Mysterious Events In Kiev in August of 1923

Many remarkable miracles occurred within the Russian Orthodox Church during Soviet times. Fr. Haralambos D. Vasilopoulos describes a series of such incidents in his book Contemporary Miracles of Russia (Sinhrona Thaumata Sti Rossia). Below are a few examples:

The Light of the Provider of Consolation

On the great street, Zhitomirskaya, in Kiev, adjacent to the office of a charitable organization, there is a small chapel. It is dedicated to the honor and glory of the "Provider of Consolation", the Virgin Mary.

One night, at two o' clock, a man from the neighborhood went out in his garden after having seen a strong light, like the glow from a fire, coming from the chapel. The man, who owned a bakery nearby, became frightened and notified the authorities that the chapel was on fire. Gradually, a crowd of terrified people gathered there. There was no smoke, just a blinding, fluttering light.

After a while someone ran and got the keys to the chapel and called the commissars. They opened the door, but recoiled in fear and terror: the blinding light was coming from the icon of the Virgin Mary. The commissar had the little chapel's priests placed under arrest and checked to ascertain whether there might be a hidden electrical wire. They removed the icon and placed it on a small table, where it continued to glow. The entire population of Kiev gathered there, and many fell to their knees and prayed.

This happened on August 15, 1923 - the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary.


Mysterious Restoration of Icons and Cupolas in Kiev

A few days later a new miracle took place in Kiev, this time in Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) Cathedral. The icons of Saint Nicholas of Myra and Saint George the Trophybearer, which were walled in above the entrance to the church, suddenly appeared to be completely new - newly painted! On the following days similar incidents occurred in almost every church in Kiev.

On the same street, Zhitomirskaya, there is a large church with five cupolas. One day the middle cupola, whose color was completely faded, began to shine in a curious way. People gathered around the church. When the glow eventually subsided, everybody could see that the cupola had been completely restored and gilded.

The Soviet authorities ordered two technicians to take samples of the metal covering the cupolas. The samples were given to two chemists for analysis. The result came in a message from the executive committee of the district, and read as follows: "There appears to be a new, unknown element in the composition of the sunlight, which causes a reaction in metals when they are heated."

In other words: "You won't convince me, even if you succeed in doing so!"

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Saint Anthony the Roman of Novgorod

St. Anthony the Roman (Feast Day - January 17 and August 3)

St. Anthony was born in Rome in 1067, soon after the Church of Rome had separated itself from the Universal Church. His parents remained faithful to the Orthodox teachings of the Eastern Churches, and raised their son in a spirit of Orthodox piety. St. Anthony was given a good education, and was able to read the Holy Scriptures in both Latin and Greek.

His parents died when he was seventeen, and he had already determined to dedicate his life to serving God. He took no interest in his material inheritance and, distributing it among the poor, left the noisy city with its many distractions in search of solitude. In a remote area of the country the youth joined a small community of monks who had likewise preserved their Orthodox faith. He spent twenty years there in ascetic labors, until the community was discovered by the Latins who demanded that the monks submit to the authority of the Papal Church. The persecuted monks were forced to disperse.

St. Anthony settled on a large rock at the very edge of the sea. There he labored for more than a year in solitary prayer, nourishing himself with wild grasses and roots. On September 5, 1105 a violent storm arose. An enormous wave lifted the rock on which the Saint was standing and miraculously transported it--as if it were a light boat-- across the sea, north to the river Neva, across Lake Ladoga, then upstream along the river Volkhov, until it arrived, by God's will, at Great Novgorod. On the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the stone halted 3 versts from Novgorod on the banks of the River Volkhov near the village of Volkhov. This event is testified to in the Novgorod Chronicles.

The Saint was overjoyed to learn from a Greek merchant that he was among Orthodox people. He gradually learned the language and was warmly received by the ruling bishop, St. Nikita the Hermit (January 31 and May 14). The bishop, hearing of St. Anthony's miraculous voyage, marveled and looked upon him as an angel of God. "The Lord has granted you great gifts, like unto those bestowed upon the ancient God-pleasers. God transported Elijah in a fiery chariot, the holy apostles flew through the air on clouds, and you have come to us across the waters on a rock. Through you the Lord has visited and blessed these newly-converted peoples."

There on the shore where the Saint had landed the bishop blessed him to build a church. In 1117, the saint built a stone church in honor of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos (in memory of the feast on which he miraculously arrived there). The church, built during the lifetime of St Anthony in the years 1117-1119 by the renowned Novgorod architect Peter, and adorned with frescoes in the year 1125, has been preserved to the present time.

St. Nikita's successor, the bishop St. Niphon, persuaded St. Anthony to become a priest and elevated him to the rank of abbot in 1131. St. Anthony wisely guided the monks in his care, without relaxing his ascetic labors. His cell and cell-chapel were so small that his spiritual struggle could be compared to that of the stylite saints.

In another year, fishermen recovered the barrel containing St Anthony's inheritance, cast into the sea many years before. The saint recognized his barrel, but the fishermen did not want to give it to him. Before a judge, St Anthony described the contents of the barrel, and it was returned to him. The saint used the money to buy land for the monastery. Spiritual asceticism was combined at the monastery with intense physical labor.

In his humility, St. Anthony had begged Bishop Nikita never to reveal the story of his miraculous voyage, but, nearing the end of his life, the Saint related the story to one of his monks, Andrew, and after his repose, on August 3, 1147, the miracle was made known to the glory of God and the edification of the faithful.

The monastery preserved St. Anthony's cenobitic rule, the rock on which he had been miraculously transported to Novgorod, a reed which he had held during his voyage, his vestments, and six icons dating from the Saint's lifetime.

St. Anthony's relics lay incorrupt in an open reliquary in the cathedral. His glorification in 1597 was promoted by Archimandrite Cyril of Trinity - St. Sergius Lavra, who received healing after praying before the Saint’s relics.

His memory is also celebrated (uncovering of his relics) on the first Friday after the Feast of the Foremost Apostles Peter and Paul (June 29), and on January 17, on the same day that St Anthony the Great is commemorated. The first Life of St Anthony the Roman was written soon after his death by his disciple and successor as igumen, the hieromonk Andrew. A Life, with an account of the uncovering of the relics, was written by a novice of the Antoniev monastery, the monk Niphon, in the year 1598.

St. Anthony the Roman is considered the father of monasticism in the Novgorod region.

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Protodeacon Kurayev Is Not Against Marches of Sexual Minorities

August 3, 2010
Interfax

A Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, Protodeacon Andrei Kurayev, believes public actions of sexual minorities are acceptable, but only of a certain kind.

"Thanks be to God, Moscow authorities stick to a sound position and ban gay pride parades, but by the way, I'm not against such actions. Let gays come out on the streets, but let it be 'gay shame' rather than 'gay pride'," Fr. Andrei said in his TV program.

According to him, if gays hold "a procession with a cross in order to repent before God, before people, please, let them do it, especially on the streets, in public.

"But to boast in public that you ignore Biblical commandments and pervert ways of natural life and to go along the city with these slogans pretending to be winners (as only those who win a victory hold a parade), it will be strange," Protodeacon Kurayev believes.

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How A 'Gay Rights' Leader Became Straight (2)

Read Part One here.

By Michael Glatze

I used to be gay, or so I thought.

When I was about 13, I decided I must be gay because I was unable to handle my own masculinity. It scared me too much. My father had already given me a lot to be afraid of: He'd cheated on my mother and left her crying, alone and selflessly attempting to salvage a dead relationship.

When I was faced with the prospect of either being a "man" or being "me" – who I saw as "better than that" and "not someone who would do such awful things as men do" – I chose "me." Then, because "me" was not "a man," "me" became gay.

I'm not saying this is how homosexuality develops for everybody. It's just my story.

For me, however, it became all-encompassing because I've always been driven to strive and achieve in everything I do. So I became an activist.

I started activism when I was 20 at Dartmouth College where I went to school. I continued as a protester at the Republican National Convention in San Diego in 1996. We chalked outlines of ourselves on the sidewalk and ran around shouting slogans and such.

When I was 22, I started work at XY Magazine, the first-ever magazine targeted at gay youth. Then, when I was about 25, I edited "The XY Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Being Young & Gay," the first-ever "guidebook" for being young and gay. Then when I was 26, I left XY to start Young Gay America, which was a non-profit, media-based outreach project that drove around North America, conducting interviews with gay and lesbian youth and uploading their interviews and stories to the Internet in a community-based website.

