What Does It Mean To Worship God In Spirit and Truth?

By Sergei V. Bulgakov

In the words: "The hour is coming, and now is, when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" [John 4], the Lord Jesus Christ points out the distinctive character and features of Christian Divine Services in comparison with Old Testament worship: Christian worship is the highest and fullest worship or service to God, a spiritual and true service in relation to the physical and typological Old Testament service. The Old Testament worship was only the sign of God's covenant with the chosen people and the omen of salvation for all of the human race, which was fulfilled with the advent of Christ. This was, so to say, a will written on parchment, which, as a simple parchment, has no value, but which is precious for the one holding it, because it gives to him the right to receive the valid inheritance in due time. Whoever fulfilled the Old Testament rites with living faith in the coming of a future Redeemer, even though he did not receive the grace of redemption and salvation, but had a faithful pledge of this salvation also might die in the good hope of being a participant in the kingdom of Christ. These are not Christian mysteries: whoever receives them with living faith in the Son of God who came and suffered for us, by that same action also truly receives the grace of deliverance, sanctification and salvation. The divine grace of the All Holy Spirit of God and the all-perfect blessing of the heavenly Father are also bestowed on us in all the sacred deeds of Christians. Therefore both the performing and the participating in the sacred deeds by Christians perform a spiritual service to God and worship the Father in spirit and truth.

Together with these words of the Lord about the worship of God in spirit and in truth means that when praying to God, we should pray with all our being, in both body and spirit; that the words and actions of our prayer be the expression of the valid feelings of our heart, and not the prayer of a solitary individual. The one who prays to God in spirit is the one who, saying the words of a prayer, says them not only with the lips, but with all one's soul and heart; who, protecting himself with the sign of the cross of Christ, looks in spirit at the Lord Himself crucified on the cross; who, bending his neck, bows before God with both his heart and soul; who, prostrating himself to the ground, subjects all of himself into the hand of God in deepest humility and submission of heart, in full devotion to the will of God; who, standing in the flesh before the image of the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, in spirit stands before Him Himself, sitting on the throne of glory, and with His Most Pure Mother standing on His right hand; who, kisses with his lips a holy icon of the Lord, kisses in his heart His most pure hands and feet.

The one who prays to God in truth is the one whose soul and heart is enlivened with that same faith and love, with those ideas and feelings, with those hopes and desires, with which the prayers of those men who composed the saints and Spirit-bearers; who, worshipping God in the temple, does not bow to the idols of passions outside the temple; who, serving God by participation in the Divine Services in the church, serves Him also by his very life and deeds; who, calling God his Father, really loves Him, fears Him, obeys Him and fulfills His holy will as His true son. "In prayer", as St. Tikhon of Zadonsk teaches, "we receive every good and consequently our enemy knowing this great benefit of prayer interferes with us, by presenting every image to us: like presenting thoughts of secular things, annoying evil thoughts, putting us into depression. Therefore even God-fearing people should be cautious in prayer to oppose the enemy by not letting him raise these thoughts in them, and to heed God alone, so that in both body and spirit we stand before God; and as we fall before Him in the flesh, so also we fall in spirit; that our tongue speaks about that which our mind and heart would not be silent; in a word, that the interior prayer agrees with the exterior".

Together with this, commanding us to worship God not only in spirit alone, but also in truth, the Lord orders us to pray not how we would think to do it, but how He Himself taught us by example and positive assertions and commandments (see Luke 6:12, Mt. 14:23; John 17:1; Luke 22:42-45; Mt. 26:39; Mt. 7:7, 21:22, Luke 22:40, John 14:13, 15:7; Mt. 18:19-20, 6:6; Mt. 4:9-13; Mt. 19:13-15, Luke 24:50, Mk. 8:7; Mt. 10:12, Luke 10:5-6; Mt. 21:13, Mk. 11:15, Luke 19:16; Mt. 26:26 -29, Mk 14: 22, Luke 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24; Mk. 16:15-16, John 22:21-24), as the apostles of Christ and the holy fathers have established, and as the holy Church of Christ urges us to serve God. Whoever teaches to serve the Lord God not as our Holy Church urges us is the adversary of the Church of Christ and is a false teacher. The Dukhobors, the Molokans, the Stundists and many other heretics, for example are those who teach contrary to the direct teaching of the word of God: "So glorify God in your body and in your souls" (1 Cor. 6:20), means that they teach to worship God only in spirit; they reject the ceremonies of the Church, its communal Worship, and through it they even lose the redemptive grace of the Sacraments, losing also whoever listens to their teachings. They worship God not in spirit and truth and they ignobly or carelessly stand in prayer, especially when present at the Divine Services in the temple of God; they do not want to sign themselves with the cross or to bow their heads, as indicated in the Church commandment to sign oneself with the cross of Christ correctly and with piety. The sincere true prayer must even be expressed in those various visible, awesome external actions, which are established by the Holy Church (see the podr. Sbornik krat. poucheniia (details from a Collection of Concise Instructions), Priest A. Smirnov, 1 part, pages 214-221).

