The Stabbed Icon of Panagia Esfagmeni at Vatopaidi Monastery

It is told of this 14th century icon that it was damaged by the knife of a malcontent deacon-monk who was also the ecclesiarch, that is, he was in charge of preparing the church for services. Often this monk would arrive late to the common meals in the trapeza (refectory), and this would disturb the trapezaras (the person responsible for the refectory).

On one of these occasions, the trapezaras was angry and refused him food. The monk became furious and began to fight with the doorkeeper. The disturbed and enraged thoughts of the ecclesiarch then turned against the Theotokos. Going up to her icon, he said: "Every day I light your oil lamps, but you don't help me. I can't even get my food. I don't believe in you anymore!" After saying this he plunged a knife into the icon, into the right cheek of the Panagia.

From the wound which he inflicted, blood flowed and the face of the Virgin is said to have turned pale. The deacon was immediately blinded and fell to the ground, beating himself and driven out of his senses. According to the monks, he was possessed by demons. He remained in this state for three years. Then thanks to the prayers of the Abbot and the brotherhood, the Theotokos appeared to the Abbot and told him that the monk was cured.

The ecclesiarch spent the rest of his life in a stall opposite the icon bewailing his terrible sin, but before he died after seven years of this he received forgiveness from the Theotokos herself, who told him, however, as she had the Abbot previously, that his sacrilegious hand would suffer exemplary punishment after his death. It is kept today, uncorrupted and completely black, near the icon, which is in the narthex of the Chapel of St Demetrios.

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The Passion of the Holy Martyr Sophia and Her Three Daughters Faith, Hope, and Love

Saint Sophia and Her Three Daughters Faith, Hope, and Love (Feast Day - September 17)

by St. Dimitri of Rostov

During the reign of the impious Roman Emperor Hadrian, a widow of Italian ancestry called Sophia, whose name means "wisdom", lived in Rome. She was a Christian, and in accordance with her name, she lived wisely, showing that wisdom praised by the Apostle James, who says, "The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits." This wise gentlewoman, Sophia, while living in honorable wedlock, bore three daughters, whom she named after the three great virtues. The first was named Faith, the second Hope, and the third Love, for to what does Christian wisdom give birth other than to God-pleasing virtues?

Soon after the birth of her three daughters, Sophia was widowed. Living piously, she pleased God by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. She reared her three daughters in a manner befitting a wise mother so that they, being the namesakes of virtues, might in truth acquire those traits, the names of which they bore. As they matured, they increased in virtue, and they learned well the books of the prophets and the apostles. They became accustomed to listen to the words of their teachers and earnestly occupied themselves with spiritual reading, prayer, and household chores. Moreover, they submitted themselves in all things to their holy mother, who was filled with divine wisdom. Thus, going from strength to strength, they were successful in all things. As they were exceedingly fair and perfect in wisdom, the eyes of all were soon upon them.

Word spread throughout Rome of the wisdom and beauty of the three sisters, and even the Eparch Antiochus wished to see them. When they were brought before him, Antiochus learned that they were Christians, for they did not hide their faith in Christ. Hoping in Christ, they did not doubt or falter in their love for Him, but before all they glorified Christ, showing disdain for the idols, hateful to God.

Antiochus related all these things to the Emperor Hadrian, who immediately sent his servants to bring the virgins before him. When the servants arrived at Sophia’s house, they found the mother occupied with instructing her daughters. They told her that she was to come, together with her daughters, to the Emperor. Realizing the purpose of this summons, they arose to pray and said, "0 Almighty God, do with us according to Thy holy will, and forsake us not, but rather grant us Thy holy aid, that our hearts be not frightened by the proud tormentor, that we be not terrified by his fearful tortures nor terrorized by bitter death, and that nothing might separate us from Thee, our God."

After praying and bowing down before God, all four martyrs, the mother and her daughters, took one another by the hand, forming as it were a plaited garland. They went forth, frequently looking up to the heavens, committing themselves with sighs and silent prayers to the help of Him Who commanded us to "fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." When they arrived at the Emperor’s palace, they signed themselves with the sign of the Cross and said, "Help us, 0 God our Saviour, for the sake of the glory of Thy holy name!"

They were then led before the Emperor, who sat proudly upon his throne. They rendered him fitting honor but stood before him without fear, their faces radiant, their hearts steadfast, their eyes gazing gladly upon all as though they had been summoned to a banquet. Such was their joy with which they came to suffer torment for their Lord!

Seeing their honorable, fair, and fearless countenances, the Emperor questioned the mother as to their lineage, names, and faith. She, being most wise, answered so sagaciously that all were amazed at her prudence. Having spoken but briefly of the maidens’ ancestry and names, she began to tell of Him Whom she confessed and before Whose name every knee should bow. Having confessed her faith in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, she called herself His handmaiden and gave praise to His name. "I am a Christian," she said, "and in that honorable name I rejoice." She added that she had betrothed her daughters to Christ so that they might preserve their chastity for the incorruptible Bridegroom, the Son of God.

The Emperor, seeing that Sophia was a wise woman, did not wish at that time to speak further with her or pass judgment on her. He laid the matter aside for a time and sent all four martyrs to a certain noblewoman named Palladia, whom he charged to watch over them and to present them on the third day to be judged.

Staying in Palladia’s house, Sophia had sufficient time to instruct her children. She confirmed them in the faith day and night, teaching them with words inspired by God and saying, "My beloved daughters, the time has now come for you to contend for Christ; the hour has arrived for you to be betrothed unto your immortal Bridegroom. In accordance with your names, may you display firm faith, undoubting hope, and unfeigned and neverfailing love. The hour has come for you to rejoice, for you shall be crowned with the crown of martyrdom by your most beloved Bridegroom and will enter with gladsome voices into His bridal chamber.

"My daughters, for the sake of the honor in which you will be held by Christ, Who is more comely than the sons of men, do not spare your flesh. For the sake of life eternal, pity not the bloom of your youth nor hesitate to suffer the deprivation of this fleeting life, for your Beloved, Jesus Christ, Who dwells in the heavens, is eternal well-being and beauty inexpressible. When your bodies have been tortured to death for His sake, He will robe them in incorruption, and the wounds which you bear on your flesh will shine like the stars in heaven.

"When you have been deprived of your beauty for His sake, He will adorn you with heavenly beauty, such as the eye has not beheld. When you have laid down your souls for your Lord and suffered the loss of your temporal lives, He will grant you life eternal, and He will glorify you unto the ages before His heavenly Father and before His holy angels. You will be called Christ’s brides and His confessors by all the hosts of heaven; all the holy monastics shall praise you, and the wise virgins will rejoice over you and will receive you into their company.

"My sweet children, do not allow yourselves to be deceived by the enemy’s allurements, for the Emperor will entice you greatly and promise you rich presents, offering you glory, wealth, honor, and all the beautiful and sweet things of this corruptible and vain world. But love none of these things, for they all vanish like smoke and are scattered like dust by the wind and like a flower or grass wither and return to the earth. Neither be daunted by the prospect of grievous tortures, for having suffered them but a short while and having overcome the foe, you will rejoice forever.

"I believe that my God, Jesus Christ, will not forsake you should you resolve to suffer for Him, for He said, 'Even if a woman should forget her offspring, yet I shall not forget thee'. He will remain with you throughout all the tortures you will suffer, looking upon your struggles, strengthening your infirmity, and preparing a plaited crown for your reward.

"My good daughters, remember the pains which I underwent in bearing you! Remember the labors I endured in rearing you, remember my words by which I taught you the fear of God, and comfort your mother in her old age with your good and brave confession of Christ. When I am deemed worthy to be called the mother of martyrs and will behold you suffering bravely for Christ, confessing His holy name and dying for Him, I will have more happiness, joy, honor, and glory than any of the faithful. My soul will be magnified and my spirit will rejoice and I will be strengthened in my old age. Having obeyed the instructions of your mother you will truly be my daughters, if you contest for your Lord even unto the shedding of your blood and with fervor submit to death for Him."