Young Gay America became Young Gay America Magazine in 2004. During the time between starting Young Gay America in 2001 and starting YGA Magazine, I was in over 50 magazines and newspapers, television and radio shows.

I was asked to speak on prestigious panels all over the world, at universities and conferences, as an expert on gay youth. In 2004, I sat on the first-ever gay youth in America panel discussion at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

I met world leaders as part of Young Gay America. I met the mayor of Berlin and the prime minister of Canada. Young Gay America received a National Role Model Award, and a film that Young Gay America helped make was screened at 50 international film festivals, won awards and even screened for a special bipartisan gathering of the U.S. Congress.

As you can see, Young Gay America, at least for me, was a big success.

YGA Magazine was loved by many and accepted instantly into several North American high schools' libraries. Parents groups loved it. We had all 5-star reviews on Amazon.com; it was loved.

I, however, was not loved – not loved by myself, that is.

I was in a relationship that was challenging, because it had aspects to it that I didn't enjoy. I didn't know until later that those aspects were not unique to my situation at all. But at the same time, I didn't understand what was really bothering me.

It turned out, after I left YGA and my relationship, what was really bothering me was homosexuality itself.

It's not popular to say that, especially when you're a gay rights "pioneer" (or so some people called me; I never tried to see myself as such, though I didn't exactly turn down the accolades). It's not a popular thing at all. It's more popular to say you've committed a crime than to say – as a gay person – that you might have a problem with homosexuality.

That gets labeled "internal homophobia."

Well, I knew all about internal homophobia, having read up, studied, volunteered for Gay & Lesbian National Hotline counseling sessions with random people, having interviewed and "empowered" over 1,000 young people in 38 states and four Canadian provinces, and even Zagreb, Croatia, about the importance of overcoming internal homophobia. It was not news to me at all.

Then again, it wasn't internal homophobia that caused my so-called "hatred" of my own homosexuality.

It was God.

God – I know – is a buzzword. God scares people. I know this. I'm sorry that's the case.

However, this is my story. And, my story includes me having a nervous breakdown, feeling like I was hurting tons of people with my actions, and turning to the Bible, praying and understanding that what was in the Bible was not nearly as scary as what people had made it out to be.

In my story, I became acquainted with a very personal God whom I spoke to and who told me that I was beautiful, and that everyone else was – and is – too. In my story, I had a good relationship with God that got richer as I spent more time with Him. In my story, God is my best friend.

I continued to develop a deeper understanding of who and what I really am, thanks to God and thanks to what He showed me. I followed His guidance and found books that revealed all sorts of "deep, dark" secrets about things like "socialism," Concerned Women for America, "abstinence-only education" and the National Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality. All these things I found truly opened my eyes.

For me, it was both a blessing and a profound curse – a challenge and a heartache – that God showed me all of this information. I knew what it meant: that I was going to have to forsake all of my life up until that point. Jesus, in the Bible, asks us to give up our lives for his sake. In a sense, I was ready and willing to do that.

In a sense, that's exactly what I did. And I became a Christian. And I started to heal – and I stand today a healed man.

And so, my story becomes a story of healing from homosexuality, which I write in order to "set the record straight" about the notion that people can't heal from homosexuality. That is not true. People can heal. I did it.

How did it happened? Well, a lot of that is private. A lot of that has to do with figuring out deep things about my mind, about the nature of where "desire" comes from, about what we think "desire" is and what it really is, about all sorts of things like that.

I can – and easily would – describe it if asked.

But for the sake of brevity here, I'm focusing on the fact that it did occur. And I did get cured.

I'm not looking for an award or recognition. I'm not looking for anybody even to be happy for me – I know a lot of people are probably really upset to hear me say this.

I know that's the case, because I know that if I had heard somebody say these things a few years ago, I probably would've made them Public Enemy No. 1 on my list.

In my humble story, however, I'm happy this way.

That's it.

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

That's not it, though, on second thought. Because on second thought, if I think about it, I was under the impression, right from the beginning, that homosexuality was an intrinsic part of me that I couldn't get rid of. People scared me into thinking that. And people do that today. I did that to people! I led a media company that focused on doing that.

So, no, it's not the end of the story at all – my story, that is. It's not at all my end. Because, from my perspective, homosexuality is not just something I was healed from, but it's something that is flat-out wrong, because it can be healed, even though people say it can't.

And not only can it be healed, I've seen the difference between gay and straight in my very mind!

I've seen it go from one … to the other – NEVER to return.

I wouldn't want it to return, because now I can't even imagine it. It's like thinking about doing the weirdest, grossest thing that just makes you feel sick inside.

This, again, is my story. And in my story, it makes me repulsed to think about homosexuality.

And when I step back a little bit, I know why! Because people are supposed to feel like homosexuality is gross, because such a feeling prevents them from wanting to do it. And people are supposed to not want to do it, because doing it is something that prevents them from having babies, and having babies is something that we – naturally – are supposed to want to do, for human beings to survive. And, so, it's obvious why people should feel gross about homosexuality.

It's not "wrong" for people to think it's gross. It makes sense!

If anything, it's not thinking homosexuality is gross that's weird. What if we stopped thinking that all harmful behaviors – all things that prevent us from doing what we're supposed to do and being what we're supposed to be – were gross? What then? Would we have no natural sense of who we are, why we're here, what we're supposed to do with our lives?

I understand this notion of "homophobia" – only it's not a phobia at all. It's common sense.

My story is that now I know the Truth about homosexuality. And my story is that now I'm going to do what I can to fight it.

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How A 'Gay Rights' Leader Became Straight (1)

By Michael Glatze

Homosexuality came easy to me, because I was already weak.

My mom died when I was 19. My father had died when I was 13. At an early age, I was already confused about who I was and how I felt about others.

My confusion about "desire" and the fact that I noticed I was "attracted" to guys made me put myself into the "gay" category at age 14. At age 20, I came out as gay to everybody else around me.

At age 22, I became an editor of the first magazine aimed at a young, gay male audience. It bordered on pornography in its photographic content, but I figured I could use it as a platform to bigger and better things.

Sure enough, Young Gay America came around. It was meant to fill the void that the other magazine I'd worked for had created – namely, anything not-so-pornographic, aimed at the population of young, gay Americans. Young Gay America took off.

Gay people responded happily to Young Gay America. It received awards, recognition, respectability and great honors, including the National Role Model Award from major gay organization Equality Forum – which was given to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chr?tien a year later – and a whole host of appearances in the media, from PBS to the Seattle Times, from MSNBC to the cover story in Time magazine.

I produced, with the help of PBS-affiliates and Equality Forum, the first major documentary film to tackle gay teen suicide, "Jim In Bold," which toured the world and received numerous "best in festival" awards.

Young Gay America created a photo exhibit, full of photographs and stories of gay youth all across the North American continent, which toured Europe, Canada and parts of the United States.

Young Gay America launched YGA Magazine in 2004, to pretend to provide a "virtuous counterpart" to the other newsstand media aimed at gay youth. I say "pretend" because the truth was, YGA was as damaging as anything else out there, just not overtly pornographic, so it was more "respected."

It took me almost 16 years to discover that homosexuality itself is not exactly "virtuous." It was difficult for me to clarify my feelings on the issue, given that my life was so caught up in it.

Homosexuality, delivered to young minds, is by its very nature pornographic. It destroys impressionable minds and confuses their developing sexuality; I did not realize this, however, until I was 30 years old.

YGA Magazine sold out of its first issue in several North American cities. There was extreme support, by all sides, for YGA Magazine; schools, parent groups, libraries, governmental associations, everyone seemed to want it. It tapped right into the zeitgeist of "accepting and promoting" homosexuality, and I was considered a leader. I was asked to speak on the prestigious JFK Jr. Forum at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2005.

It was, after viewing my words on a videotape of that "performance," that I began to seriously doubt what I was doing with my life and influence.

Knowing no one who I could approach with my questions and my doubts, I turned to God; I'd developed a growing relationship with God, thanks to a debilitating bout with intestinal cramps caused by the upset stomach-inducing behaviors I'd been engaged in.

Soon, I began to understand things I'd never known could possibly be real, such as the fact that I was leading a movement of sin and corruption – which is not to sound as though my discovery was based on dogma, because decidedly it was not.

I came to the conclusions on my own.

It became clear to me, as I really thought about it – and really prayed about it – that homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within. We cannot see the truth when we're blinded by homosexuality.