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Transportable Church of Constantine the Great

Eusebius informs us in his Life of Constantine (Ch. XII) that during Constantine's battles against Licinius, he pitched a tabernacle with a Cross at a distance from his camp where he would pray in times of battle. Eusebius writes:

But while Licinius, giving himself up to these impieties, rushed blindly towards the gulf of destruction, the emperor on the other hand, when he saw that he must meet his enemies in a second battle, devoted the intervening time to his Saviour. He pitched the tabernacle of the cross outside and at a distance from his camp, and there passed his time in a pure and holy manner, offering up prayers to God; following thus the example of his ancient prophet, of whom the sacred oracles testify, that he pitched the tabernacle without the camp. He was attended only by a few, whose faith and pious devotion he highly esteemed. And this custom he continued to observe whenever he meditated an engagement with the enemy. For he was deliberate in his measures, the better to insure safety, and desired in everything to be directed by divine counsel. And making earnest supplications to God, he was always honored after a little with a manifestation of his presence. And then, as if moved by a divine impulse, he would rush from the tabernacle, and suddenly give orders to his army to move at once without delay, and on the instant to draw their swords. On this they would immediately commence the attack, fight vigorously, so as with incredible celerity to secure the victory, and raise trophies of victory over their enemies.

Eusebius further on mentions in Ch. LVI how in his battle against the Persians, Constantine brought with him bishops as well as a tent made in the form of a large church this time.

It is also worthy of record that about the time of which I am at present writing, the emperor, having heard of an insurrection of some barbarians in the East, observed that the conquest of this enemy was still in store for him, and resolved on an expedition against the Persians. Accordingly he proceeded at once to put his forces in motion, at the same time communicating his intended march to the bishops who happened to be at his court, some of whom he judged it right to take with him as companions, and as needful coadjutors in the service of God. They, on the other hand, cheerfully declared their willingness to follow in his train, disclaiming any desire to leave him, and engaging to battle with and for him by supplication to God on his behalf. Full of joy at this answer to his request, he unfolded to them his projected line of march; after which he caused a tent of great splendor, representing in shape the figure of a church, to be prepared for his own use in the approaching war. In this he intended to unite with the bishops in offering prayers to the God from whom all victory proceeds.

Socrates Scholasticus, in his Ecclesiastical History, also mentions the transportable church of Constantine the Emperor. In Ch. XVIII he writes:

So great indeed was the emperor's devotion to Christianity, that when he was about to enter on a war with Persia, he prepared a tabernacle formed of embroidered linen on the model of a church, just as Moses had done in the wilderness; and this so constructed as to be adapted to conveyance from place to place, in order that he might have a house of prayer even in the most desert regions. But the war was not at that time carried on, being prevented through dread of the emperor.

Sozomen, in Ch. VIII of his Ecclesiastical History, continues this subject by writing the following:

When he engaged in war, he caused a tent to be borne before him, constructed in the shape of a church, so that in case he or his army might be led into the desert, they might have a sacred edifice in which to praise and worship God, and participate in the mysteries. Priests and deacons followed the tent, who fulfilled the orders about these matters, according to the law of the church. From that period the Roman legions, which now were called by their number, provided each its own tent, with attendant priests and deacons.

Other sources also, basing themselves on these above, mention the transportable church of Constantine the Great, which shows his great piety as an emperor of the Romans.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Incredible Tale of Klaus Kenneth

After an incredible, almost unbelievable life, one man tells Theo Panayides how his search for love was finally successful.

Theo Panayides
May 21, 2011
Cyprus Mail

Klaus Kenneth is God’s gift to newspapers. His life, as he tells it, has been so full of incident and adventure that the only problem for a journalist is how to fit it all in. He was a gang leader at 12, a terrorist at 22 and a junkie at 25. He’s been a Buddhist monk, a Hindu mystic and an occultist in Central America. He’s known Andreas Baader (of Baader-Meinhof fame) and Mother Teresa. The biography on his website (www.klauskenneth.com) offers more talking-points than could ever be encompassed in a single interview. Here, for instance, is the entry for the year 1980: “Fribourg, Switzerland; Professor in Gruyeres (private school); demon attacks; destruction of all relationships; isolation accentuated; refuge in alcohol; ecstasy through dance; first letters about Jesus from Ursula.” You don’t write a Profile about Klaus; the Profile writes itself.

Klaus Kenneth is also God’s gift to churches – especially the Orthodox Church, which is where he turned after decades of spiritual wandering, a meeting with Father Sophrony of Essex (a man whom he describes as “Love incarnate”) leading to a full Orthodox baptism in 1986. Klaus was in Cyprus for a few days, speaking – mainly in churches – about his turbulent life and recently-published autobiography Born to Hate, Reborn to Love (the better German title translates as ‘Two Million Kilometres of Searching’). We speak at the Church of Apostolos Andreas in Aglandjia, just before his lecture – and, just as I turn on my tape recorder and start to ask the first question, the church bells start to peal loudly, making him smile. Back in Mexico, muses Klaus, when he was summoning spirits, such a coincidence would be seen as “a sign from the spiritual world”. What kind of sign? A good sign?

Probably, he shrugs. After all, the bells are a way of summoning believers to the church, and “the church is life-giving. But the church is also death-giving sometimes, when the priests are not good.”