Having hearkened with compunction to their mother’s words, the daughters were stricken in heart, and they rejoiced in spirit, awaiting the time of their martyrdom as though it were the hour of their nuptials. Being the holy branches of a sacred root, they desired with all their heart that which their most wise mother Sophia had taught them to thirst after. They stored her words in their hearts and prepared themselves for the contest of martyrdom as though they were to enter a bridal chamber. Girding themselves with faith, bolstering themselves with hope, and kindling in themselves the fire of love for the Lord, they strengthened one another and promised their mother that with Christ’s help they would translate into deeds her edifying words to them.

When the third day had come, the saints were brought to judgment before the impious Emperor. Thinking that they were but young maidens who could easily be brought to obey his deceptive words, he began to speak to them thus, "I see, children, that you are fair, and I feel pity for your youth. I advise you as a father to worship the gods who rule the universe. If you obey me and do what I command, then I shall call you my own children. I will summon the eparchs, governors, and all of my counselors and shall adopt you in their presence, and they all will hold you in the highest respect and praise you. But if you do not obey me and do not submit to my ordinance, then much evil will befall you, and you will bring much grief to your mother in her old age. You will yourselves perish at an age when you should be happy and dwell amid the sweet, good things and the joys of this world. I will cause you to perish miserably and will cast out your severed limbs to be food for dogs, and you will be despised by all. Therefore, obey me, that it might go well with you. I care for you and do not wish to destroy your beauty and to deprive you of this present life; rather, I desire to have you as my children."

The holy virgins answered the persecutor as though with a single voice, saying, "God, Who dwells in heaven, is our Father, Who takes care for our life and has mercy on our souls. His love we desire, and we wish to be called His true children. We keep His commandments, and we spit on your gods. Your threats do not frighten us, for we wish to suffer and bear bitter torments for the sake of our sweet God, Jesus Christ."

The Emperor, having heard them answer thus, questioned their mother Sophia as to their names and ages. She replied, "My eldest child is named Faith and is twelve years old. The second is Hope, who is ten years of age. My third child’s name is Love, and she is nine years old."

The Emperor marvelled at the maidens’ spirit, intelligence, and ready answers, especially since they were so young. He then began to attempt to force each of them to submit to his impiety, beginning with Faith, the eldest sister, to whom he said, "Sacrifice to the great goddess Artemis!"

But Faith would not agree to submit. Therefore, the Emperor had her stripped naked and ordered that she be beaten severely. The torturers thrashed her mercilessly, saying, "Sacrifice to the great goddess Artemis!" She remained silent, however, as though it were another’s body which bore the suffering. Since the tormentor accomplished nothing by flogging her, he had her virginal breasts cut off. Seeing milk instead of blood flow forth from her wounds, the people shook their heads and secretly reproached the Emperor for his foolishness and cruelty, saying, "In what has this fair maiden transgressed? Why does she suffer thus? What a pity! Such is the mindlessness of the Emperor and his beastly cruelty that he not only tortures to death the aged but young children as well!"

Then a metal gridiron was brought, which was placed on a great fire which had been kindled. When it had been heated red hot, giving forth sparks, the holy martyr Faith was placed upon it. She lay there for two hours, calling out to her Lord, but she was not burnt at all, to the astonishment of everyone present. Then she was cast into a cauldron filled with boiling pitch and oil, but there too she remained unharmed, sitting as though she were in cool water, singing to God. The persecutor, not knowing what else to do with her to weaken her faith in Christ, pronounced upon her the sentence of death by the sword.

When Saint Faith heard this, she was filled with joy and said to her mother, "Pray for me, Mother, that I may complete my course and arrive at the end which I desire, to behold my beloved Lord and Saviour and be filled with the vision of His divinity."

Then Faith said to her sisters, "You know, my dear sisters, to Whom we have promised ourselves and to Whom we have been betrothed. You know that we have been signed with the holy Cross of our Lord to serve Him to eternity. Therefore, let us endure unto the end. A single mother has borne us and has reared and instructed us, so let us accept a common death since we are sisters and share a single will. May I be an example to you, that you both might follow me to our Bridegroom, Who summons us to Himself."

Having said this, Faith kissed her mother, and embracing her sisters, she kissed them and then submitted herself to the sword. Her mother did not sorrow for her daughter, for her love for God overcame her maternal love and pity for her children. She only feared that one of her daughters might renounce the Lord, so she said to Faith, "My daughter, I bore you and on this account endured suffering. But you will redeem my suffering if you die for Christ’s sake, confessing Him and shedding the blood which you received in my womb. Go to Him, my beloved offspring, stained with your blood, as if clothed in crimson. When you appear most fair before the eyes of your Bridegroom, remember before Him your lowly mother and pray to Him for your sisters, that He strengthen them so that they might have the same patience which you possess."

And so Saint Faith’s honorable head was cut off and she departed to Christ God her Master. Her mother took her much-suffering body, and as she kissed it, she rejoiced and glorified Christ God, Who had received her daughter Faith into the heavenly bridal chamber.

Then the impious Emperor had the second sister, the holy virgin Hope, brought before him, and he said to her, "Good child, I appeal to you as a father who loves you. Heed my advice and worship the great Artemis so that you might not perish as your elder sister did. You have seen her bitter death. Do you wish to suffer likewise? Believe me, child; I pity your youth and would have you as my daughter if you would agree to obey my command."

But Saint Hope replied, "0 Emperor, was it not my sister whom you put to death? Were we not born of the same mother? Were we not fed with the same milk? Did I not receive the same Baptism as my holy sister? I grew up with her, and from the same books and the same maternal instruction I learned to know the one God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to believe in Him and to worship Him alone. Therefore, 0 Emperor, do not imagine that I shall reason, think, or desire other than as did my sister Faith. I am ready to follow her path; therefore, do not delay or weary yourself with much speaking, but begin that which you have resolved to do. You will see that I am of the same mind as my sister who has gone before me."

When the Emperor heard this reply, he handed Hope over to the torturers. His henchmen stripped her as they had Faith, and they beat her so long and mercilessly that they grew weary. But she remained silent as though she suffered no pain. She only gazed upon her mother, the blessed Sophia, who stood nearby and who valiantly looked on as her child underwent torment, fervently praying to God that He grant her daughter firm patience.

Then the wicked Emperor commanded that Hope be cast into fire, but she remained unharmed, praising God like the Three Youths. After this, she was suspended and scraped with iron claws. Her flesh was torn off, streams of her blood gushed out, and a wondrous fragrance came forth from her wounds. Her countenance shone with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and she mocked the persecutor because he was unable to overcome even a young maiden. She said, "Having Christ’s help, I fear no torments; rather, I desire them as I desire the sweet things of paradise, so sweet is my Lord to me. But unending fiery torments and the demons which you regard as gods await you in Gehenna."

These words greatly angered the tormentor, who ordered that a cauldron be filled with pitch and oil and heated over a fire and that the saint be cast into it. When the cauldron had come to a boil and the Emperor’s servants were preparing to hurl the saint into it, the kettle suddenly melted down like wax, and the hot pitch and oil poured forth from it upon all who stood nearby.

Such was the wondrous power of God which guarded Saint Hope. Although the persecutor saw all these things, he did not wish to know the true God, for his heart was ensnared by demonic darkness and pernicious error. Thus, seeing himself put to shame by a young maiden and not wishing to bear further humiliation, he condemned the saint to beheading.

When the maiden heard that she was to be put to death, she hastened joyfully to her mother and said, "Peace and salvation to you, mother: remember your child!"