We believe, under the influence of homosexuality, that lust is not just acceptable, but a virtue. But there is no homosexual "desire" that is apart from lust.

In denial of this fact, I'd fought to erase such truth at all costs, and participated in the various popular ways of taking responsibility out of human hands for challenging the temptations of lust and other behaviors. I was sure – thanks to culture and world leaders – that I was doing the right thing.

Driven to look for truth, because nothing felt right, I looked within. Jesus Christ repeatedly advises us not to trust anybody other than Him. I did what He said, knowing that the Kingdom of God does reside in the heart and mind of every man.

What I discovered – what I learned – about homosexuality was amazing. How I'd first "discovered" homosexual desires back in high school was by noticing that I looked at other guys. How I healed, when it became decidedly clear that I should – or risk hurting more people – is that I paid attention to myself.

Every time I was tempted to lust, I noticed it, caught it, dealt with it. I called it what it was, and then just let it disappear on its own. A huge and vital difference exists between superficial admiration – of yourself, or others – and integral admiration. In loving ourselves fully, we no longer need anything from the "outside" world of lustful desire, recognition from others, or physical satisfaction. Our drives become intrinsic to our very essence, unbridled by neurotic distractions.

Homosexuality allows us to avoid digging deeper, through superficiality and lust-inspired attractions – at least, as long as it remains "accepted" by law. As a result, countless miss out on their truest self, their God-given Christ-self.

Homosexuality, for me, began at age 13 and ended – once I "cut myself off" from outside influences and intensely focused on inner truth – when I discovered the depths of my God-given self at age 30.

God is regarded as an enemy by many in the grip of homosexuality or other lustful behavior, because He reminds them of who and what they truly are meant to be. People caught in the act would rather stay "blissfully ignorant" by silencing truth and those who speak it, through antagonism, condemnation and calling them words like "racist," "insensitive," "evil" and "discriminatory."

Healing from the wounds caused by homosexuality is not easy – there's little obvious support. What support remains is shamed, ridiculed, silenced by rhetoric or made illegal by twisting of laws. I had to sift through my own embarrassment and the disapproving "voices" of all I'd ever known to find it. Part of the homosexual agenda is getting people to stop considering that conversion is even a viable question to be asked, let alone whether or not it works.

In my experience, "coming out" from under the influence of the homosexual mindset was the most liberating, beautiful and astonishing thing I've ever experienced in my entire life.

Lust takes us out of our bodies, "attaching" our psyche onto someone else's physical form. That's why homosexual sex – and all other lust-based sex – is never satisfactory: It's a neurotic process rather than a natural, normal one. Normal is normal – and has been called normal for a reason.

Abnormal means "that which hurts us, hurts normal." Homosexuality takes us out of our normal state, of being perfectly united in all things, and divides us, causing us to forever pine for an outside physical object that we can never possess. Homosexual people – like all people – yearn for the mythical true love, which does actually exist. The problem with homosexuality is that true love only comes when we have nothing preventing us from letting it shine forth from within. We cannot fully be ourselves when our minds are trapped in a cycle and group-mentality of sanctioned, protected and celebrated lust.

God came to me when I was confused and lost, alone, afraid and upset. He told me – through prayer – that I had nothing at all to be afraid of, and that I was home; I just needed to do a little house cleaning in my mind.

I believe that all people, intrinsically, know the truth. I believe that is why Christianity scares people so much. It reminds them of their conscience, which we all possess.

Conscience tells us right from wrong and is a guide by which we can grow and become stronger and freer human beings. Healing from sin and ignorance is always possible, but the first thing anyone must do is get out of the mentalities that divide and conquer humanity.

Sexual truth can be found, provided we're all willing and driven to accept that our culture sanctions behaviors that harm life. Guilt should be no reason to avoid the difficult questions.

Homosexuality took almost 16 years of my life and compromised them with one lie or another, perpetuated through national media targeted at children. In European countries, homosexuality is considered so normal that grade-school children are being provided "gay" children's books as required reading in public schools.

Poland, a country all-too familiar with the destruction of its people by outside influences, is bravely attempting to stop the European Union from indoctrinating its children with homosexual propaganda. In response, the European Union has called the prime minister of Poland "repulsive."

I was repulsive for quite some time; I am still dealing with all of my guilt.

As a leader in the "gay rights" movement, I was given the opportunity to address the public many times. If I could take back some of the things I said, I would. Now I know that homosexuality is lust and pornography wrapped into one. I'll never let anybody try to convince me otherwise, no matter how slick their tongues or how sad their story. I have seen it. I know the truth.

God gave us truth for a reason. It exists so we could be ourselves. It exists so we could share that perfect self with the world, to make the perfect world. These are not fanciful schemes or strange ideals – these are the Truth.

Healing from the sins of the world will not happen in an instant; but, it will happen – if we don't pridefully block it. God wins in the end, in case you didn't know.

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Read Part Two here.

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Holy Souls and Holy Scripture

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Holy souls read Holy Scripture with great diligence concentrating on every word and placing themselves before the mirror of the word of God as before the Dread Judgment.

Their diligence was so great in this that some of the ascetics undertook distant journeys in order to come to a spiritual sage who would interpret for them a word or a saying from Holy Scripture. Whenever it was possible, this was accomplished through correspondence. It is from this that a complete collection of the letters of the saints remained [survived] such as those of Saints Basil, Gregory, Chrysostom, Isidore of Pelusium, Nilus of Sinai and many others.

One day St. Cosmas the Eunuch (Aug. 3) pondered on the words of the Lord Christ when He, in the Garden of Gethsemane, asked His disciples whether they had a sword. When His disciples said to Him: "Lord, behold, here are two swords. And He said to them, it is enough" (St. Luke 22:38). Being unable to explain these words himself, St. Cosmas decided to cross over the wilderness to the distant Lavra called Pirga to the illustrious Abba Theophilus to inquire of him. With great difficulty did St. Cosmas succeed to reach his goal. Theophilus explained to him: "The two swords signify the two-fold order of a god-pleasing life: deeds and visions, i.e., labor and awakening of the mind to godly thoughts and prayer. Whoever has both of these, he is perfect."

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Protestant Myths About the Deuterocanonical Old Testament Books

Most Bibles that are available in North America today are published by Protestants; consequently, the Old Testaments in these Bibles are translations based on the Jewish Masoretic text and omit the Deutero-canonical books which appear in the Septuagint (LXX). The historical reasons for this appear almost accidental, and most English-speaking Christians are unaware of them.

The Protestant Reformers’ emphasis on original languages (coming out of their Renaissance heritage) led most of the Reformers to insist on using the Old Testament canon available to them in Hebrew, which had become standard among the Jews (the Masoretic text). During the late Middle Ages, the Germans and Englishmen who began to translate the Bible into “the language of the people” were ignorant of the importance of the LXX (or in some cases even completely ignorant of its existence). They assumed that the Hebrew Masoretic text used by the European Jews of their day was more authentic than the Latin Vulgate, which in their mind was tainted by its association with the Latin Church based in Rome.

Although modern English translations of the Old Testament take into consideration the LXX and other text traditions, they have continued to rely principally on the Masoretic tradition. This has led to the sometimes embarrassing situation of an English Bible in which the New Testament quotations of the Old Testament are very different from the supposed “original” found in the Old Testament translation included in the same Bible.

For example, the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible has Paul quoting Isaiah as saying, “He who believes in him [Messiah] will not be put to shame” (Romans 9:33). The footnote in the New Oxford Annotated edition of the NRSV refers the reader to Isaiah 28:16, which reads only, “One who trusts will not panic.”

Just as the Protestant acceptance of the Masoretic text of the Old Testament had little to do with theology, the Protestant omission of the Deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament has very little to do with theology, although in the past hundred years or so it has taken on theological significance among many Protestant groups.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, most Protestants accepted the Deuterocanonical books as inspired in at least some limited sense. For example, the original version of the King James Bible, the most popular version of the Bible in English, included most of the Deuterocanonical books. And for many years in England, it was even illegal to publish a Bible without these books.

They continued to be included in almost all Protestant versions of the Bible until the missionary movement of the first part of the nineteenth century. In order to save on shipping costs, missionary Bible societies began publishing partial Bibles (New Testaments, Gospels, etc.). Converts and religious movements that were born out of this missionary movement came to believe that the thirty-nine books in the truncated, missionary-society–produced Old Testaments were the only “true” books of the Old Testament.