Has he had that kind of bad experience?

“Well,” he shrugs again, “I was violated by a homosexual priest for seven years every night, so…”

That’s the thing about talking with Klaus: he’s ventured down so many extreme paths in his life that one often struggles to keep up. What might be a shocking revelation for most people is, for him, just a throwaway. “Have you ever driven 1,500 kilometres, without any sleep, in the desert?” he asks at one point. (No, Klaus, I can’t say I ever have.) “I’ve been clinically dead for six hours,” he mentions later, almost in passing. What? Really? And he’s seen a brilliant light, and all the other things we hear about? “Life after death? Of course, I describe that in my book.” His life is so crowded that some things don’t even rate a mention. “I’ve survived so many times,” he says at one point. “The war in Israel, and I was going between the tanks, and…” he flaps a hand dismissively, not wishing to bore me with trifles: “These are other stories.”

He was born in 1945, just after the fall of Berlin (his birthday is actually today, May 15), and grew up in Germany, though he’s currently based in French Switzerland. His mother “gave me away” to the evil priest when he was 15, by which time he’d become unmanageable. “I was revolting against her, because my mother didn’t have love,” he explains. “I had a gang – I mean a robber gang – and we were breaking shops and stuff like that, and made gang wars between each other. I was un-educatable”. His father left the family when Klaus was a baby, leaving Mum to take care of him and his two brothers – but his mother, he recalls, “just could not stand me, and I could not stand her… I never had a family. I don’t know what it is to have a family, even nowadays.”

One brother left to join his father; the other stuck it out till adulthood, then fled to America and started a new life. Klaus lost touch with both of them, though he tracked down his dad in Stuttgart years later and was reunited with his brothers. “I forgave them later,” he asserts. “In the name of Christ it’s possible – otherwise I would kill them”. And what about his mother? Did he forgive her too? “I forgave her, but she was so possessed with demons. She was all the time full of demons.”

Real demons, or metaphorical?

“No, no, real demons. She called them, and she was influenced by them. And she was like crazy sometimes, it was terrible living with her.” Violent too? He nods: “She could beat me half to death sometimes. With a metal stick.”

All this rage came out in his gang of teenage hoodlums: they threw rocks, robbed people, even burned a man’s house down. “I was suffering,” he says now. “I just knew ‘do them bad’, because they did bad to me”. This was also when Klaus first realised he had power over people. “I found very quickly that I’m a leader… I just knew when I spoke to people, I was somehow convincing, and they followed me. So [I’d say] ‘Beat this guy up’ and they beat the guy up, you know?” In his early 20s, having finally escaped the clutches of the priest, he was studying Languages at the University of Tubingen – but was soon seduced by Andreas Baader, who was recruiting students for his “violent movement” aimed at the wholesale destruction of German society. Klaus, full of hatred, was ripe for the picking: “Police was enemy. Teachers were enemy. Priests were enemy. My mother was enemy. Everybody was enemy”. He pauses: “Because there was no love”.

It wasn’t just violence, he points out; there was idealism there too. “We really believed that we could change the world” – forgetting, he adds, that you first have to change yourself. “We thought we could do it by drugs and making love, free sex. [But] we ended up in passion instead of in freedom.” In any case, he soon discovered that “violence is not my way” – and also discovered that drugs only made things worse, amplifying his feelings of alienation instead of resolving them. At one point, he recalls, when he looked around at people “all their faces became skulls… I projected Death in everybody”. In any case, by the early 70s he’d “found a better drug: it was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Transcendental meditation.”

Thus began his years of spiritual wandering. “I was an earnest seeker,” he tells me, though he must’ve seemed like a spiritual tourist, this half-crazy German plunging into one Eastern religion after another. Islam never appealed to him: “This is law, law and law. It didn’t give me love” – but he spent seven years exploring Hinduism, visiting all the great gurus in India (“I found very quickly they were often fakes,” he scoffs, “full of pride”), then three more years in Tibet as a Buddhist.

This is also where Klaus’ account of his life veers into claims that some will find incredible, like his description of the powers he wielded during those years – an extension of his old power as a gang leader, honed and perfected by years of meditation. “I could see people’s thoughts, what people think about” – not the precise thoughts but the “direction”, which he then manipulated. “I could make myself invisible. I started to hear voices from the beyond. I was a medium”. He had frequent out-of-body experiences. Dead gurus spoke to him, giving audible messages in English. “I had power. I was in New York and six gangsters wanted to kill me. And when I looked in their eyes, I could bind them. I had the power. When I had eye contact, I could just paralyse them”. Like hypnosis? It wasn’t hypnosis, he demurs, it was the power of the spirits. “I looked at people in the eyes, and when they were somehow not sure of themselves, I just got them somehow, I had power over them. Especially, in my case, for girls, of course – because you want to make sex. It’s not love, but it’s a substitute. Better to have substitute than to kill yourself.”

It’s not entirely implausible. Even now, at 66, Klaus cuts a striking figure: thin-faced, dressed in black, with close-cropped silver hair and narrow, unblinking eyes. There’s something compelling in those eyes, even if it’s just a hardness and lack of humour. Didn’t he ever have fun in those decades of wandering? Didn’t he ever just relax, maybe crack a joke? But he shakes his head: “No, it was lonely, it was very lonely. I was lonely all the time.”

