of the population), lately become nearly as dangerous for Christians as neighboring Iraq? And why has this disturbing pattern of events so far escaped notice in the West?

In a nutshell, all these violent acts reflect a popular culture increasingly shaped by Turkish media accounts deliberately promoting hatred of Christians and Jews.

As it happens, Bishop Padovese was murdered on the same day (June 3) that the Wall Street Journal published an eye-opening report on how Turkey’s press and film industry have increasingly blurred the distinction between fact and fantasy, especially since the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) took power in 2002.

“To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness.” That’s how Robert L. Pollock, editorial-features editor of the Journal, summed up the trajectory of the daily fare that shapes Turks’ attitudes toward the outside world — and toward non-Muslims in their midst. Indeed, much of what passes for fact in Turkish public discourse would be comical if not for the deadly consequences.

Take, for instance, the wildly popular 2006 film Valley of the Wolves, later serialized for television. An earlier Journal piece summing up the plot as “a cross between American Psycho in uniform and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion” hardly does it justice. The plot turns on blood-crazed American soldiers committing war crimes for fun and profit in Iraq. These include the harvesting of body parts from murdered Iraqi civilians on an industrial scale (overseen by a Jewish doctor, of course) for shipment in crates clearly labeled New York and Tel Aviv.

Valley of the Wolves is the most expensive and most commercially successful Turkish feature film ever. Worse yet, it comes with the endorsement of leading AKP figures, such as the speaker of the parliament (“absolutely magnificent”) and the mayor of Istanbul (“a great screenplay”). Mr. Pollock’s judgment? “It is no exaggeration to say that such anti-Semitic fare had not been played to mass audiences in Europe since the Third Reich.”

Unfortunately, this film — with its poisonous blood libel against Christians and Jews — falls well within what is now mainstream Turkish public discourse.

Consider only some of the wilder rumors given credence by the Turkish press — for example, how the United States intends to colonize the Middle East because of an impending asteroid strike on North America, or how the 2004 Asian tsunami was really caused by secret U.S. nuclear testing. The latter claim was so prevalent in the Turkish media that the U.S. ambassador at the time, Eric Edelman, actually organized a conference call with Turkish journalists to refute the calumny.

This is the overall context in which incendiary published accusations are made that Catholic priests, sometimes identified by name, are engaging in proselytism — that is, seeking to convert Muslims, often with cash payments. I happen to know just how implausible these claims are, based on my own experience as a Catholic seminarian living and working in the Middle East a decade ago. I found that pastors of the historic Middle Eastern churches almost always go out of their way to discourage prospective converts, rightly fearing agents provocateurs from the security services or Islamist groups. In the rare case where a conversion does occur, the person is generally baptized outside his home country, in a place where apostasy is not criminalized or barred by powerful social norms, such as preservation of family honor.

What local Christian clergy actually do is to tend shrinking flocks without seeking to add to their numbers. (These little congregations increasingly include migrants like the Filipina nurses and domestic workers who are ubiquitous throughout the Middle East.) Some also provide public goods such as education and health care for Muslims and Christians alike on a non-sectarian basis. Others serve the pastoral needs of pilgrims visiting places (like Turkey) where Christianity once flourished. Nearly all see themselves as silent witnesses for Gospel values in places where prudence now bars the Gospel’s open proclamation.

There are vanishingly few Christians and Jews in Turkey. So the numbers of non-Muslims in the country cannot begin to explain the mounting popular hostility — not simply toward Americans, Europeans, and Israelis, but toward Christians and Jews as such. Turkey’s population (roughly 77 million) is more than 99.8 percent Muslim, with its tiny Jewish and Christian populations (perhaps 25,000 and 150,000, respectively) looking like a rounding error. Yet more than two-thirds of all Turks (68 percent) expressed a negative view of Christians in the 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, as opposed to the results in nearby Muslim-majority states with much larger Christian minorities, like Jordan (44 percent negative) and Egypt (49 percent). Hostility toward Jews, moreover, has spiked recently, with those self-identified as “very unfavorable” jumping from 32 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2009.

The short answer to the question why Christians keep getting attacked in Turkey is that ideas have consequences, with bad ones often leading to deadly consequences. In the current issue of Commentary, Michael Rubin offers a masterly step-by-step analysis of the way in which Turkey’s current Islamist rulers have systematically undermined and dismantled Atatürk’s secular legacy and have put in place an embryonic Islamist state. Ideas once expressed on the fringes of Turkish society have now become mainstream and respectable.

It is precisely this darkening climate of public opinion that provides the essential context for the spate of attacks against Catholic priests. Here it’s worth noting that, historically, Catholics were not regarded as enemies of modern Turkey in the way that Greeks and Armenians were. The Holy See was one of the first states to exchange ambassadors with the newly formed Turkish Republic in 1923; and one of its first ambassadors (from 1933 to 1944), still fondly remembered, was Angelo Roncalli, better known today as Blessed John XXIII.