Her mother embraced and kissed her, saying, "My daughter Hope, you are blessed by the Lord God on high in Whom you trust and for Whose sake you have not spared your blood. Go now to your sister Faith, to stand in the presence of our Beloved."

Hope then kissed her sister Love, who had been watching her torture, and she said to her, "Do not linger here, sister, but hasten, that we might enter the presence of the Holy Trinity together." Then she went to the headless corpse of her sister, Saint Faith, and kissed it lovingly. Nature compelled her to shed tears, but love for Christ turned her tears into joy. Then she bowed her head beneath the sword, and thus Saint Hope was beheaded. Her mother took her body and glorified God, rejoicing over the courage of her two daughters. She then inspired her third daughter with sweet words and wise counsels to contest in like manner.

The persecutor summoned Love, the third maiden, seeking to entice her to abandon the Crucified One and to worship Artemis, but the deceiver labored in vain. For no one has so desired to contend for our beloved Lord as did Love, even as it is written, "Love is as strong as death; many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."

The many waters of the world’s temptations did not quench the fire of love for God in that maiden, neither was it drowned in the floods of misfortunes and sufferings. Her great love was made manifest in that she was prepared to lay down her soul for her beloved Jesus Christ, for "greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for another."

The persecutor, realizing that he was unable to accomplish anything with his flatteries, began to torture Love, hoping by various torments to separate Love from the love of Christ. But she replied with the words of the Apostle, "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? "Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" Nay, in all these things, I am more than a conqueror through Him that loved me."

The persecutor began her torture by ordering that she be stretched out upon a wheel and beaten with rods. The saint’s young body was stretched in such a way that her members were pulled from their sockets, and she was beaten until she had been dyed as red as scarlet by her blood, which watered the earth like rain.

The tormentor then showed the saint a furnace which had been heated white hot, and he said, "Maiden, say only that the goddess Artemis is great, and I will release you. But if you will not, you will without delay be burnt in the fiery furnace."

The saint said, "Great is my God Jesus Christ, but may you perish, together with Artemis!"

The persecutor became enraged, and he ordered those standing nearby to hurl Love into the furnace. The saint did not wait for another to cast her into the furnace, but she hastened to enter it herself. She walked into the furnace but was not burned, and she rejoiced as though she were in a cool place, singing and blessing God. And at once fire shot forth from the furnace, consuming the unbelievers standing nearby, burning some to ashes and scorching others. The Emperor himself was singed, and he fled far from the furnace. Within the furnace other radiant persons could be seen rejoicing together with the martyr. Thus the name of Christ was magnified while the impious were put to shame.

When the furnace was extinguished, the saint, Christ’s fair bride, emerged radiant and unharmed as though from a bridal chamber. The torturers, in accordance with the Emperor’s command, seized her and bored through her members with drills, but God’s help strengthened the saint as she endured these torments so that she did not die. For how could she otherwise bear such torments and not perish immediately? Her beloved Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, strengthened her so that the impious might be filled with shame and so that she might receive a greater reward and that God’s mighty power might be glorified in a frail vessel.

Finally, the persecutor, stricken with pain from being burned by the fire, commanded that the saint be beheaded by the sword. When she heard that she was to be beheaded, she rejoiced and said, "I sing to Thee, and I bless Thy much-hymned name, 0 Lord Jesus Christ, Who hast loved Thy handmaiden Love! Number me together with my sisters, and count me worthy to suffer for Thy name, even as they suffered."

Her mother Saint Sophia did not cease praying to God for her third daughter, that He grant her patience to the end. She said to Love, "My third offspring, my beloved child: endure to the end! You are travelling along the path which is good, and a crown has already been woven for you. The bridal chamber has been prepared and stands open for you. The Bridegroom awaits you, looking down from on high on your contest so that when you have bent your head beneath the sword, He might receive and embrace your pure and immaculate soul and grant you repose together with your sisters. Remember me, your mother, in the kingdom of your Bridegroom, that He might be merciful to me and not deprive me of an inheritance and portion with you in His holy glory."

At that moment Saint Love was beheaded by the sword. Her mother took her body and laid it in a beautiful coffin, together with the corpses of Faith and Hope, adorning their bodies as was fitting. She placed them in a chariot, took them several miles outside the city, and reverently buried her daughters there upon a lofty hill, weeping for joy. She sat by their grave, praying with compunction to God for three days, after which she slept the sleep of death in the Lord and was buried by the faithful in that same place, together with her daughters. She was deprived neither of an inheritance with them in the heavenly kingdom nor of a martyr’s crown, inasmuch as she suffered for Christ, not in the flesh but rather in her heart. Thus the most wise Sophia wisely finished her course, having brought as a gift to the Trinity her three virtuous daughters, Faith, Hope, and Love.

O holy and righteous Sophia! What woman hath been thus saved through childbearing as thou, who bore children who were betrothed to the Saviour and suffered for Him and now reign and are glorified together with Him? In truth thou art a wondrous mother, worthy of remembrance, for having beheld the cruel and bitter torments which thy beloved children underwent and their death, thou hast not, as is the custom with mothers, suffered grief, but thou dost rejoice, comforted by the grace of God. Thou didst encourage them to accept martyrdom and to pray, that they might not weaken and preserve their fleeting lives but that they should instead resolutely offer to shed their blood for Christ. And now exulting in the vision of His most radiant countenance, together with thy holy daughters, do thou enlighten us, that we may be preserved in the virtues of faith, hope, and love and be deemed worthy to glorify and stand in the presence of the most holy, uncreated, and life-bestowing Trinity, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

See also:

The Relics of Saint Sophia of Rome

Ἑορτή τῆς Ἁγίας Μάρτυρος Σοφίας & τῶν τριῶν θυγατέρων αὐτῆς, Ἀγάπης, Πίστεως καί Ἐλπίδος στήν Πάτρα

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
The Church celebrates and rejoices in the feast of the three daughters: Faith, Hope, and Love and their Mother Sophia, named for her wisdom: for in them she gave birth to the three godly virtues. Now they eternally behold their bridegroom, God the Word. Let us rejoice spiritually in their memory and cry: O our three Heavenly Protectors, establish, confirm and strengthen us in Faith, Hope and Love.

Apolytikion in the Fifth Tone
You blossomed in the courts of the Lord as a fruitful olive tree, holy martyr Sophia; in your contest you offered to Christ the sweet fruit of your womb, your daughters Faith, Hope, and Love. Together with them intercede for us all.

Kontakion in the First Tone
Since Faith and Hope and Love were in truth sacred branches of ven'rable Sophia, the namesake of wisdom by grace they have shown all men that Greek wisdom is foolishness, and in contest they proved to be prizewinning victors; wherefore, they received a crown that never shall perish from Christ God, the Lord of all.

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The Relics of Saint Sophia of Rome

The relics of Saint Sophia and her three daughters were originally laid in a crypt on the Latin Way in the Cemetery of Gordianus and Epimachus outside the Latin Gate, where other 2nd century martyrs were laid.

Some of her relics were brought by St. Remigius of Strasbourg to the Abbey of Saint Trophime at Eschau, Alsace in 777 with the blessing of Pope Adrian. The Gothic sarcophagus (pictured) is said to contain relics of all four Saints. The Breviary of Strasbourg (1476) places the feast of St. Sophia and her three daughters to May 10, which was the day that the translation of their relics took place in Alsace and also is the feast day of Sts. Gordianus and Epimachus. The Orthodox Church honors St. Sophia and her three daughters Faith, Hope and Love on September 17th.

Pope Sergius II transferred her relics around 845 to the high altar of the church of San Martino ai Monti in Rome.

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The Amazing Flying Fish

Fish aren't birds. Seems like a simple enough argument; one lives in the water, the other flies around and lives pretty much wherever it likes.