Most evangelical Protestants in America are heirs of this missionary movement. Consequently, many Americans who take the Bible seriously hold a grave misunderstanding about the Old Testament. They sincerely but mistakenly believe that the Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament are not a part of the Christian Bible. They are ignorant of the fact that most of the Deuterocanonical books are quoted or alluded to as Scripture by the Apostles, the Church Fathers, and even Jesus Christ Himself.

The canon of the Old Testament books, on the other hand, has never been clearly decided or closed by the Church. It is clear from the quotations from the Old Testament by the New Testament writers and other very early Christian witnesses that the preferred and almost exclusive version of the Old Testament for the earliest Christians was the LXX. However, the books cited as Scripture vary widely even among the New Testament writers. For example, St. Jude, the stepbrother of the Lord, in his canonical New Testament letter cites the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Today, the only Christian group to include Enoch in the canon of the Old Testament is the Ethiopian Coptics.

In fact, differences in Old Testament canons exist among most major Christian groups in spite of a common New Testament canon. Most Protestants reject the Deuterocanonical books completely. The Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox lists of accepted Deuterocanonical books differ (the Greek list is longer). There are even slight differences between the Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox versions of the Old Testament. However, these distinctions are irrelevant to most English-speaking Christians, because most Bibles published in English omit the Deutero-canonical books completely.

Why are Protestant Bibles missing these books? Protestants offer various explanations to explain why they reject the deuterocanonical books as Scripture. I call these explanations "myths" because they are either incorrect or simply inadequate reasons for rejecting these books of Scripture. Let's explore the five most common of these myths and see how to respond to them.

Myth 1

The deuterocanonical books are not found in the Hebrew Bible. They were added by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent after Luther rejected it.

The background to this theory goes like this: Jesus and the Apostles, being Jews, used the same Bible Jews use today. However, after they passed from the scene, muddled hierarchs started adding books to the Bible either out of ignorance or because such books helped back up various wacky Catholic traditions that were added to the gospel. In the 16th century, when the Reformation came along, the first Protestants, finally able to read their Bibles without ecclesial propaganda from Rome, noticed that the Jewish and Catholic Old Testaments differed, recognized this medieval addition for what it was and scraped it off the Word of God like so many barnacles off a diamond. Rome, ever ornery, reacted by officially adding the deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent (1564-1565) and started telling Catholics "they had always been there."

This is a fine theory. The problem is that its basis in history is gossamer thin. As we'll see in a moment, accepting this myth leads to some remarkable dilemmas a little further on.

The problems with this theory are first, it relies on the incorrect notion that the modern Jewish Bible is identical to the Bible used by Jesus and the Apostles. This is false. In fact, the Old Testament was still very much in flux in the time of Christ and there was no fixed canon of Scripture in the apostolic period. Some people will tell you that there must have been since, they say, Jesus held people accountable to obey the Scriptures. But this is also untrue. For in fact, Jesus held people accountable to obey their conscience and therefore, to obey Scripture insofar as they were able to grasp what constituted "Scripture."

Consider the Sadducees. They only regarded the first five books of the Old Testament as inspired and canonical. The rest of the Old Testament was regarded by them in much the same way the deuterocanon is regarded by Protestant Christians today: nice, but not the inspired Word of God. This was precisely why the Sadducees argued with Jesus against the reality of the resurrection in Matthew 22:23-33: they couldn't see it in the five books of Moses and they did not regard the later books of Scripture which spoke of it explicitly (such as Isaiah and 2 Maccabees) to be inspired and canonical. Does Jesus say to them "You do greatly err, not knowing Isaiah and 2 Maccabees"? Does He bind them to acknowledge these books as canonical? No. He doesn't try to drag the Sadducees kicking and screaming into an expanded Old Testament. He simply holds the Sadducees accountable to take seriously the portion of Scripture they do acknowledge: that is, He argues for the resurrection based on the five books of the Law. But of course, this doesn't mean Jesus commits Himself to the Sadducees' whittled-down canon.

When addressing the Pharisees, another Jewish faction of the time, Jesus does the same thing. These Jews seem to have held to a canon resembling the modern Jewish canon, one far larger than that of the Sadducees but not as large as other Jewish collections of Scripture. That's why Christ and the Apostles didn't hesitate to argue with them from the books they acknowledged as Scripture. But as with the Sadducees, this doesn't imply that Christ or the Apostles limited the canon of Scripture only to what the Pharisees acknowledged.

When the Lord and His Apostles addressed Greek-speaking Diaspora Jews, they made use of an even bigger collection of Scripture - the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek - which many Jews (the vast majority, in fact) regarded as inspired Scripture. In fact, we find that the New Testament is filled with references to the Septuagint (and its particular translation of various Old Testament passages) as Scripture. It's a strange irony that one of the favorite passages used in anti-Catholic polemics over the years is Mark 7:6-8. In this passage Christ condemns "teaching as doctrines human traditions." This verse has formed the basis for countless complaints against the Catholic Church for supposedly "adding" to Scripture man-made traditions, such as the "merely human works" of the deuterocanononical books. But few realize that in Mark 7:6-8 the Lord was quoting the version of Isaiah that is found only in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

But there's the rub: The Septuagint version of Scripture, from which Christ quoted, includes the Deuterocanonical books, books that were supposedly "added" by Rome in the 16th century. And this is by no means the only citation of the Septuagint in the New Testament. In fact, fully two thirds of the Old Testament passages that are quoted in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. So why aren't the deuterocanonical books in today's Jewish Bible, anyway? Because the Jews who formulated the modern Jewish canon were a) not interested in apostolic teaching and, b) driven by a very different set of concerns from those motivating the apostolic community.

In fact, it wasn't until the very end of the apostolic age that the Jews, seeking a new focal point for their religious practice in the wake of the destruction of the Temple, zeroed in with white hot intensity on Scripture and fixed their canon at the rabbinical gathering, known as the "Council of Javneh" (sometimes called "Jamnia"), about A.D. 90. Prior to this point in time there had never been any formal effort among the Jews to "define the canon" of Scripture. In fact, Scripture nowhere indicates that the Jews even had a conscious idea that the canon should be closed at some point.

The canon arrived at by the rabbis at Javneh was essentially the mid-sized canon of the Palestinian Pharisees, not the shorter one used by the Sadducees, who had been practically annihilated during the Jewish war with Rome. Nor was this new canon consistent with the Greek Septuagint version, which the rabbis regarded rather xenophobically as "too Gentile-tainted." Remember, these Palestinian rabbis were not in much of a mood for multiculturalism after the catastrophe they had suffered at the hands of Rome. Their people had been slaughtered by foreign invaders, the Temple defiled and destroyed, and the Jewish religion in Palestine was in shambles. So for these rabbis, the Greek Septuagint went by the board and the mid-sized Pharisaic canon was adopted. Eventually this version was adopted by the vast majority of Jews - though not all. Even today Ethiopian Jews still use the Septuagint version, not the shorter Palestinian canon settled upon by the rabbis at Javneh. In other words, the Old Testament canon recognized by Ethiopian Jews is identical to the Catholic Old Testament, including the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).

But remember that by the time the Jewish council of Javneh rolled around, the Catholic Church had been in existence and using the Septuagint Scriptures in its teaching, preaching, and worship for nearly 60 years, just as the Apostles themselves had done. So the Church hardly felt the obligation to conform to the wishes of the rabbis in excluding the deuterocanonical books any more than they felt obliged to follow the rabbis in rejecting the New Testament writings. The fact is that after the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost, the rabbis no longer had authority from God to settle such issues. That authority, including the authority to define the canon of Scripture, had been given to Christ's Church.

Thus, Church and synagogue went their separate ways, not in the Middle Ages or the 16th century, but in the 1st century. The Septuagint, complete with the deuterocanononical books, was first embraced, not by the Council of Trent, but by Jesus of Nazareth and his Apostles.

Myth 2

Christ and the Apostles frequently quoted Old Testament Scripture as their authority, but they never quoted from the deuterocanonical books, nor did they even mention them. Clearly, if these books were part of Scripture, the Lord would have cited them.

This myth rests on two fallacies. The first is the "Quotation Equals Canonicity" myth. It assumes that if a book is quoted or alluded to by the Apostles or Christ, it is ipso facto shown to be part of the Old Testament. Conversely, if a given book is not quoted, it must not be canonical.