So too is it a fact that Catholic clergy serving in trouble spots like Turkey have sometimes (though not always) enjoyed a certain immunity from violence or arbitrary arrest. That’s because the Vatican is widely perceived as a powerful entity that can command diplomatic and media attention (especially as compared to Christian evangelicals, who lack similar institutional support). That several Catholic priests have now been attacked in Turkey is a troubling new development that may reflect political Islam’s implacable hostility toward Pope Benedict XVI. Recall that what angered Islamists most about Benedict’s 2006 Regensburg lecture was not an injudicious quotation from a 14th-century Byzantine emperor. It was Benedict’s observation that while reason without faith leads to nihilism (Europe’s problem), faith without reason leads to fanaticism and violence (Islam’s problem).

But it’s also a fact that the killing of Catholic clerics in Muslim-majority states tends nowadays in the West to be passed over in silence or treated as business as usual. Imagine for a moment what would happen if — God forbid! — a very senior, foreign-born Muslim cleric were murdered in the U.S. in circumstances amounting to a hate crime. It is not difficult to imagine the likely aftermath: wall-to-wall media coverage, repeated international condemnations, and multiple presidential apologies.

In the case of Bishop Padovese, one close observer makes explicit the connection between pervasive media vilification and violence against Catholic clergy. Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, whose Asia News broke the story of the true facts surrounding the bishop’s murder, maintains that “there’s a campaign against Christian priests in Turkey. The government says it’s not true, the Turks say they don’t believe it, but it’s quite enough to watch television or read the newspapers to realize that indeed it is true.”

These facts — and their necessary implications — are a long way from the Islam-is-a-religion-of-peace happy talk peddled by both the Bush and Obama administrations. Little wonder that there’s practically no understanding in the U.S. that Turkey’s beleaguered religious minorities — and their co-religionists elsewhere in the region — serve as canaries in the coal mine, bellwethers for major policy shifts that our foreign-policy establishment is slow to grasp. Or indeed that the plight of these minorities mirrors, at least roughly, the state of U.S. interests and ideals in the region.

It wasn’t always the case that Americans paid no attention to the plight of Middle Eastern Christians. In the wake of World War I, the New York Times could safely assume a lively interest (and some Biblical literacy) among readers when editorializing in 1922 about the mass expulsion of ethnic Greek Christians from the new Turkish state: “Is this to be the end of the Christian minorities in Asia Minor — that land where, 13 centuries and more before the Turk came to rule, Paul had journeyed as a missionary through its length and breadth, and where the first ‘seven churches that are in Asia’ stood, to which the messages written in the Book of Revelation were sent?”

But that was then; and this is now.

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Teen Trends: Vampire Bites and Wolf Tails

Twilight Effect? Teens Biting Each Other



Teen Werewolves of San Antonio, Texas

See also: Vampires Reach Cult Religion Status

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Archbishop Kyprianos and the 9th of July 1821

by Kostis Kokkinofta

Towards the end of the 1810s, Archbishop Kyprianos, clerics and other notables on Cyprus were initiated into the Philiki Etaireia. However, the multiple difficulties faced by Cyprus because of its distance from the main areas of the forthcoming uprising of Greeks against Ottoman rule and, particularly, the island's proximity to Egypt and Syria, with their large Muslim populations and concentrations of Ottoman soldiers, would have exposed Cyprus to bloody reprisals and therefore the island was excluded from the initial plans for the revolution.

Despite the fact that on Cyprus there was no armed uprising in 1821, the local Ottoman authorities took measures that aimed to eradicate the island's clerical and civilian leadership and to induce fear among the general population. The events that followed were the most tragic that befell Hellenism in Cyprus during the Ottoman occupation.

The church's leaders, headed by Archbishop Kyprianos of Cyprus and three bishops, Meletios of Kition, Chrysanthos of Paphos and Lavrentios of Kyrenia, as well as a large number of leading citizens, were executed and their properties confiscated.

'When in 1822, I was in Larnaca,' wrote the Swedish traveller Jacob Bergren, 'the Greek population of the island had been reduced to such an extent that many of the large villages were completely uninhabited. The Turkish soldiers brought death wherever they passed… The Virgin was dressed everywhere in black, many houses were abandoned and splattered in blood.'

The most distinguished figure of these terrible events was Archbishop Kyprianos, who acted as a responsible, patriotic leader and spiritual father, trying to strike a balance between supporting, on the one hand, the revolution in Greece while, on the other, attempting to protect the local population. His role was particularly tragic since he knew that he could not avoid martyrdom.

The last moments of Archbishop Kyprianos' life are described by the English traveller John Carne, who visited him shortly before his execution. As Carne notes, when he asked the Archbishop why he did not do more to save himself when he realised the political situation on the island was tense and his life in danger, the Archbishop replied that he had decided to provide whatever protection he could to the local Christians and he had determined, if necessary, to die alongside them.