Then there are flying fish. Like flying squirrels and scuba divers, these animals appear profoundly confused about which element they belong in. They blur the lines about what it means to be a "fish." The thing is, they're good at it -- flying fish can remain aloft for up to 45 seconds and travel a quarter of a mile above the water.

How do they do it? Two engineers at Seoul National University in Korea, Haecheon Choi and Hyungmin Park, have just found out.

Read the rest here.

In the video above, flying fish fly to escape predators, and then deposit their eggs on a raft of palm fronds. Watch the entire "Fish" episode of LIFE on Animal Planet, Sunday, June 13 at 8PM e/p.

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Greek-Americans Cancel Controversial Visit to Hagia Sophia in Turkey

A group of 250 Greek-Americans decided not to go to Turkey.

17 September 2010
World Bulletin

A group of 250 Greek-Americans who urged Turkish authorities to allow a religious service at the Aya-Sofya (Hagia Sophia) Museum in Istanbul -- which has been closed to religious worship for 75 years -- decided not to go to Turkey.

In an act of gesture towards Orthodox Christians, Turkey recently allowed an historic mass at the Sumela Monastery which was closed to worship for 88 years, which drew some 1,500 Orthodox Christians from the Russian Federation, Greece, Georgia and the U.S. to Trabzon, and is getting ready to open the historic Armenian Church on the Akdamar island to religious worship for a single day, as a symbolic gesture to the Armenian community around the world.

Chris Spyrou, head of the "International Congregation of Agia Sophia" and the leader of the group which has been waiting in Alexandroupoli to leave for Turkey early on Friday, told AA that they received a statement from Turkish authorities regarding their demand and actions as provocative.

Spyrou, who argued that their sole intention was to pray, said the statement was like a restriction of entry to Turkey. He said they changed their mind and decided not to go to Turkey upon this development.

The "International Congregation of Agia Sophia" was founded in 2005 and is a U.S. based non-profit organization. Its purpose is to restore the Hagia Sophia as a place of Orthodox worship despite the historical building has been used as a mosque during during more than 450 years.

Turkey's Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay made clear earlier today that any kind of religious worship at the museum was out of the question.

"Aya Sofya is one of the special places in the world. It has been serving humanity for 1,500 years. In the last century, we have been serving Aya Sofya," he said.

"If we allow it, we will have to meet demands of other communities and religions," Gunay was quoted as saying.

Aya Sofya is a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque and now a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the cathedral. The building was a mosque from May 29, 1453 until 1934. It was opened as a museum on February 1, 1935 and closed to religious service ever since.

Read also: Crisis Averted – Liturgy in Hagia Sophia Cancelled

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Troy Polamalu and Family Welcome Newborn Child Ephraim Polamalu

According to Pittsburgh Steelers star Troy Polamalu: "Today the Steeler Nation has acquired a new citizen. Theodora, Paisios, and I welcome Ephraim Polamalu. Boy born 5:01 AM this morning."

We know that Troy, a devout Orthodox Christian, named his first child after Elder Paisios the Athonite. Seeing that he is a regular parishioner of Elder Ephraim's monastery in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania, we can probably guess his newborn son is named after Elder Ephraim of Arizona.

In an interview last year, Troy was asked what his greatest wish was for his first son, and we can suspect that his answer below applies to Ephraim as well:

"Without a question, my greatest wish would be for him to understand the spiritual struggle and to be a pious Orthodox Christian. That’s what I want for myself, as well. Sometimes parents want their children to be what they never were. And that’s one thing that I am gracious for Paisios to have: that he’s able to grow up in the Orthodox church around monastics and priests that I was never able to experience as a kid - to grasp that, not take it for granted and really culture that."

Elder Ephraim

Read more about the Orthodoxy of Troy at the following links:

Orthodox Glad To Claim Polamalu As One Of Their Own

A Wild Interview With Troy Polamalu

NFL Players Still Turn To Religion For Solace

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The Passion of the Holy Great-Martyr Euphemia the All-Praised

St. Euphemia the Great Martyr and All-Praised (Feast Day - September 16 and July 11)

by St. Dimitri of Rostov

During the reign of the impious Diocletian, Chalcedon was governed by the proconsul Priscus, who was appointed to his position by the Emperor. Priscus, wishing to celebrate a feast in honor of the demon called Ares, sent a decree in the Emperor’s name to the cities and villages roundabout, commanding that all should gather together in Chalcedon for the feast and that each, according to his means, should offer a sacrifice to Ares. In his decree, Priscus threatened with great torments those who refused to obey his command to come to the feast, which was to take place in eight days.

When the day appointed for the demonic feast arrived, a great multitude of people gathered together with the beasts which they had brought for sacrifice. They celebrated the feast riotously, sacrificing sheep and oxen and worshipping the lifeless idol – or rather, the demon that dwelled within it. The Christians who lived in Chalcedon and near that city denounced the festival, which was hateful to God, and hid themselves, fearing the Proconsul’s dreadful threats. Gathering together in secret places, they offered up prayer to the true God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The persecutor ordered that a diligent search be made in order to discover whether anyone had failed to comply with his decree and had not worshipped the idol of Ares. He learned that the Christians had not fulfilled his command, refusing to render a demon the honor which is due the true God alone. The tormentor was angered that the Christians had not obeyed him, and he ordered that they be found and brought to torture.

In a secret place there were forty-nine Christians concealed who offered up prayer to God. Among them was a fair and noble maiden Euphemia, the daughter of illustrious parents, Philophronus the Senator and his wife, Theodorosia. These Christians were betrayed t the persecutor, who ordered that they be seized and brought before his tribunal. In accordance with the tormentor’s instructions, his cruel lackeys with their weapons in hand fell upon the rational flock of Christ in their hiding place like beasts eager for the kill. They surrounded the house in which the faithful served God in secret and blocked its doors so that no one could escape. Mercilessly they dragged them out one by one, and mocking and insulting them, they brought them before the Proconsul. Having been led like sheep to the slaughter, the humble servants of Christ stood before the proud persecutor. Seeing that they were ready to profess their Lord, even to the shedding of their blood, the haughty magistrate said, “Do you oppose the edict which the Emperor and I have enacted? Do you refuse to sacrifice to the great god Ares?”

They answered, “If your decree and the Emperor’s is not contrary to the commandments of God of heaven, we will obey it. If it stands in opposition to God, then not only will we disobey it, but we will seek to overturn it. If you were to command us to do that which we are obliged to do, we would render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. However, inasmuch as your ordinance is opposed to God’s commandments, and you, in a manner hateful to God, require us to honor that which is created rather than the Creator, worshipping and offering sacrifice to a demon rather than to the most high God, we shall never obey your decree; for we are true worshippers of the one God, Who dwells in the heavens.”

Then the persecutor spoke. Having sharpened his false tongue like a razor, he sought to entice the Christians with flatteries and promises of gifts and honors. He hoped that by his cunning speech he could lead those whom Christ had acquired by His precious blood away from the right path to the pernicious idolatry which he espoused. At the same time he threatened them with bitter torments should they refuse to do what he demanded of them.

The saints answered him thus, “Gifts and honors such as those you promise us we have long since renounced and come to despise, counting them as dung, for we await heavenly reward, which are greater and better than all the good things of the world. The good things of this world are transitory and fleeting while that which is heavenly is eternal and unchanging. We do not fear the cruel torments with which you threaten us; on the contrary, we greatly desire to undergo them so that the power of our God may be made manifest in us and that you might be filled with amazement and put to shame when you see that your gods, hateful to the true God, are powerless. But why do we need to prolong our speech and multiply our words? Do what you have resolved to do. Try us, and you will find that our zeal to suffer surpasses your ability to torment us.”