This argument fails for two reasons. First, numerous non-canonical books are quoted in the New Testament. These include the Book of Enoch and the Assumption of Moses (quoted by St. Jude), the Ascension of Isaiah (alluded to in Hebrews 11:37), and the writings of the pagan poets Epimenides, Aratus, and Menander (quoted by St. Paul in Acts, 1 Corinthians, and Titus). If quotation equals canonicity, then why aren't these writings in the canon of the Old Testament?

Second, if quotation equals canonicity, then there are numerous books of the protocanonical Old Testament which would have to be excluded. This would include the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Judges, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations and Nahum. Not one of these Old Testament books is ever quoted or alluded to by Christ or the Apostles in the New Testament.

The other fallacy behind Myth #2 is that, far from being ignored in the New Testament (like Ecclesiastes, Esther, and 1 Chronicles) the deuterocanonical books are indeed quoted and alluded to in the New Testament. For instance, Wisdom 2:12-20, reads in part, "For if the just one be the son of God, he will defend him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. With revilement and torture let us put him to the test that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience. Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him."

This passage was clearly in the minds of the Synoptic Gospel writers in their accounts of the Crucifixion: "He saved others; he cannot save himself. So he is the king of Israel! Let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver him now if he wants him. For he said, I am the Son of God'" (cf. Matthew 27:42-43).

Similarly, St. Paul alludes clearly to Wisdom chapters 12 and 13 in Romans 1:19-25. Hebrews 11:35 refers unmistakably to 2 Maccabees 7. And more than once, Christ Himself drew on the text of Sirach 27:6, which reads: "The fruit of a tree shows the care it has had; so too does a man's speech disclose the bent of his mind." Notice too that the Lord and His Apostles observed the Jewish feast of Hanukkah (cf. John 10:22-36). But the divine establishment of this key feast day is recorded only in the deuterocanonical books of 1 and 2 Maccabees. It is nowhere discussed in any other book of the Old Testament. In light of this, consider the importance of Christ's words on the occasion of this feast: "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came - and the Scripture cannot be broken - what about the One Whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world?" Jesus, standing near the Temple during the feast of Hanukkah, speaks of His being "set apart," just as Judas Maccabeus "set apart" (ie. consecrated) the Temple in 1 Maccabees 4:36-59 and 2 Maccabees 10:1-8. In other words, our Lord made a connection that was unmistakable to His Jewish hearers by treating the Feast of Hanukkah and the account of it in the books of the Maccabees as an image or type of His own consecration by the Father. That is, He treats the Feast of Hanukkah from the so-called "apocryphal" books of 1 and 2 Maccabees exactly as He treats accounts of the manna (John 6:32-33; Exodus 16:4), the Bronze Serpent (John 3:14; Numbers 21:4-9), and Jacob's Ladder (John 1:51; Genesis 28:12) - as inspired, prophetic, scriptural images of Himself. We see this pattern throughout the New Testament. There is no distinction made by Christ or the Apostles between the deuterocanonical books and the rest of the Old Testament.

Myth 3

The deuterocanonical books contain historical, geographical, and moral errors, so they can't be inspired Scripture.

This myth might be raised when it becomes clear that the allegation that the deuterocanonical books were "added" by the Catholic Church is fallacious. This myth is built on another attempt to distinguish between the deuterocanonical books and "true Scripture." Let's examine it.

First, from a certain perspective, there are "errors" in the deuterocanonical books. The book of Judith, for example, gets several points of history and geography wrong. Similarly Judith, that glorious daughter of Israel, lies her head off (well, actually, it's wicked King Holofernes' head that comes off). And the Angel Raphael appears under a false name to Tobit. How can Catholics explain that such "divinely inspired" books would endorse lying and get their facts wrong? The same way we deal with other incidents in Scripture where similar incidents of lying or "errors" happen.

Let's take the problem of alleged "factual errors" first. The Church teaches that to have an authentic understanding of Scripture we must have in mind what the author was actually trying to assert, the way he was trying to assert it, and what is incidental to that assertion.

For example, when Jesus begins the parable of the Prodigal Son saying, "There was once a man with two sons," He is not shown to be a bad historian when it is proven that the man with two sons He describes didn't actually exist. So too, when the prophet Nathan tells King David the story of the "rich man" who stole a "poor man's" ewe lamb and slaughtered it, Nathan is not a liar if he cannot produce the carcass or identify the two men in his story. In strict fact, there was no ewe lamb, no theft, and no rich and poor men. These details were used in a metaphor to rebuke King David for his adultery with Bathsheba. We know what Nathan was trying to say and the way he was trying to say it. Likewise, when the Gospels say the women came to the tomb at sunrise, there is no scientific error here. This is not the assertion of the Ptolemiac theory that the sun revolves around the earth. These and other examples which could be given are not "errors" because they're not truth claims about astronomy or historical events.

Similarly, both Judith and Tobit have a number of historical and geographical errors, not because they're presenting bad history and erroneous geography, but because they're first-rate pious stories that don't pretend to be remotely interested with teaching history or geography, any more than the Resurrection narratives in the Gospels are interested in astronomy. Indeed, the author of Tobit goes out of his way to make clear that his hero is fictional. He makes Tobit the uncle of Ahiqar, a figure in ancient Semitic folklore like "Jack the Giant Killer" or "Aladdin." Just as one wouldn't wave a medieval history textbook around and complain about a tale that begins "once upon a time when King Arthur ruled the land," so Catholics are not reading Tobit and Judith to get a history lesson.

Very well then, but what of the moral and theological "errors"? Judith lies. Raphael gives a false name. So they do. In the case of Judith lying to King Holofernes in order to save her people, we must recall that she was acting in light of Jewish understanding as it had developed until that time. This meant that she saw her deception as acceptable, even laudable, because she was eliminating a deadly foe of her people. By deceiving Holofernes as to her intentions and by asking the Lord to bless this tactic, she was not doing something alien to Jewish Scripture or Old Testament morality. Another biblical example of this type of lying is when the Hebrew midwives lied to Pharaoh about the birth of Moses. They lied and were justified in lying because Pharaoh did not have a right to the truth - if they told the truth, he would have killed Moses. If the book of Judith is to be excluded from the canon on this basis, so must Exodus.

With respect to Raphael, it's much more dubious that the author intended, or that his audience understood him to mean, "Angels lie. So should you." On the contrary, Tobit is a classic example of an "entertaining angels unaware" story (cf. Heb. 13:2). We know who Raphael is all along. When Tobit cried out to God for help, God immediately answered him by sending Raphael. But, as is often the case, God's deliverance was not noticed at first. Raphael introduced himself as "Azariah," which means "Yahweh helps," and then rattles off a string of supposed mutual relations, all with names meaning things like "Yahweh is merciful," "Yahweh gives," and "Yahweh hears." By this device, the author is saying (with a nudge and a wink), "Psst, audience. Get it?" And we, of course, do get it, particularly if we're reading the story in the original Hebrew. Indeed, by using the name "Yahweh helps," Raphael isn't so much "lying" about his real name as he is revealing the deepest truth about who God is and why God sent him to Tobit. It's that truth and not any fluff about history or geography or the fun using an alias that the author of Tobit aims to tell.

Myth 4

The deuterocanonical books themselves deny that they are inspired Scripture.

Correction: Two of the deuterocanonical books seem to disclaim inspiration, and even that is a dicey proposition. The two in question are Sirach and 2 Maccabees. Sirach opens with a brief preface by the author's grandson saying, in part, that he is translating grandpa's book, that he thinks the book important and that, "You therefore are now invited to read it in a spirit of attentive good will, with indulgence for any apparent failure on our part, despite earnest efforts, in the interpretation of particular passages." Likewise, the editor of 2 Maccabees opens with comments about how tough it was to compose the book and closes with a sort of shrug saying, "I will bring my own story to an end here too. If it is well written and to the point, that is what I wanted; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that is the best I could do."

That, and that alone, is the basis for the myth that the deuterocanon (all ten books and not just these two) "denies that it is inspired Scripture." Several things can be said in response to this argument.

First, is it reasonable to think that these typically oriental expressions of humility really constitute anything besides a sort of gesture of politeness and the customary downplaying of one's own talents, something common among ancient writers in Middle Eastern cultures? No. For example, one may as well say that St. Paul's declaration of himself as "one born abnormally" or as being the "chief of sinners" (he mentions this in the present, not past tense) necessarily makes his writings worthless.