Years later, Vassilis Michailides, in his poem, The 9th July 1821, attached great meaning to Kyprianos' decision to remain with his flock, having him say to the good-hearted Turk Kioroglou, who was urging him to flee the island: 'I'm not leaving Kioroglou, because if I leave, my leaving will bring death to the Romans (Greeks) here'. ('Δεν φεύκω, Kιόρογλου, γιατί, αν φύω, ο φευκός μου/εν να γενή θανατικόν εις τους Pωμιούς του τόπου').

According to Carne, Kyprianos went to his death displaying unusual courage and unique dignity. With his sacrifice, he honoured Romiosini, asserted his Greek identity and justified his Christian faith. Modestly, humbly, with dignity and no self-pity, he went serenely to his death and immortality.

Joseph Woolf, a Protestant of Jewish origin, who arrived in Nicosia a few days after the tragic events of 9 July, relays eyewitness accounts that a proposal was made to Kyprianos just before his execution that he could save himself if he renounced Christianity and became a Muslim. As Woolf notes, the Archbishop rejected the proposal without a second thought and went to his death repeating the phrases: 'Lord have mercy on me, Christ have mercy on me.'

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Read more here, here, here, here, here and here.

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The Home and Garden of Saint Michael Paknanas

New Martyr Michael Paknanas the Gardner of Athens (Feast Day - June 30 and July 9)

For the life of New Martyr Michael Paknanas the Gardner (1754 - July 9, 1771), read here.

The house of Saint Michael Paknanas was near the Acropolis in Athens in Vlassarou, which today is known as Ancient Agora. This photo was taken in 1935 and is from the American School of Classical Education in Athens.


The only chapel dedicated to St. Michael is within the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Neos Kosmos, Athens. According to tradition, this is where the gardens of St. Michael were. They celebrate his feast day on July 9th.


Apolytikion for a Martyr in the Fourth Tone
Thy Martyr Michael, O Lord, in his courageous contest for Thee received the prize of the crowns of incorruption and life from Thee, our immortal God. For since he possessed Thy strength, he cast down the tyrants and wholly destroyed the demons' strengthless presumption. O Christ God, by his prayers, save our souls, since Thou art merciful.

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Icon of the Mother of God of Cyprus

Mother of God of Cyprus (Feast Day - July 9)

The Cyprus Icon of the Mother of God belongs to the Panachrana type. In this icon the Mother of God is depicted sitting on a throne with the Divine Infant in Her arms. On either side of Her is an angel.

The prototype of this holy icon manifested itself in the year 392 on the island of Cyprus at the tomb of Righteous Lazarus, the friend of Christ (October 17), and is kept there in a monastery. renowned copies of the Cyprus Icon are at the Moscow's Dormition Cathedral, and in the Nikolo-Golutvin church in the village of Stromyn, Moscow diocese (Commemorated on the Sunday of Orthodoxy).

During the week of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the Greek Synaxarion has an account of an icon which is probably the Cyprus Icon. On the island of Cyprus a certain Arab was passing by a church dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. In order to display his hatred for Christianity, the man shot an arrow at an icon of the Mother of God which hung by the gate. The arrow struck the Virgin's knee, from which blood began to flow. Overcome with fear, the Arab spurred his horse and rode for home, but was struck dead before he could get there. In this way, he was punished for his impiety.

Other days commemorating the Cyprus Icon are the Day of the Holy Spirit, and April 20. Some copies of the Cyprus Icon have additional names such as "Cleansing," "Knife," and "Hawk." The Cyprus Icon called "Hawk" was so named because of the way it was discovered. One day, the Christian ruler of Cyprus was hunting with his trained hawk. The hawk became tangled in a thicket while diving after another bird, and the ruler ordered the thicket to be cut away so that the hawk could be rescued. His servants rescued the hawk and also discovered an icon of the Mother of God in the thicket. The ruler later built a monastery on the site. The "Cleansing" Cyprus Icon was in another monastery on Cyprus, and was famous for healing many people with diseases of the eyes. The "Stromyn" Cyprus Icon became famous in 1841. An eighteen-year-old girl from Stromyn, a village not far from Moscow, was close to death from an illness. In a dream she saw the Cyprus Icon standing over the entrance to the church, and a voice came from the icon: "Take me into your home and have the priest serve a Molieben with the Blessing of Water, and you will be cured." The sick girl was brought to the church and finally located the icon after a long search. The girl obeyed the command of the Most Holy Theotokos, and after the Molieben she felt strong enough to carry the icon back to the church herself. Shortly thereafter, she was completely healed. The "Stromyn" Cyprus Icon continued to work miracles of healing, which the rector of the church reported to the holy Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (November 19).

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