Oddly enough, the person who impressed him most in India was a Christian – a religion he’d definitively abandoned after his years of abuse. That was Mother Teresa, whom he met in Calcutta: “She was my first mother,” he says poignantly. “The first person who had love for me, unlimited love. I thought such a person can not be a Christian – I even tried to convert her to Hinduism!”

Mother Teresa was the first step on the second part of Klaus’ journey – the journey back to Christianity, which of course is why churches invite him to share his experiences. It’s a journey that’s impossible to describe in detail without writing a book about it (as Klaus did), but it does include two crucial events which demand to be mentioned. The first was a miraculous escape in South America, when Klaus was abducted by Colombian rebels – who, realising they could get no ransom for him, decided to shoot him. Lying naked in a muddy ditch with seven rifles pointed at him, Klaus cried: “God, if You exist, save me now!” – and, right on cue, another rebel group emerged from the jungle, prompting a shoot-out with the first group and allowing him to flee in the confusion.

That was in 1981, just a few months before the second great miracle – when Jesus actually spoke to him, in a church in Lausanne. “Jesus,” asked despondent Klaus out loud, “do you want me to come to you or not?” – and Jesus, “as clear as you hear me now,” speaking French “in a sweet, indescribable voice”, replied: “Yes, come. I have forgiven you everything”. “And I was never touched so deeply,” he says quietly, “in my heart, in my being, as in that moment.”

There’s more, of course – much more. That communion with Our Lord was preceded by not one but two exorcisms (the priest in Lausanne insisted) and followed by what he calls a “counter-attack of Satan”. And I haven’t even mentioned all the other things, the miracle in the Syrian desert circa 1971, the George McGovern story, the levitation… I look at Klaus, unsure what to say. You do realise, I ask finally, that when I write this stuff in the paper, people will read it and say –

“Crazy man,” he agrees.

They won’t believe you.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

So what do you say to those people?

“Well, you are right not to believe it,” he replies, “because it sounds incredible. But I can not lie in the name of Christ – because I would condemn myself to Hell. And I lived in Hell. I don’t want to go back there.”

Maybe that’s the crux of it, when it comes to Klaus Kenneth. Mystics will say he found God, psychologists will say he found closure, but the story’s much the same whichever way you want to tell it: the story of a man who was raised without love, coldly and abusively – who “lived in Hell,” as he puts it – wandered for years trying to find inner peace, and finally found it.

It’s a quest for love, as he says again and again. It’s a quest for comradeship, which is doubtless what he found with Father Sophrony. ‘Why not just accept your life?’ I ask. Why even bring religion into it? Why not just accept human nature and say ‘This is life’?

“Because you feel that is not life,” he replies. “It’s a wrong life. That is what society calls life. But inside my heart, when I went to bed after my stories with alcohol, sex and whatever – I felt alone. And that is not life.”

See also: The Conversion of Klaus Kenneth to Orthodoxy

Sometimes, a strong spiritual faith is all the drug addiction help a drug abuser would need.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Magnificence of Constantinople Even In 1436

Created in 1422 by Cristoforo Buondelmonti, this is the oldest surviving map of Constantinople and the only one that predates the Ottoman conquest.

Bessarion writes to Theodoros II Palaiologos the following about Constantinople in 1436, which was seventeen years before its fall to the Ottomans:

On the one side you will see the abundance and fineness of holy things, even more abundant than they are fine, and even better than they are abundant. On another side you will see the walls and towers and the defense circuit of the city, whose measure and strength no one can wonder enough at, and on yet another the brilliance of the cities houses and the overwhelming pride in public show. On still another you will see the massiveness of the public buildings and their extent, evidences of royal indulgence and the luxury of power. You will see the size and beauty of these and you will hear much recounted to you about them. For this city is bejewelled in the eyes of those who see it beyond any other, and in those who remember it, even beyond reality, so that how could you pass through it without marvelling at many things, you who used to clap and dance with pleasure and seemed to see it almost as if you were one with those who longed for it.

But why do I speak of this, when you are in the presence of even more. You are where everything is holy, and every godly thing has been stored up as if this city had become a sort of treasury for God, curating for him every holy bone from the martyrs, every relic of priests and holy superiors, of all who have served God. These you could not find time enough for walking about with eagerness and desire, embracing them and gathering in their grace, for their beauty surrounds you from every side in every way.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Origins of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory

One thing for certain is that for nearly 1800 years, the teaching of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture of the Church was never taught by the Church, or even by a heresy for that matter. It is a novel teaching with unclear origins based on the documents we have available, yet integrated heavily especially in America during the time of the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. This was a time when many were claiming new and contradictory revelations, and gave birth to some of the most well-known Christian heresies and cults of our time. New denominations included the Seventh-day Adventists, the Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism).

To read about the unclear historical origins of the Rapture Theory, and what we do know for sure about its history, read here. For example, what we do know is that the basis of the theory in Protestant circles is the ecclesiological distinction between Israel and the Church, and an eschatological longing by eager Bible students to see Bible prophecy fulfilled.