Second, speaking of St. Paul, we are confronted by even stronger and explicit examples of disclaimers regarding inspired status of his writings, yet no Protestant would feel compelled to exclude these Pauline writings from the New Testament canon. Consider his statement in 1 Corinthians 1:16 that he can't remember whom he baptized. Using the "It oughtta sound more like the Holy Spirit talking" criterion of biblical inspiration Protestants apply to the deuterocanonical books, St. Paul would fail the test here. Given this amazing criterion, are we to believe the Holy Spirit "forgot" whom St. Paul baptized, or did He inspire St. Paul to forget (1 Cor. 1:15)?

1 Corinthians 7:40 provides an ambiguous statement that could, according to the principles of this myth, be understood to mean that St. Paul wasn't sure that his teaching was inspired or not. Elsewhere St. Paul makes it clear that certain teachings he's passing along are "not I, but the Lord" speaking (1 Cor. 7:10), whereas in other cases, "I, not the Lord" am speaking (cf. 1 Cor. 7:12). This is a vastly more direct "disclaimer of inspiration" than the oblique deuterocanonical passages cited above, yet nobody argues that St. Paul's writings should be excluded from Scripture, as some say the whole of the deuterocanon should be excluded from the Old Testament, simply on the strength of these modest passages from Sirach and 2 Maccabees.

Why not? Because in St. Paul's case people recognize that a writer can be writing under inspiration even when he doesn't realize it and doesn't claim it, and that inspiration is not such a flat-footed affair as "direct dictation" by the Holy Spirit to the author. Indeed, we even recognize that the Spirit can inspire the writers to make true statements about themselves, such as when St. Paul tells the Corinthians he couldn't remember whom he had baptized.

To tweak the old proverb, "What's sauce for the apostolic goose is sauce for the deuterocanonical gander." The writers of the deuterocanonical books can tell the truth about themselves - that they think writing is tough, translating is hard, and that they are not sure they've done a terrific job - without such admissions calling into question the inspired status of what they wrote. This myth proves nothing other than the Catholic doctrine that the books of Sacred Scripture really were composed by human beings who remained fully human and free, even as they wrote under the direct inspiration of God.

Myth 5

The early Church Fathers, such as St. Athanasius and St. Jerome (who translated the official Bible of the Catholic Church), rejected the deuterocanonical books as Scripture, and the Catholic Church added these books to the canon at the Council of Trent.

First, no Church Father is infallible. Second, our understanding of doctrine develops. This means that doctrines which may not have been clearly defined sometimes get defined. A classic example of this is the doctrine of the Trinity, which wasn't defined until A.D. 325 at the Council of Nicaea, nearly 300 years after Christ's earthly ministry. In the intervening time, we can find a few Fathers writing before Nicaea who, in good faith, expressed theories about the nature of the Godhead that were rendered inadequate after Nicaea's definition. This doesn't make them heretics. It just means that Michael Jordan misses layups once in awhile. Likewise, the canon of Scripture, though it more or less assumed its present shape - which included the deuterocanonical books - by about A.D. 380, nonetheless wasn't dogmatically defined by the Church for another thousand years. In that thousand years, it was quite on the cards for believers to have some flexibility in how they regarded the canon. And this applies to the handful of Church Fathers and theologians who expressed reservations about the deuterocanon. Their private opinions about the deuterocanon were just that: private opinions.

And finally, this myth begins to disintegrate when you point out that the overwhelming majority of Church Fathers and other early Christian writers regarded the deuterocanonical books as having exactly the same inspired, scriptural status as the other Old Testament books. Just a few examples of this acceptance can be found in the Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, the Council of Rome, the Council of Hippo, the Third Council of Carthage, the African Code, the Apostolic Constitutions, and the writings of Pope St. Clement I (Epistle to the Corinthians), St. Polycarp of Smyrna, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Pope St. Damasus I, St. Augustine, and Pope St. Innocent I.

But last and most interesting of all in this stellar lineup is a certain Father already mentioned: St. Jerome. In his later years St. Jerome did indeed accept the Deuterocanonical books of the Bible. In fact, he wound up strenuously defending their status as inspired Scripture, writing, "What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume (ie. canon), proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I wasn't relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us" (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). In earlier correspondence with Pope Damasus, Jerome did not call the deuterocanonical books unscriptural, he simply said that Jews he knew did not regard them as canonical. But for himself, he acknowledged the authority of the Church in defining the canon. When Pope Damasus and the Councils of Carthage and Hippo included the deuterocanon in Scripture, that was good enough for St. Jerome. He "followed the judgment of the churches."

Martin Luther, however, did not. And this brings us to the "remarkable dilemmas" I referred to at the start of this article of trusting the Protestant Reformers' private opinions about the deuterocanon. The fact is, if we follow Luther in throwing out the deuterocanonical books despite the overwhelming evidence from history showing that we shouldn't (ie. the unbroken tradition of the Church and the teachings of councils and popes), we get much more than we bargained for.

For Luther also threw out a goodly chunk of the New Testament. Of James, for example, he said, "I do not regard it as the writing of an Apostle," because he believed it "is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works" (Preface to James' Epistle). Likewise, in other writings he underscores this rejection of James from the New Testament, calling it "an epistle full of straw . . . for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it" (Preface to the New Testament).

But the Epistle of James wasn't the only casualty on Luther's hit list. He also axed from the canon Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation, consigning them to a quasi-canonical status. It was only by an accident of history that these books were not expelled by Protestantism from the New Testament as Sirach, Tobit, 1 and 2 Maccabees and the rest were expelled from the Old. In the same way, it is largely the ignorance of this sad history that drives many to reject the deuterocanonical books.

Unless, of course, we reject the myths and come to an awareness of what the canon of Scripture, including the deuterocanonical books, is really based on. The only basis we have for determining the canon of the Scripture is the authority of the Church Christ established, through whom the Scriptures came. As St. Jerome said, it is upon the basis of "the judgment of the churches" and no other that the canon of Scripture is known, since the Scriptures are simply the written portion of the Church's apostolic tradition. And the judgment of the churches is rendered throughout history as it was rendered in Acts 15 by means of a council of bishops in union with St. Peter. The books we have in our Bibles were accepted according to whether they did or did not measure up to standards based entirely on Sacred Tradition and the divinely delegated authority of the Body of Christ in council and in union with Peter.

The fact of the matter is that neither the Council of Trent nor the Council of Florence added a thing to the Old Testament canon. Rather, they simply accepted and formally ratified the ancient practice of the Apostles and early Christians by dogmatically defining a collection of Old Testament Scripture (including the deuterocanon) that had been there since before the time of Christ, used by our Lord and his apostles, inherited and assumed by the Fathers, formulated and reiterated by various councils and popes for centuries and read in the liturgy and prayer for 1500 years.

When certain people decided to snip some of this canon out in order to suit their theological opinions, the Church moved to prevent it by defining (both at Florence and Trent) that this very same canon was, in fact, the canon of the Church's Old Testament and always had been.

Far from adding the books to the authentic canon of Scripture, the Catholic Church simply did its best to keep people from subtracting books that belong there. That's no myth. That's history.

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Without A Cross, No One Goes To Paradise

by Elder Joel Yiannakopoulos

Without a cross, no one goes to paradise. However, we must lift up our cross, and not drag it. In order to lift up your cross, you must know the issue which troubles you in a spiritually correct way. Let us take for example a table. If you grab it from one corner, it is very difficult to lift it, it takes much effort, and even if you do, it can only be held for a short time unless you possess superhuman strength. If you grab it with two hands, however, and from the center, you will lift it with ease, and with ease you will move it to where you want it. Let us be sure then to lift up our cross in a spiritually correct way. Then our cross will be light and bearable.

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Translation of the Relics of Stephen the Protomartyr

Translation of the Relics of Stephen the Protomartyr (Feast Day - August 2); Photo: St Stephen's right hand is preserved in the Serapionov chamber of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

After the First Martyr had been stoned to death (see Dec. 27), Gamaliel, his teacher, encouraged certain of the Christians to go by night and take up the Saint's body and bury it in his field, which was at a distance of some twenty miles from Jerusalem and was called by his name, "Kaphar-gamala," that is, "the field of Gamala," where Gamaliel himself was later buried. About the year 427, a certain pious man called Lucian, who was the parish priest of a church near to that field, received from God a revelation in a dream concerning the place where the First Martyr was buried. He immediately made this known to John, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Thus, coming to the place indicated, and digging there, they found a box with the word "Stephen" in Aramaic letters. On opening it, they took these most sacred relics and transferred them to Jerusalem with great honor and in the company of a very great multitude of the faithful.