Then the persecutor handed them over to torture, wounding them and placing them in shackles. For nineteen days the saints underwent various torments: each day wounds were added to their wounds, and they suffered hunger and thirst. Among their number was the holy virgin Euphemia, who was young and fair. To strengthen her, her companions said, “Labor for the sake of the Heavenly Bridegroom; labor so that by your sufferings, you will please Him. Labor to meet Him together with the wise virgins so that He, loving you as His bride, will lead you into His bridal chamber.”

On the twentieth day the saints were brought to judgment and questioned thus by Proconsul: “Now that you have been punished, will you obey our edict?”

Saint Euphemia, together with the other holy martyrs, answered, “Do not think that you can lead us away from the right path. The mountains would sooner be reduced to dust and the stars fall from the sky, than our hearts turn from the true God.”

The persecutor was enraged by these words and ordered that the prisoners be beaten in the face, but seeing that this had no effect, he decided to send them to the Emperor. In the meantime they were cast into prison.

The Proconsul had observed that Saint Euphemia was young and beautiful and that she shone forth among the other holy martyrs like the moon amid the stars. Therefore, as the saints were being led to the dungeon, he snatched her out from among the flock of Christ like a wolf which singles out a sheep. Lifting up her eyes and hands to heaven, she cried out, “Forsake me not, O my Bridegroom, Jesus Christ; in Thee do I hope! Deliver not unto wild beasts the soul which loveth Thee and which confesseth Thy holy name. Let not mine enemies rejoice over me, but do Thou strengthen Thy frail handmaiden, that iniquity might not overcome me.”

The persecutor, hoping to incline Euphemia to the godlessness which he espoused, tried by every means to entice her by kind words, numerous gifts, and various promises, attempting to lure her virginal heart. But she said manfully, “Do not think that you will easily exploit my frailty, turning me to wickedness and impiety by your enticements. Although I am a woman by nature, by heart is more manly than yours, and the power of my faith is greater than any power you possess. By the grace of Christ I am wise beyond all your heathen sages, whom you regard as learned but who are truly more ignorant than any illiterate, for they do not desire to acknowledge the true God but have the devil as their god. Do not think that you will entice me with your crafty words as once the serpent beguiled our ancestor Eve. And do not imagine that you will make this hateful world seem sweet to ne my offering its allurements, for I regard all these things as bitter herbs, for the sake of m sweetest Jesus. By all your tortures you will not overcome my strength, which is made perfect in weakness. For I place my hope in Christ, Who will not forsake me nor withdraw trample the proud head of the devil underfoot.”

The persecutor, having been brought to shame, was greatly angered. His vile love for the martyr was transformed into hate, and he ordered that a wheel be prepared for her torture, on which were fixed many sharps knives. These knives were sharpened so that all her flesh might be cut and sliced to the very bone. The saint was fastened to this wheel, and the Proconsul’s henchmen began to turn it; her body was cut up and her members mangled. But Euphemia prayed fervently to God, saying, “O Lord Jesus Christ, the Enlightenment of my soul: the Fountain of Life, Who granteth salvation unto those who trust in Thee! Come now to mine aid, that all might know that Thou alone art God, the certain hope of those who put their trust in Thee, and that no evils and no scourge shall come nigh unto those who make the Most High their refuge.”

When she had said this, the wheel immediately stopped, and the Proconsul’s henchmen collapsed, exhausted. An angel of God came down and wrecked the wheel, from which the holy virgin descended, healed of her wounds and made whole. Joyfully she chanted, giving thanks to God and glorifying His all-powerful might.

When the torturer and all those present saw these things, they were perplexed and marveled greatly at this miracle. Nevertheless, since the eyes of their mind were blinded by wickedness, even this great wonder brought them no benefit. They were unable to perceive the workings of the mighty hand of the true God, for seeing, they did not perceive, and hearing, they did not understand; for their hearts were hardened, and they ascribed that marvelous wonder to sorcery.

Then the tormentor ordered that a furnace be prepared so that the saint might be cast into the fire. As the furnace was being heated and the fire was being stoked, the holy martyr arrayed herself in the armor which the Three Youths had worn, that is, prayer. She withstood the burning of the material fire with the power of the fire of her love for God, and as she lifted up her eyes to heaven, she said, “O God, Who art exalted, yet lookest upon the lowly; Who protected the Three Youths in Babylon, who had been delivered unto fire for the sake of the Law, keeping them whole and unharmed by the flames, preserving them by Thy holy angel and sending down dew upon them: be Thou my Helper, for I am Thy handmaiden and I enter this contest for the sake of Thy glory, O my Christ!

When Euphemia had said this, she signed herself with the Cross, arming herself in this way as though with a weapon. She stood ready for the fire, waiting for them to cast her in. At that moment two of the soldiers, Victor and Sosthenes, who had been ordered to hurl the martyr into the flames, saw a wondrous apparition in the fire: they beheld an angel of God in the furnace, who parted the flames and forbade them to touch the bride of Christ. Having seen this marvel, they said to the persecutor, “Proconsul, we cannot touch this honorable virgin with our defiled hands and cast her into the fire even if you were to cut off our heads, for we have seen a most extraordinary wonder, which your eyes cannot see. It would be better for us to suffer your wrath than the wrath of the luminous man in the fire.”

When the tormentor heard this, he was angered at the soldiers, and thinking that they did not wish to cast the maiden into the furnace because they were Christians, he imprisoned them and had two others, Caesarius and Barus, do what had been commanded. They seized the virgin and hurled her into the furnace, and as they did this, great flames leaped forth toward their faces, burning them to ashes and causing the other servants to take flight. But the saint, rejoicing in the furnace as though she were in a bright chamber or in refreshing dew, chanted the hymn of the Three Youths: "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and supremely praised and supremely exalted unto ages." Truly, this was a most glorious miracle! The fire did not touch her nor even her garments, for her immortal Bridegroom Himself, Jesus Christ, mystically came to His holy bride in the furnace and covered her with dew. When the furnace was extinguished, the saint emerged unharmed, to the astonishment of all. The persecutor, not knowing what to do next, had her cast into the dungeon and said, “Tonight I will determine what to do with this sorceress.”

He also had Victor and Sosthenes brought to him. He became enraged with them and vowed that he would kill them if they did not worship the idols. But they answered him, “Until today, we were in error. We did not know the true God, but now we have come to know Him Who alone created heaven and earth. We believe in Him and worship Him, and we will no longer bow down before your gods, whom we formerly worshipped, not perceiving the demon’s deception. Do with us what you will. Our bodies are in your power, but our souls are guarded by God.”

And so the persecutor condemned them to be consumed by wild beasts. As the saints went to the place where they were to be eaten by the beasts, they prayed fervently to God that He be merciful to them and that He remit the sins they had committed while yet in their former error and that He cause their souls to dwell with those who believe in Him. Immediately a voice from heaven summoned them to repose. Hearing the voice, they joyfully surrendered their souls into the hands of God. Their bodies were never touched by the beasts but were secretly buried by the faithful.

When the night had passed and morning came, the tormentor sat upon his tribunal, and Saint Euphemia was brought from the prison, chanting joyously as she came, “O God, a new song shall I sing unto Thee, I shall glorify Thee, O Lord my strength. I shall chant unto Thee among the nations and glorify Thy name, for Thou art the only true God, and there is none like unto Thee.” As she chanted, she was brought before the tribunal where she was questioned and tortured in an attempt to make her sacrifice. When the persecutor saw that her heart could not be moved to worship the demons and that she would not submit, he ordered that she be suspended and that her flesh be scraped with sharp knives; nevertheless, after undergoing this torture, her body, by the power of God, was found to be unharmed. Then a deep pit was dug and filled with water, and a multitude of snakes, vipers, and venomous serpents were placed in it. When the hole had been filled, the torturer commanded that Saint Euphemia be cast into it. Signing herself with the Cross, she said, “O Jesus Christ, my Light! Thou didst preserve Jonah unharmed in the belly of the sea monster; Thou didst deliver Daniel from the jaws of the lions. Guard me by Thy mighty hand, that Thy holy name may be glorified in me!