Another interesting theory is that the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory has its origins among certain 16th century Jesuit theologians. Though they did not clearly mention a rapture of the Church, what they did was set up a theory called Futurism that opened up the possibility for a secret rapture to take place before the reign of the Antichrist. The inspiration behind this theory by the Jesuits was to counter the claims of the Protestant Reformers that the Pope was the Antichrist and the Catholic Church was the Harlot of the Book of Revelation. By turning the attention of Catholics, who were converting to Protestantism in droves over the claims of the Reformers, away from the Protestant exegesis, they offered a counter-interpretation called Futurism. Futurism proposed that the first few chapters of the Apocalypse applied to ancient pagan Rome, and the rest was limited to a yet future period of 3 1/2 literal years, immediately prior to the Second Coming. Read more about this theory here and here, and see a video on it here.

With the advent of Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism in the 20th century, the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory has become a staple among many Protestants, who trust more in a personal and individualistic exegesis of Scripture and abhor Holy Tradition.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Rapture Propaganda Film From 1941

Watch The Rapture in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Sanctity of Saint Constantine the Emperor

Unfortunately, largely out of ignorance of the witness of the Church and under the influence of trendy and superficial historical thinking hostile to the traditions of Orthodoxy, there are many today who question the sanctity of St. Constantine the Great, who ushered in the Peace of the Church and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Drawing from pagan sources and ignoring the witness of Christian historians, heterodox — and, sadly enough, some Orthodox — scholars have variously attributed the veneration of St. Constantine to so-called Caesaro-Papism, popular piety gone astray, and religious fantasy. Setting aside the superficiality of such historiographical sources (who fall to the same kind of simplistic analysis and speculation that has led to the unfounded accusation that St. Constantine was, in fact, an Arian), and turning to the hagiographical witness of the Church, we find irrefutable evidence of the sanctity of the Emperor Saint, who, coming down from Heaven, appeared to St. Paisios the Great, one of the renowned Desert Fathers.

The following words, spoken by St. Constantine when he appeared bathed in Divine light to St. Paisios, are worthy of repetition, since they rightly characterize the virtuous humility of the Emperor, while at the same time constituting an important tribute to the ranks of holy and saintly monastics:

“I am Constantine the Great. I have descended from the Heavens in order to reveal to you the glory which monastics are shown in the Heavens, as well as their closeness to Christ and their boldness before Him. I reproach and accuse myself, that I did not attain to such splendor as that of the rank of monastics. I cannot reckon the loss which I have incurred. I do not have the same boldness as monastics, nor do I have an honor equal to theirs.”

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Colton Burpo's Vision of Heaven. For Real?

After a recent read of the best-selling book Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo, I find it difficult to not be disturbed by it for several reasons. The book is written by the father of Colton Burpo, the four year old who describes his near death experience and vision of heaven in the book. If the book teaches anything, it should be that we avoid being taught about theology and heavenly visions from the experiences of a four year old.

As much as I would love to write a full review of the book, I noticed that pretty much all the points I wanted to mention have already been written in a review which can be read here and here. If the book has captured your imagination, I highly recommend reading through those links.

There are two key factors which prove this was not a near death experience at all. The first is the fact that Todd is honest enough to admit that his son Colton never even died to have such an experience. His heart was beating the entire time without ever flat-lining. If his heart is beating, then his soul is still in his body, which begs the question why he is described as floating around the hospital. Second, the father and mother, who never even show any amount of healthy skepticism over these stories, push the child's imagination to describe things more and more to the point where the son of a pastor can easily come up with the things Colton did. In fact, I find the book to be not a tiny bit exploitative by the parents of this innocent child.

I'm not saying Colton didn't have an experience, though I can undoubtedly admit it wasn't heavenly nor did the real Jesus give him homework as he claims. When I was 4 years old my imaginary friend was Mickey Mouse whom I would talk to like a real person, and if I was asked to describe the Magic Kingdom I probably could, even though I had never been there. And one thing I probably could have said without a doubt was that the Magic Kingdom was real ... and Santa Claus and Rudolph were too for that matter.

With the rich heritage we have through the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers, one wonders why such books are necessary. They simply are not.

Read more: Tunnels of Light. Metting With Dead Loved Ones...The Truth About Near Death Experiences

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Saint Nicholas the Wine-Maker in Nafplion

The translation of the relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra, Asia Minor to Bari, Italy is celebrated annually in the Orthodox Church on May 20th. This feast is eagerly celebrated every year in Argos, Greece at the Chapel of Saint Nicholas the Wine-Maker in Nafplion. This is a church near the beach Karathona 7 km from the city and built during the first Venetian occupation by a captain who would carry wine from an island in the Aegean to Nafplio, which was then a major port and trading center in Europe and the East.

The captain of the ship entered the harbor one night and fell into a violent storm, since this area is hit a lot especially in winter. Then the captain, to save himself, vowed to build a church in that area dedicated to the patron saint of seamen Saint Nicholas. The boat was saved and the captain fulfilled the promise, building the church with great effort because of inaccessible areas. Also instead of water, the mud was created with wine. Ever since then the church stands strong against the winds and the winter waves, but also thanks to the efforts of the ecclesiastical council of the parish of the Annunciation in Nafplio which the chapel is under, there is a guardian angel on all ships entering the port of the city. To go there, walk a few miles through a trail and you will come upon this beautiful church which looks like an oasis.