Afterwards, during the reign of holy Emperor Theodosius the Younger (408-450), the relics of the holy Protomartyr Stephen were transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople and placed in the church of the holy Deacon Laurence (August 10). When a church dedicated to the Protomartyr Stephen was built, the relics were transferred there on August 2.

Read more here.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
For the struggles you endured for Christ God, a royal diadem crowns your head, O First Champion of Martyrs. For you refuted the folly of the Jews and beheld your Savior on the right of the Father. Ever beseech Him, therefore, for our souls.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
O Protomartyr and mighty warrior of Christ our God, You are victorious in battle and crowned with glory, O holy Stephen! You confounded the council of your persecutors, Beholding your Savior enthroned at the right hand of the Father. Never cease to intercede for the salvation of our souls!

Apolytikion
Your relics have risen from the depths of the earth, like a treasury for the immortal life of all creation. The Church, rejoicing in the grace that she receives from them, duteously honors you, Protomartyr Stephen. Preserve us from error and heresy by your intercession!

Kontakion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone
Thou wast the first to be sown upon earth by the Heavenly Husbandman, O all-famed Stephen; thou wast the first to shed thy blood upon the earth for Christ, O blessed one; thou wast the first to be honoured by Him with the crown of victory in Heaven, as the spearhead of the athletes, O first crowned champion of the Martyrs.

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The Analavos of the Great Schema Explained

The Great Schema in the Orthodox Church requires the traditional monastic vows, plus special spiritual feats. According to Archpriest G. S. Debolsky: "In the understanding of the Church, the Great Schema is nothing less than the supreme vow of the Cross and death; it is the image of complete isolation from the earth, the image of transformation and transfiguration of life, the image of death and the beginning of another, higher, existence."

As a monastic dignity, the Great Schema has been known since the 4th century. According to an ancient legend, this dignity was inaugurated by St. Pachomios the Great. However, as a form of monastic life, the Great Schema goes back to the origin of Christianity. Those who followed Christ's teachings on supreme spiritual perfection by voluntarily taking the vows of chastity, obedience and poverty were called ascetics to distinguish them from other Christians. They led a harsh and secluded hermit's life like St. John the Baptist, or like our Lord Jesus Christ Himself during his forty days in the desert.

According to the Rule of St. Pachomios, the act of acceptance into a monastery had three steps and consisted of (a) "temptation" (trial), (b) clothing, and (c) presentation to the starets for spiritual guidance. Each of the three steps undoubtedly had its own significance. They marked the beginning of the three stages in monasticism which have become deeply embedded in the life of the Eastern Church: first, the novice (or rasoforos); the second, the monk (known as a monk of the Lesser Schema); and the third, the monk of the Great Schema.

The Church historians Sozomen, Bishop Palladios of Helenopolis and Hieromonk Nicephoros maintain that St. Pachomios was the first to invest monks with the full monastic dignity of the schema.

It should be noted that not all the fathers and ascetics of the Church divided monasticism into the greater and lesser angelic schema. For instance, St. Theodore of Studios did not agree with this division, considering that there should be only one form of monasticism, just as there was one Mystery of Baptism.

However, the custom of dividing monasticism into two became widespread in the practice of the Church. The Lesser Schema thus became a kind of preparatory step to the Great Schema. Cenobitism came to be known as a "betrothal", and seclusion within a monastery as actual "matrimony". In accordance with the Rule the difference between the Lesser and Greater Schema began to be reflected in the habit. Those of the latter had embroidered crosses on their habit, while the former did not(7).

Those who take the Great Schema vows must be like an angel in the flesh; they must attain that degree of spiritual perfection which is possible for man. Constant contemplation of God, life in Him, and silence is their vocation.

The analavos of the Great Schema monks are the signs of perfect monasticism, symbols not only of humble wisdom and gentleness, but also of the Cross, of suffering, of Christ's wounds, of constant dying with Christ.


The άνάλαβος (analavos) is the distinctive garment of a monk or a nun tonsured into the highest grade of Orthodox monasticism, the Great Schema, and is adorned with the instruments of the Passion of Christ. It takes its name from the Greek αναλαμβάνω (“to take up”), serving as a constant reminder to the one who wears it that he or she must “take up his cross daily” (Luke 9:23). The ornately-plaited Crosses that cover the analavos, the polystavrion (πολυσταύριον, from πολύς, “many,” and σταυρός, “Cross”) — a name often, though less accurately, also applied to the analavos — reminds the monastic that he or she is “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

With regard to each image on the analavos, the rooster represents “the cock [that] crowed” (Matthew 26:74; Mark 14:68 Luke 22:60; John 18:27) after Saint Peter had “denied thrice” His Master and Lord (John 13:38).

The pillar represents the column to which Pilate bound Christ “when he scourged Him” (Mark 15:15) “by Whose stripes we were healed” (Isaiah 53:5; I Peter 2:24).

The wreath garlanding the Cross represents the “crown of thorns” (Matthew 27:29; Mark 15:17; John 19:2) that “the soldiers platted” (John 19:2) and “put upon the head” (Matthew 27:29) of “God our King of old” (Psalm 73:13), Who freed man from having to contend against “thorns and thistles in the sweat of his brow” (Genesis 3:18-19).

The upright post and the traverse beam represent the stipes and the patibulum that formed “the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14), upon which “all day long He stretched forth His hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people” (Isaiah 65:2; Romans 10:21).

The four spikes at the center of the Cross and the hammer beneath its base represent the “nails” (John 20:25) and hammer with which “they pierced” (Psalm 21:16; John 19:37) “His hands and His feet” (Luke 24:40). when they “lifted up from the earth” (John 12:32) Him Who “blotted out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us by nailing it to His Cross” (Colossians 2:14).

The base upon which the Cross stands represents “the place, which is called 'Calvary' (Luke 23:33), or 'Golgotha', that is to say, the Place of the Skull” (Matthew 27:33), “where they crucified Him” (John 19:18) Who “wrought salvation in the midst of the earth” (Psalm 73:13).

The skull and crossbones represent “the first man Adam” (I Corinthians 15:45), who by tradition “returned unto the ground” (Genesis 3:19) at this very spot, the reason that this place of execution, “full of dead men’s bones” (Matthew 23:27) became the place where “the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (I Corinthians 15:45).

The plaque on top of the Cross represents the titulus, the “title” (John 19:19-20), with “the superscription of His accusation” (Mark 15:26), which “Pilate wrote” (John 19:19) “and set up over His head” (Matthew 27:37); however, instead of “Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews” (John 19:19), which “was written over Him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew” (Luke 23:38), the three languages being an allusion to the Three Hypostases “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), this titulus reads, “The King of Glory” (Psalm 23:7-10), “for had they known it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (I Corinthians 2:8).

The reed represents the “hyssop” (John 19:29) upon which was put “a sponge full of vinegar” (Mark 15:36), which was then “put to His mouth” (John 19:29) when in His “thirst they gave Him vinegar to drink” (Psalm 68:21), Him of Whom it was said that “all wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth” (Luke 4:22).

The lance represents the “spear [that] pierced His side”; “and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34) from Him Who “took one of Adam's ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof" (Genesis 2:21) and Who “washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5).

The plaque at the bottom of the Cross represents the suppedaneum of Christ, “His footstool” (Psalm 98:5), “the place where His feet have stood” (Psalm 131:7). It is slanted because, according to one tradition, at the moment when “Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the spirit” (Mark 15:37), He allowed a violent death spasm to convulse His legs, dislodging His footrest in such a manner that one end pointed upwards, indicating that the soul of the penitent thief, Saint Dismas, “the one on His right hand” (Mark 15:27) would be “carried up into Heaven” (Luke 24:51), while the other end, pointed downwards, indicated that the soul of the impenitent thief, Gestas, “the other on His left” (Mark 15:27), would “be thrust down to Hell” (Luke 10:15), showing that all of us, “the evil and the good, the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), “are weighed in the balance” (Ecclesiasticus 21:25) of the Cross of Christ.

The ladder and the pincers beneath the base of the Cross represent the means of deposition by which Saint Joseph of Arimathea, “a rich man” (Matthew 27:57) who “begged for the body of Jesus” (Matthew 27:58; Luke 23:52), “took it down” (Luke 23:53), so that as in body He descended from the Cross, so in soul “He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9), “by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison” (I Peter 3:19).