Having said this, the saint threw herself into the pit. The snakes and vipers drew near her but did her no harm. It seemed, rather, that they were solicitous for her, for they bore her on their backs so that she would not sink into the water which filled the hole. Thus, by the grace of God, the saint emerged from the pit altogether unharmed.

The persecutor was uncertain what to do with her next. He still wished to put her to death and concluded that the sorcery which he ascribed to the saint could only overcome the direct application of torture and not covert schemes. Therefore, he ordered another hidden pit to be dug with sharp spears, swords, and daggers were placed, driven into the ground with their pointed ends upward. After the top of the pit had been covered with branches and earth, he commanded the martyr to walk across the concealed pit, hoping that, unaware of the existence of the pit, she would fall upon the sharp weapons and die of the wounds she would thus suffer. But the saint crossed over the mouth of the pit nimbly, like a bird flying over a net, while certain pagans, who did not know of the pit’s existence, fell into it and perished. When the persecutor saw this he was aghast, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "He opened a pit and dug it, and he shall fall into the hole which he hath made".

Meanwhile, the saint praised God, singing, “Who shall tell of the mighty acts of the Lord? Who shall make all Thy praises to be heard, O Lord? For Thou hast preserved unharmed by wounds Thy handmaiden who suffereth torment. Thou hast saved her from fire; Thou hast shielded her against wild beast, water, and the tortures of the wheel; and Thou hast brought her up out of the pit. And now, O Lord, deliver my soul out of the hands of him who from the beginning hath been Thy foe. The sins of my youth and mine ignorances remember not, but may the drops of Thy blood, poured forth upon me, cleanse the defilement of my flesh and spirit, for Thou art the cleansing and sanctification and enlightenment of Thy servants.”

The Proconsul attempted yet again to entice Euphemia with kind words, saying, “Do not dishonor your family, do not destroy the flower of your youth, do not deprive yourself of life. Be converted to the worship of the great Ares, and you will be honored and praised, and greatly glorified by all of us, and will possess much wealth.”

In this manner the Proconsul sought to deceive the saint with his words, but she laughed at him and reviled him as a fool. Then he resorted again to torture. After having her beaten severely with rods, he ordered that she be cut in half with a sharp saw, but the saw would not cut her body. Next he commanded that she be seared in a heated pan, but the pan was made cool, for an angel preserved the bride of Christ amid all these torments.

Finally, Euphemia was handed over to be consumed by wild beasts. As the saint was being led into the arena where she was to be fed to the beasts, she prayed to God that He put an end to her suffering, the He receive her soul into His hands, and that He summon her spirit to come forth from her long-suffering body to the land for which it longed, and she said, “O Lord of all the hosts of heaven, Thou hast made manifest in me Thine invincible power and Thine unconquerable right hand. Thou hast revealed the feebleness of the demons and the mindlessness of the persecutor and hast made me impervious to all torments. Wherefore, as Thou hast formerly accepted the slaughter of the martyrs who preceded me and the shedding of their blood, so receive my sacrifice, which if offered to Thee with a contrite soul and in a spirit of humility. Grant my soul repose in the habitation of the saints and the choirs of the martyrs, for blessed art Thou unto the ages. Amen.”

When Euphemia had prayed thus, bears and lions were released upon her, but when they approached her they merely licked her feet. One she-bear, however, wounded her foot slightly, causing blood to flow. When this took place, a voice came from above, summoning her to heaven, and immediately she surrendered her spirit to the Lord, for Whom she had resolutely suffered. As her soul departed, the earth trembled, the city was shaken, its walls tumbled down, and its temples were razed to the ground. The people were terror-stricken, and all fled from the arena in fear as the saint’s holy body lay dead in the sand.

Euphemia’s parents came and took their holy daughter and reverently buried her near the city, giving thanks to God and rejoicing that they had been deemed worthy to be the parents of such a daughter, who by the shedding of her blood became the bride of Christ, the Heavenly Bridegroom and King of all.

Read also:

Η ΑΓΙΑ ΕΥΦΗΜΙΑ ΣΤΙΣ ΣΧΕΣΕΙΣ ΠΑΠΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΩΝ

The Relics of Saint Euphemia the Great Martyr

Saint Euphemia's Conversation With Elder Paisios

More on the Relationship Between Elder Paisios and Saint Euphemia

The Holy Monastery of Saint Euphemia in Kerkyra

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
O Lord Jesus, unto Thee Thy lamb Euphemia doth cry with a great voice: O my Bridegroom, Thee I love; and seeking Thee, I now contest, and with Thy baptism am crucified and buried. I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee; for Thy sake I die, that I may live in Thee: accept me offered out of longing to Thee as a spotless sacrifice. Lord, save our souls through her intercessions, since Thou art great in mercy.

Kontakion in the Fourth Tone
Thou strovest valiantly in thy sacred contest; and even after death, thou makest us holy with streams of healings, O all-praised Euphemia. For this cause we venerate thy most holy dormition and with faith we stand before thine all-venerable relics, that we be freed from illness of the soul and also draw forth the grace of thy miracles.

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How the Myth of the Flat-Earth Dogma Started the Religion-Science War

Matt J. Rossano
September 16, 2010
The Huffington Post

Starting a war on false pretenses is nothing new. But when a few nineteenth-century academicians declared a science-vs.-religion war, they did us all a disservice.

John W. Draper (1811-1882) was born in England into a devout Methodist family. In 1832, he emigrated to the U.S., studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and later became professor of chemistry and biology at New York University and head of the medical school. Along the way he rejected his family's religion and acquired an intense antipathy for Catholicism. Two factors were pivotal in shaping his attitude: the debates over Darwinian evolution erupting shortly after the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859, and the reactionary attitude of Pope Pius IX toward liberal progressivism encapsulated in his Syllabus of Errors published in 1864.

In 1874, Draper published The History of Conflict Between Religion and Science, in which he argued that current (nineteenth-century) events were reflective of the totality of Christian history. Christianity was currently opposing progress because it has always been an impediment to science, reason, and progress. An especially egregious example of this was the Church's insistence on a flat earth, a laughable dogma that stubbornly persisted until Columbus demolished it, bravely prevailing despite the ignorant protests of the Spanish cardinals.

Draper, with a little help from Washington Irving, thus popularized the "flat earth" myth, the idea that prior to Columbus there was a widespread, religiously-inspired belief that the earth was flat. Contemporary historians have squashed this myth, with Jeffrey Russell's book Inventing the Flat Earth probably being the most detailed account of how and why it arose. Historian of science David Lindberg summarizes the medieval understanding of the earth and cosmos in his book The Beginnings of Western Science: "At the center of everything is the sphere of the earth. Every Medieval scholar of the period agreed on its sphericity, and ancient estimates of its circumference (about 252,000 stades) were widely known and accepted" (p. 253).

The rather mundane fact is that most educated Christian writers accepted Greco-Roman teachings about the earth and cosmos and quickly moved on to more urgent matters of sin and salvation. No Christian authority of any consequence ever taught that the earth was flat.

So from where did Draper get the idea of a medieval Christian belief in a flat earth? He read William Whewell's book History of Inductive Sciences, published about three decades earlier. Whewell, a Cambridge Vice-Chancellor and Anglican priest, made intellectual stars out of two minor Christian authors, Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Lactantius was a fourth-century pagan convert to Christianity who took particular delight in arguing against pretty much everything any pagan philosopher ever said, including that the earth was round. Christians wanted converts, but even they couldn't stomach Lactantius, whose works were posthumously condemned.