The photographs here are from the feast in 2011.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Saint Lydia of Philippi, the Equal To the Apostles

St. Lydia of Philippi (Feast Day - May 20)

As recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (16:12-30), Lydia of Philippi was the Apostle Paul’s first convert to Christianity in Europe. Her conversion came after hearing Paul’s words in Philippi proclaiming the Gospel of Christ during his second missionary journey.

As described in the Acts, Lydia was a “seller of purple”, a person who traded in purple dyes and fabrics for which the city of Thyatira was noted. Purple goods were part of a high value industry and were used by emperors, high government officials, and priests of the pagan religions.

Tradition relates that she and her husband may have been involved in this business. At some point Lydia and her household moved from Asia Minor to the city of Philippi in Macedonia. The reasons she moved may have been business related as Philippi was a Roman colony on the major east-west trade route, the Egnation Highway, between Rome and Asia. Also, she may have been a Jewish convert who no longer could worship in the custom of the Thyatirans.

Lydia met with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey about the year 50. Paul and his companions started their journey visiting the established churches in western Asia Minor when he answered a vision in which he saw a man dressed in a Macedonian manner calling upon him to “Come over to Macedonia and help us.“

Paul’s custom was to find local synagogues in which he would preach. But, apparently the Jewish population in Philippi was not sufficient to allow holding Sabbath Services for the Jewish men. Thus, Paul’s party walked out of the city following the Gangites River (now called the Angista River) when they came upon a group of women praying in the manner of Jews, along flowing water. After greeting the women, Paul and his companions sat down and shared the good news of Christ’s salvation with them. Lydia, among the women, had listened attentively and took the message to heart. She and her family were then baptized in the Gangites River along which they had been praying. Thus, Lydia became the first person in Europe to become a follower of Christ.

As Acts notes, Paul and his companions were well received by Lydia as they stayed at her house after their release from the Philippi prison. Surely, during their imprisonment, Lydia and those who assembled in her home spent the night in prayer for the release of Paul and Silas, making her home the first Christian Church in Europe. When Paul departed from Philippi he left Luke behind to preach the Gospel and to establish firmly the church in Philippi, using as its core Lydia, the jailer, and their households.

Paul speaks fondly, in his letter to the Philippians, of the brethren who were members of the church of Philippi, calling them ”…my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown…” (Philippians 4:1).

Source

There are churches in both Kavala and Asprovalta dedicated to Saint Lydia.

Saint Lydia was recognized as a Saint in the Orthodox Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate under Athenagoras I on 23 May 1972. She is commemorated annually on May 20th.

See also:

The Baptistery of Saint Lydia Near Philippi (video)

Ten Albanians Baptized Where Saint Lydia Was Baptized

Apolytikion
Through thee the divine likeness was securely preserved, O Mother Lydia, for thou didst carry the cross and follow Christ. By example and precept thou didst teach us to ignore the flesh because it is perishable, and to attend to the concerns of the immortal soul. Therefore thy soul doth rejoice with the angels.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The University of Constantinople, Founded In 425 A.D.

The University of Constantinople, sometimes known as the University of the palace hall of Magnaura (Πανδιδακτήριον της Μαγναύρας) in the Roman-Byzantine Empire was founded in 425 under the name of Pandidakterion (Πανδιδακτήριον). A few scholars have gone so far as calling it the first university in the world, although that status is more usually given to University of Bologna, depending on ones definition of "university", and considering the University of Bologna was the first to use the term Universitas. The school at Constantinople had been an academic institution for many years before it was called a university; the original institution was founded in the 5th century by the emperor Theodosius II. The university included schools of medicine, philosophy and law. At the time various economic schools, colleges, polytechnics, libraries and fine arts academies were also open in the city.

History

Byzantine society was highly educated by the standards of its time, with high levels of literacy, compared to the rest of the world. Significantly it possessed a secular education system that was a continuation of the academies of classical antiquity. Primary education was widely available, even at village level and uniquely in that society for both sexes. It was in this context that the secular University of Constantinople can be understood. Further it was not unique in the empire as for many centuries, before the Muslim conquest, similar institutions operated in such major provinces as Antioch and Alexandria.

The original school was founded in 425 by Emperor Theodosius II with 31 chairs for law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music, rhetoric and other subjects, 15 to Latin and 16 to Greek. The university existed until the 15th century.

The main content of higher education for most students was rhetoric, philosophy and law with the aim of producing competent, learned personnel to staff the bureaucratic postings of state and church. In this sense the university was the secular equivalent of the Theological Schools. The university maintained an active philosophical tradition of Platonism and Aristotelianism, with the former being the longest unbroken Platonic school, running for close to two millennia until the 15th century.