Through these instruments, “the Cross of Christ” (I Corinthians 1:17: Galatians 6:12; Philippians 3:18) became the “Tree of Life” (Genesis 2:9; 3:22, 24; Proverbs 3:18, 11:30; 13:12; 15:4; Revelation 2:7; 22:2,14), by which the Lord Jesus reified His words that, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).


The Greek letters that appear on the analavos are abbreviations of phrases that extol the Cross as “the power of God” (I Corinthians 1:18). From top to bottom:

• ΟΒΤΔ - Ό Βασιλεύς της Δόξης - “The King of Glory”

• ΙC XC NIKΑ - Ιησούς Χριστός νικά - ”Jesus Christ conquers”

• ΤΤΔΦ - Τετιμημένον τρόπαιον δαιμόνων φρίκη - "Honored trophy, the dread of demons”

• ΡΡΔΡ - Ρητορικοτέρα ρητόρων δακρύων ροή - "A flow of tears more eloquent than orators” (or, more likely: Ρητορικοτέρα ρημάτων δακρύων ροή)

• ΧΧΧΧ - Χριστός Χριστιανοίς Χαρίζει Χάριν - "Christ bestoweth Grace upon Christians”

• ΞΓΘΗ - Ξύλου γεύσις θάνατον ηγαγεν - "The tasting of the tree brought about death”

• CΞΖΕ - Σταυρού Ξύλω ζωήν εύρομεν - "Through the Tree of the Cross have we found life"

• ΕΕΕΕ - Ελένης εύρημα εύρηκεν Εδέμ - "The discovery of Helen hath uncovered Eden”

• ΦΧΦΠ - Φως Χριστού φαίνοι πάσι - “The light of Christ shines upon all”

• ΘΘΘΘ - Θεού Θέα Θείον Θαύμα - "The vision of God, a Divine wonder”

• ΤCΔΦ - Τύπον Σταυρού δαίμονες φρίττουσιν - "Demons dread the sign of the Cross”

• ΑΔΑΜ - Αδάμ - "Adam"

• ΤΚΠΓ - Τόπος Κρανίου Παράδεισος γέγονε - "The Place of the Skull hath become Paradise”

• ΞΖ - Ξύλον Ζωής - “Tree of life”

There are other items and abbreviations that may appear on the analavos, but these are sufficient to demonstrate that this holy garment silently proclaims “the preaching of the Cross” (I Corinthians 1:18) through its mystical symbolism, declaring for its wearer, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

For more on the Great Schema, see here, here and here.

For the complete service of the elevation of a monk to the Great Schema, see here.

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The Leniency of God's Mercy

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

We must be patient and merciful toward the sinner if we wish that a long-suffering [patient] God be merciful to us.

The great compassion of Blessed Alexander, the Patriarch of Antioch, had become proverbial. One of his scribes stole several gold pieces and fled to Thebaid. However, some robbers captured him in the wilderness and they took him with them. Learning of this, Alexander sent the robbers eighty-five gold pieces as a ransom. That is why it was said: "The mercy of Alexander cannot be overcome by any sin."

St. John the Merciful One writes: "The long-suffering [patience] of God is unchangeable and His mercy is kind…How many criminals are there who go out to kill and rob that He conceals in order that they may not be captured and placed under tortures? Pirates sail the sea and God does not order the sea to drown them. How many falsely swear by Holy Communion and He tolerates not repaying them for that with evil? Robbers steal on the road and He does not give them over to the beasts to tear them to pieces…Libertines go off with prostitutes and He tolerates them. Why all of this? Because He waits for repentance and conversion. Truly, God does not want the destruction of a sinner…That is why, brethren, let us be ashamed before the most lenient Lord God."

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Bulgaria Confirms Discovery of Relics of St. John the Baptist

Bulgaria Confirms John the Baptist Relics Unearthed in Sozopol

August 1, 2010
Novinite

Parts of St. John the Baptist's relics have been discovered during archaeological excavations in Bulgaria's southern Black Sea town of Sozopol, archaeologists announced on Sunday, confirming earlier reports.

Archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol have found an exquisite reliquary – a relic urn – built in the altar of an ancient church bearing the name of St. John the Baptist.

The urn, which was opened on Sunday, contains small bones from the arm and leg of the saint,the archaeologists claim.

The reliquary has the shape of a sarcophagus and was discovered by the team of Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov.

St. John the Baptist - called also the Forerunner - is an imposing figure in the Christian New Testament. He was the last to prophecy the coming of Jesus Christ - and the one to baptize the young Jesus in the river Jordan. The great prophet died a martyr's death beheaded by King Herod at the request of his daughter Salome.

According to the Bible, St. John the Forerunner prophesied about Christ thusly: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to wear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and fire" (Matthew 3:11).

St. John the Baptist is especially venerated by the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. Over the centuries, there have been controversies about where his relics are located.

The town of Sozopol is one of the most ancient on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, dating from the Bronze age. It was colonized by Greeks, headed by philosopher Anaximander, around 610 BC. Sozopol became an early Christian centre with its own bishop. For most of the Middle Ages, it was part of the Byzantine empire.


Archaeologists Believe John the Baptist Relics Came from Constantinople

August 1, 2010
Novinite

Bulgaria's Minister without Portfolio has stated that the relics of St. John the Baptist, found in the Bulgaria's southern Black sea town of Sozopol, were probably donated by Constantinople.

“We suppose that in ancient times, someone from the Patriarchate of Constantinople has donated part of the holy relics to the monastery 'St. John the Forerunner',” Minister Bozhidar Dimitrov said Sunday, adding that the archaeological interest towards the Sv. Ivan island dates back to about 25 years ago.

Dimitrov participated in the official ceremony Sunday, which was attended also by a committee of specialists, MPs and journalists.

The archaeologists have announced that the relics of St. John the Baptist include parts of an arm, heel, tooth and a facial bone.

The head of the archaeological team, Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov, has given the relics to the Bishop of Sliven, Joanikii, who is supposed to decide where the relics should be lying in state.

According to the Bulgarian Minister without Portfolio, the relics should be placed in the “St. George” church near Sozopol.

On July 28, archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol found an exquisite reliquary – a relic urn – built in the altar of an ancient church bearing the name of St. John the Baptist.

The reliquary has the shape of a sarcophagus and was discovered by the team of Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov.


Archaeologists Claim John the Baptist Relics First on Bulgarian Coastline

August 1, 2010
Novinite

Bulgarian archaeologists claim that the reliquary with the relics of St. John the Baptist, found in the souther Black sea town of Sozopol, is the first ever around the Bulgarian coastline.

Archaeologists investigating the Sv. Ivan (St. John) island off Sozopol found on July 28 the exquisite reliquary – a relic urn, built in the altar of an ancient church bearing the name of ST. John the Baptist. This is the oldest church on the island and it dates back to 5th century BC.

At the official opening of the relics on Sunday, the head of the archaeological team, Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov, stated that the reliquary was made out of alabaster and not of marble, as they have previously thought.

“An anthropological analysis is to be done soon,” he added.

The Bulgarian Minister without Portfolio, Bozhidar Dimitrov, who was present at the opening ceremony, has stated that from now on, Sozopol will be the New Jerusalem.

“The Sozopol church “St. George” currently owns a piece of the Holy Cross, donated by the PM Boyko Borisov. Also, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has also given us the relics of St. Andrew. These are essential Christian relics of the oldest saints,” Dimitrov said, adding that besides sea tourism, Sozopol could also develop pilgrimage tourism.

“Pilgrimage tourism is very popular worldwide and it provides 30% of the revenues from the tourism industry,” he said.

At the opening ceremony on Sunday, the archaeologists stated that the reliquary included parts of an arm, heel, tooth and a facial bone.

The head of the archaeological team, Prof. Popkonstantinov, has given the relics to the Bishop of Sliven, Joanikii, who is supposed to decide where the relics should be lying in state.

According to the Bulgarian Minister without Portfolio, the relics should be placed in the “St. George” church near Sozopol.

For an earlier report on this discovery, read Relics Discovered in 5th Cent. Church on St. Ivan Island

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The Ecclesiastical Year and the People of Tinos

Below is an excellent documentary (in Greek) on how the Church plays a central role in the everyday life of the people of Tinos as they celebrate some of the major feasts (New Years, Pascha and the Dormition), with special focus on the Panagia and her sacred shrine of Evangelismos Monastery, which is the central focus of this sacred island.

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