Cosmas Indicopleustes was an even more peculiar specimen. A sixth-century merchant-sailor who later adopted monasticism, Cosmas boasted a hopelessly literal mind. To him, the projected rectilinear-shaped maps of Strabo and Eratosthenes meant that the earth was physically flat. Furthermore, they confirmed a literal interpretation of Biblical descriptions such as the "four corners of the earth" (which most everyone else took allegorically). Unlike Lactantius, Cosmas' ideas were too silly to condemn. He was just ignored. But Whewell dug him up along with Lactantius, and Draper ran with the corpses. Thus did a long-forgotten heretic and an oddball nobody become the standard-bearers for medieval Christian geography.

Draper was followed in 1896 by Cornell University president Andrew Dickson White, who published the two-volume set History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. A better historian than Draper, White realized that the case for the medieval flat earth was pitifully thin. His tactic was to stealthily misrepresent a few church fathers as flat-earthers (Basil, Chrysostom) and to argue that the non-flat-earthers were a few brave soles swimming against a colossal tide. Exactly how folks such as Origen, Ambrose, Augustine, Clement, and Aquinas could be swimming against a tide of their own creation was never explained. But no matter. Facts only confuse a good story. The narrative was bold, simple, and eagerly embraced by the nineteenth-century intelligentsia, who asserted that today, as always, religion subverts knowledge and progress. It was a classic fight of good vs. evil, progress vs. regress, ignorance vs. enlightenment -- just what the papers needed to sell copy.

There never was a flat earth dogma. When Columbus faced off with the Spanish cardinals, the issue was the size of the earth, not its shape. And the Cardinals were right: the earth was a heck of a lot bigger than Columbus believed. His mission was ill-conceived, and it failed. But it failed gloriously. Columbus went to his grave erroneously thinking he had bumped into some far corner of Asia.

Whewell, Draper, and White all made laudable contributions to science and society, but their involvement in the flat-earth error is a regrettable blot. They fabricated a false history highlighted by a non-existent dogma and used them to brand religion as unceasingly reactionary, dim-witted, and anti-science. In reality, science and religion have had a complex history, one defying simple labels. The same reactionary Pope of the Syllabus of Errors also established the Pontifical Academy of the New Lincei (later the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) dedicated to the promotion of science. Furthermore, clergy have often been important contributors to scientific progress: Mendel in genetics and Lemaître in big-bang cosmology. But there are infamous nadirs as well: the muzzling of Teilhard de Chardin and the Galileo affair. Claiming that science and religion have known only unrelenting warfare betrays one's ignorance of history and possibly one's social/political agenda.

The lesson in all of this is that both science and religion are human endeavors, and human nature imposes itself upon them. Whewell, Draper, and White let human nature intrude on good scholarship. Sadly, dividing up into opposing factions is deeply engrained in our primate heritage. Even more than friends, we humans need enemies. They define us, give us purpose; often, without them we are lost. Searching for points of agreement and constructing common ground are not sexy; they don't stir the senses or make the blood boil. It's so much more fun to wave a sword around and cry out, "Get the bad guys!" Usually it is too late when we realize that we are the bad guys.

Within both science and religion, however, there lies inspiration to resist destructive tribalism. At its best, religion teaches us to be humble, to be instruments of divine peace, to seek to understand rather than to be understood. Likewise, at its best, science teaches us to falsify our most cherished and comforting ideas, seek to prove them wrong. Science and religion are not enemies of one another. Small minds and dim imaginations are enemies of them both.

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G.K. Chesterton: On Democracy and Tradition

I was brought up a Liberal, and have always believed in democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of a self-governing humanity. If any one finds the phrase vague or threadbare, I can only pause for a moment to explain that the principle of democracy, as I mean it, can be stated in two propositions. The first is this: that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men. Ordinary things are more valuable than extraordinary things; nay, they are more extraordinary. Man is something more awful than men; something more strange…

This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately. And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common. Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry. The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry. It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one’s own love-letters or blowing one’s own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if he does them badly. I am not here here arguing the truth of any of these conceptions; I know that some moderns are asking to have their wives chosen by scientists, and they may soon be asking, for all I know, to have their noses blown by nurses. I merely say that mankind does recognize these universal human functions, and that democracy classes government among them. In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important things must be left to ordinary men themselves–the mating of the sexes, the rearing of the young, the laws of the state. This is democracy; and in this I have always believed.

But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record. The man who quotes some German historian against the tradition of the Catholic Church, for instance, is strictly appealing to aristocracy. He is appealing to the superiority of one expert against the awful authority of a mob. It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad. Those who urge against tradition that men in the past were ignorant may go and urge it at the Carlton Club, along with the statement that voters in the slums are ignorant. It will not do for us. If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.

From G.K. Chesterton's book Orthodoxy.

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Former Atheist Sounds A Wake-Up Call

THE RAGE AGAINST GOD: HOW ATHEISM LED ME TO FAITH
By Peter Hitchens
Published by Zondervan, $22.99

Reviewed by Diane Scharper

Like many self-righteous adolescents, Peter Hitchens, brother of well-known contrarian Christopher Hitchens, had numerous reasons for abandoning his belief in God.

But the real reason, suggests journalist and author Peter Hitchens in The Rage Against God, is that he felt entitled to do whatever he wished. A similar sense of entitlement fuels today’s anti-theist philosophy, and it has pushed Western civilization to the brink of chaos.

That’s the premise of this thought-provoking, carefully written book, which isn’t as much about atheism and how it led Peter to faith (despite the subtitle) as it is about the death throes of Christianity and religion in the West, mainly in the United States and England. In The Rage Against God, Peter, who has since returned to his Anglican beliefs, sounds a wake-up call.

Hitchens’ older brother, Christopher, fills his bestsellers with references to his atheist philosophy and sexual escapades. He makes headlines with his views on everything from the existence of God to the career of Mother Teresa of Calcutta to the rightness of George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. His most recent release, Hitch-22, has been reviewed by nearly every major newspaper and magazine.

By contrast, Peter’s The Rage Against God, published in the United States in May, has largely been ignored, although it earlier received some attention in Britain, where it had a different, more accurate subtitle: “Why Faith Is the Foundation of Civilisation.”

Written mostly to refute another of his brother’s highly-touted books, God Is Not Great (2007), The Rage Against God shoots down some of his brother’s theories, such as his notion that the order to love thy neighbor as thyself is too extreme to be obeyed. Or that religious education is tantamount to child abuse.


Ultimately, as Peter Hitchens sees it, the relativism and secularism propounded by his brother and other atheists have replaced Christian principles, not just relegating those principles to the sidelines but also diminishing Christian influence in education, law and nearly every aspect of Western culture.

Memoir, argument and cultural history, The Rage Against God contends that secularism is a political movement that “seeks to remove the remaining Christian restraints on power.” And in an age of power worship, “the Christian religion has become the principal obstacle to the desire for absolute power.” Peter describes the abuses of power he saw at the end of the Cold War when he lived in the Soviet Union as a foreign correspondent. He shows how these abuses have seeped into British and American society. Now, he says, secularism is poisoning culture and replacing liberty with tyranny.

Other circumstances have also contributed to the collapse of religious belief in the West, Hitchens argues. Patriotism is often conflated with religion -- as happened during the world wars, Vietnam, and the invasion of Iraq. People are persuaded that God is on their side. When they learn of wartime atrocities, they grow disenchanted with patriots and priests.

He writes that the “anything-goes” era of the 1960s and 1970s added to the decline of belief and moral standards, as did the sexual revolution and a spirit of rebellion that seemed to consume young people.

Equally disturbing to Hitchens, Anglican and Roman Catholic liturgies have watered down their services into pep rallies hoping to attract youth and increase the number of parishioners. They’ve replaced poetry and tradition, he writes, with “denatured committee-designed prayers and services” that are “ugly.”