The School of Magnaura was founded in the 9th century and in the 11th new schools of philosophy and law were established at the Capitol School. The period of decline began with the Latin conquest of 1204 although the university survived as a non-secular institution under Church management until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, and was re-established by Mehmet II as the first higher education institution in Istanbul under the new name of the city.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Richard Dawkins’ Foolish Advice To His Daughter

By Randal Rauser

Thanks to Beetle for linking us to Richard Dawkins' advice to his then ten year old daughter. I call it foolish because any advice that is self-referentially defeating is foolish.

First, Dawkins tells his daughter:

"Something that you learn by direct seeing (or hearing or feeling...) is called an observation.

Often evidence isn't just observation on its own, but observation always lies at the back of it."

This is the first case of self-referential defeat. Dawkins claims that all credible beliefs must be rooted in evidence, and evidence always traces back to observation from the five senses. This is a terribly naive empiricism. It is naive because Dawkins provides no evidence which traces back to observations from the five senses to justify the criterion itself. He just stipulates it! So what sort of evidence derived from the five senses could he possibly provide for the claim that the only kind of evidence is that which ultimately derives from observations rooted in the five senses? Good luck Dick.

Next Dawkins says that in contrast to "evidence, which is a good reason for believing something," there are "three bad reasons for believing anything. They are called 'tradition', 'authority', and 'revelation'."
Authority. According to Dawkins: "Authority, as a reason for believing something, means believing it because you are told to believe it by somebody important."

Apparently this is always bad, according to Dawkins.

Really? Better tell the courts that they can't rely on expert testimony anymore because that's "authority" and thus not a good reason to believe anything. And how many undergraduates are listening to the authority of their professors? We must call an end to that! And how many people will make picnic plans for tomorrow based on what the meteorologist says today? Agh!

Now for some more self-referential defeat: what role is Dick Dawkins playing in this letter to his child? That of an authority. So according to Dawkins' own advice his daughter better not listen to him. She better seek validation for this disavowal of authority from her five senses because that's the only evidence that matters. Yeah, except that even that is rooted in her father's "expert" testimony that the only evidence worth having traces to the five senses.

So how did Dawkins come to know all that to begin with? Revelation?

As for "tradition", does Dawkins realize that he is inculcating his daughter in an empiricist, humanist, skeptical tradition which dates back centuries?

Dawkins advises his daughter that "People sometimes say that you must believe in feelings deep inside, otherwise you'd never be confident of things like 'My wife loves me'. But this is a bad argument."

Why is it a bad argument? Because such claims do not have empirical evidence which, according to the authority and tradition of Dick Dawkins, is the only kind of evidence worth having.

What about a moral claim like "Raping women is evil"? The layperson's affirmation of this proposition as necessarily true is linked essentially to some pretty basic "inside" feelings that rape is inherently evil. But that, according to Dawkins, is no kind of evidence at all. The only evidence that counts is "outside evidence" from the five senses. Right-o. So we are supposed to evacuate ourselves of innate moral knowledge based on an arbitrary, self-refuting empricist principle uttered by, of all things, an evolutionary biologist? Why? Because he speaks with a clipped English accept?

Next, Dawkins tells his daughter: "Belief that there is a god or gods, belief in Heaven, belief that Mary never died, belief that Jesus never had a human father, belief that prayers are answered, belief that wine turns into blood – not one of these beliefs is backed up by any good evidence."

Now what if Dawkins' daughter replied: "Papa you say that there is no good evidence for the existence of God. But what is the good evidence for that claim? I can't listen to authority on these matters. I need empirical evidence rooted in observation. And even if I could listen to authorities, why would I listen to you? You're no authority in metaphysics or philosophy of religion."

Finally, Dawkins writes: "next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that?' And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say."

While I disagree with virtually all of Dawkins' statements, I am sympathetic with this one. Indeed, I can only hope Dawkins' daughter heeded this one piece of advice by asking for some evidence for the litany of self-refuting pap her dad wrote to her.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

St. Hesychios of Jerusalem: On the Holy Pascha

By St. Hesychios of Jerusalem [1]

1. Τhe call of the royal trumpet. It is a sacred and royal trumpet that calls us again to this spiritual theater, the Paschal celebration in the Church. This trumpet was filled with sounds in Bethlehem, because it was there that God was born as man. Bethlehem was the beginning. But this trumpet was fired, reached its full blast in Zion, Jerusalem. Because it was in Jerusalem that the Cross was raised and the Resurrection took place. The Cross was the hummer and the Resurrection the anvil. It is impossible to everyone to speak worthily of its beauty, to describe its wondrous splendor, to recount the divine kingdom which emerges from it, to touch it and to explore it.

2. Its message: the dead God who cancels death. This paschal trumpet invites us to revisit the grave which gives birth to life, the sepulcher of corruption which becomes the bearer of incorruption, the three-day rest[2] which puts the Bridegroom to sleep, and the bridal chamber from which the bride emerges uncorrupted after the marriage. It tells us that the grave guards one who is dead,[3] but the earth is shaken by Him who is God.[4] The body says that He is dead, but the miracle cries out that He is God. The burial testifies that He is dead, but the resurrection demonstrates that He is God. The tears of the women confess Him to be dead,[5] but the words of the angels confess Him to be God.[6] Joseph prepares His internment as dead,[7] but He who is interred as man is God who denudes and abolishes death. The soldiers guard Him as dead, but the guards of the gates of Hades encounter Him and shrivel with fear.