Decrying the loss of traditional prayers, Hitchens poignantly describes the beauty of chants “spiraling up into chilly stone vaults at Evensong ... and the mysterious ... poetry of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimitis.”

Only poetry, Hitchens says, can truly counter atheism and “ambush” the heart.

Even so, faith is the bottom line.

Accepting God’s existence is a matter of faith, he says. And since no one can prove or disprove the existence of God, atheism is also a matter of faith. Despite his brother’s atheism, Peter Hitchens insists it’s “better by far to believe.”

He makes that point in a compelling book that deserves more attention than it has received.

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Hell And God's Love: An Alternative, Orthodox View

Eric Simpson
September 13, 2010
The Huffington Post

Common depictions of the Christian doctrine of hell, perhaps borrowing images from classic literature and Dante, portray it as a place of literal fire, where tortured souls repose in anguish, a vision much used by itinerant evangelists and manipulative preachers.

A further degradation of this cartoon vision finds human souls not only suffering extreme torture, but prodded by red devils with tiny horns, cloven hoofs for feet, spiraling tails, and pitchforks at hand, a caricature used to both trivialize the concept as well as mock the very idea of hell.

In the Revelation of John, we discover a lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, as an abode of punishment, as well as a bottomless abyss. Jesus himself, of course, named hell as the place where the worm doesn't die and the fire is never quenched, but he spoke of eternal darkness as well, eternal destruction and eternal death.

Such descriptions are at best figurative, much like other parts of the Bible where, for instance, God is described as a hen brooding over her chicks (God isn't literally a fowl.) Rather, it seems apparent that according to the teachings of the ancient Church, the non-literal descriptions of hell that appear in Scripture and elsewhere pertain to fundamental qualities of a disposition of being, not one defined primarily as punishment, but of death.

Strains of western Catholicism and Protestantism have fundamentally defined death as legal punishment, an expression of God's wrath. Death is entrenched within a judicial context; it is a sentence for sin. God is angry, according to the western view, and Christ's merit applied to us satisfies his anger, so He dies as a sacrifice to appease the Father.

A gross oversimplification and popular notion of the historical understanding of death in the West paints an ugly and frightening picture for those who take it seriously. Good people or redeemed people who have faith in Jesus, whom the Father punishes in our place through an expression of divine anger, overcome the punishment of death and go to heaven; unrepentant sinners suffer their just punishment and are cast howling into hell for their evil deeds. Death is the judicial sentence of all humanity; some overcome it totally through an abstract and forensic transaction, others do not.

The Greek fathers and the eastern churches historically do not share the western legal emphasis, nor the consequent view of atonement. The fathers of the church teach that humanity is the author of death, not God. St. Basil in the fourth century writes, "God did not create death, but we brought it upon ourselves." Death is the result of sin; it is the final product that we, apart from God, create for ourselves through the power of the human will, that also ensnares and condemns us.

For the Christian Orthodox, death is much more than what happens when the lungs quit, the heart fails or the brain stops functioning; it is also the source of corruption and spiritual myopia, producing deep-rooted fear and a whole legion of consequent disorders, maladies, pathologies and suffering. The separation of the spirit and the body at the end of physical life is the culmination of a long period of smaller separations; existence is filled with estrangement. Death is embodied by division and the truncation of significance. As the late Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann writes:

"When we see the world as an end in itself, everything in itself becomes a value and consequently loses all value, because only in God is found the meaning (value) of everything, and the world is meaningful only when it is the "sacrament" of God's presence. Things treated merely as things in themselves destroy themselves because only in God have they any life. The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with the dying world, it is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse."

It is possible to envision death, defined in this way, as at least tolerable, but if we posit the reality of redemption, that is, from a certain perspective, the added imposition of the presence of infinite and divine personality figuratively signified by fire, death then takes on a further dimension. Death doesn't dissolve away into nothingness, but energized by the presence of creative, personal and divine love, it becomes a separation fixed in an eternal position. Death is transmuted into bitter torment and despair.

As St. Symeon the New Theologian writes:

"God is fire and when He came into the world, and became man, He sent fire on the earth, as He Himself says; this fire turns about searching to find material -- that is a disposition and an intention that is good -- to fall into and to kindle; and for those in whom this fire will ignite, it becomes a great flame, which reaches Heaven. ... [T]his flame at first purifies us from the pollution of passions and then it becomes in us food and drink and light and joy, and renders us light ourselves because we participate in His light." (Discourse 78)

The same fire, the love of God, that ignites in the hearts of the faithful transmutes in the experience of those who reject it into the fire of hell; it purifies the former, but burns the latter, per St. Isaac the Syrian:

"It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God's love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love's power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it." (Homily 84)

Hell in this view is understood as the presence of God experienced by a person who, through the use of free will, rejects divine love. He is tortured by the love of God, tormented by being in the eternal presence of God without being in communion with God. God's love is the fire that is never quenched, and the disposition and suffering of the soul in the presence of God who rejects him is the worm that does not die. Whether one experiences the presence of love as heaven or hell is entirely dependent on how he has resolved his own soul to be disposed towards God, whether communion or separation, love or hatred, acceptance or rejection.

Hell, then, is not primarily a place where God sends people in his wrath, or where God displays anger, but rather, it is the love of God, experienced by one who is not in communion with him. The figurative, spiritual fire of God's love is transcendent joy to the person purified and transfigured by it through communion in the body of Christ, but bottomless despair and suffering to the person who rejects it, and chooses to remain in communion with death.

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Photographs of the Right Hand of St. Spyridon in Russia

September 15, 2010
Romfea.gr

The right hand of St. Spyridon arrived in Moscow today, Wednesday 15 September 2010, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow and All Russia as well as that of His Eminence Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece.

The relic was received and prayers were said in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow amidst a large number of hierarchs, clergy and pious faithful.

Photos by С. Власов

Read more here.

Read also: The Right Hand of Saint Spyridon

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Orthodoxy is the Second Largest Church in Austria

It was the hope of Metropolitan Michael Stakos of Austria to make Orthodoxy in Austria more visible with the visit of Patriarch Irinej of Serbia to Austria between September 10-14.

He said that there are over 400,000 Orthodox Christians in Austria, and if including the Oriental Christians, the figure reaches half a million.

As a result, the Orthodox Church is the second largest in presence in the country after the Roman Catholic Church, said the Metropolitan to the Austrian Catholic news agency Kathpress.

For the past two hundred years, Austria also houses the Greek National School, the oldest Greek school outside Greece.

Patriarch Irinej visited churches in Vienna and Linz, and the Mauthausen concentration camp.

He also scheduled met with Austrian President Heinz Fischer, Vienna Mayor Michael Haeupl and Cardinal Christopher Schonborn, the archbishop of Vienna.

Read more here.

Read also: The Contribution of Orthodoxy on the Course Towards a United Europe by Metropolitan Michael (Stakos) of Austria

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Ecumenical Patriarchate Opposes the Liturgy in Hagia Sophia on September 17th

The Ecumenical Patriarchate has officially opposed the Divine Liturgy set to take place Friday, 17 September 2010, at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople by approximately 250 Greek-Americans of the International Congregation of Agia Sophia lead by Chris Spyrou.

During a press conference on September 1st the President of the International Congregation of Agia Sophia Chris Spyrou stated:

“On the 16th of September 2009, on behalf of the International Congregation of Agia Sophia, I wrote to Prime Minister Erdogan and informed him that on the 17th of September 2010, the day the Orthodox Christian religion celebrates the holy feast day of Sophia, Faith, Hope and Love, a delegation of the International Congregation will visit Constantinople. The aim of the visit of the delegation of the International Congregation in Constantinople is the celebration of Divine Liturgy in Agia Sophia.”

See also: A Divine Liturgy At Hagia Sophia on 09/17/2010?

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