3. The main theme: the mystery of the Godman. Who then is this dead God, is He two or one? No He is not two, but one, man and God, God and man. You cannot speak of Him as this one and that one, i.e. as one person and another person, nor as another thing in another person, nor another thing through another person. This One is “God the Word who became incarnate,”[8] became man, and conjoined by His will in a manner ineffable and these (human) things with those (divine) things. To Him belong both the flesh and the Godhead – the flesh which He offered in order to accomplish the sufferings, and the Godhead which He used in order to achieve the signs and miracles. As it is illegitimate to sever the flesh from the Word, so it is necessary to conjoin the sufferings with the miracles. Because, He who “descended into Hades”[9] is also the one who freed the dead as God. How else would the angels minister at the grave? How else would they appear to the women “dressed in white”[10] as representatives of the bridegroom? How else would they say, “Do you seek Jesus who was crucified? He is not here. He is risen as He had fore-announced it?”[11] Heaven, then, is His “place,”[12] and there you should send the “ointments.”[13] “He is Risen” by Himself.[14] We did not raise Him. We only “rolled” the stone for your sake.[15] The grace was empty before we came down to it. He is risen as He himself had fore-announced it.[16]

4. The Witness of the Prophets. The angel also said that neither the prophets could explain the mystery although they fore-announced it. Hosea spoke about the time of the Resurrection. Isaiah fore-saw it, but did not know how it would be accomplished. The prophesy of Hosea is as follows: “Come and let us return to the Lord our God, because He has captured us and will heal us, He will wound us and will attend to our wounds within two days. On the third day we shall rise again and will live in His presence.”[17] Listen also to the words of Isaiah: “Lebanon was made low and Sharon was changed into swamps. Galilee and Carmel will be exalted. Because now I will rise again, says the Lord; now I will be glorified; now I will be exalted. Now you will see, and will be brought to shame.”[18] To the Jews were these words addressed. “Now I will rise again,” because now I will raise Adam, who was thrown into death by the transgression. “Now I will be glorified,” because I will demonstrate to the nations the impassibility of My passion. “Now I will be exalted,” because now I will raise to heaven your “firstfruits,”[19] and will raise “the form of the servant”[20] which I took from you to heaven and place it on the Cherubic throne. “Now you will see,” the types to be removed and the truth to blossom (open like a bud). “Now you will be brought to shame,” because of the words which you used in order to slander Me; because you were defeated from the events; because the glory belongs to God, to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and always and into the ages of the ages, Amen.

-----------

[1] The presbyter Hesychios was a teacher in Jerusalem during the first half of the 5th century AD. He was distinguished for his exegesis of the Bible and for his Sermons. The original text of the present Homily was published by Michel Aubineau in Subsidia Hagiographica 59 (1978) σσ. 112-116.

[2] (Matth. 27:63)

[3] (Matth. 27:62-66)

[4] (Matth. 28:2)

[5] (John 20:13)

[6] (Matth.28:5-6, Μark 16:6-7, Luke 24:5-7)

[7] (Matth.27:57-60, Μark 15:42-46, Luke 23:50-53, John 19:38-42)

[8] (John 1:14)

[9] (Εph. 4:9-10)

[10] (Matth.28:3, Mark 16:5, John 20:12, Luke24:4)

[11] (Matth.28:5-6, Mark 16:6)

[12] (Matth.28:6, Mark 16:6)

[13] (Luke 23:56, 24:1 Μark 16:1)

[14] (Matth.28:6, Μark 16:6)

[15] (Matth.28:2, Μark 16:3-4, Luke 24:2)

[16] (Matth.28:6)

[17] (Hosea 6:1-2)

[18] (Isaiah 33:9-11)

[19] (I Cor. 15:20)

[20] (Phil. 2:6)

Source: Translated by Protoresbyter George Dion Dragas. PhD. DD, DTh

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Relationship Between Faith and Reason In Orthodoxy

By Ivan Kireyevsky

From: On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principles in Philosophy (1856)

In the Church, the relationship between reason and faith is completely different from their relationship in the Latin and Protestant confessions. The difference is this: in the Church, Divine Revelation and human thought are not confused. The boundaries between the Divine and the human are transgressed neither by science nor by Church teaching. However much believing reason strives to reconcile reason and faith, it would never mistake any dogma of Revelation for a simple conclusion of reason and would never attribute the authority of revealed dogma to a conclusion of reason. The boundaries stand firm and inviolable. No patriarch, no synod of bishops, no profound consideration of the scholar, no authority, no impulse of so-called public opinion at any time could add a new dogma or alter an existing one, or ascribe to it the authority of Divine Revelation — representing in this manner the explanation of man’s reason as the sacred teaching of the Church or projecting the authority of eternal and steadfast truths of Revelation into the realm of systematic knowledge subject to development, change, errors, and the separate conscience of each individual. Every extension of Church teaching beyond the limits of Holy Tradition leaves the realm of Church authority and becomes a private opinion — more or less respectable, but still subject to the verdict of reason. No matter whose this new opinion might be, if it is not recognised by former ages — even the opinion of a whole people or of the greater part of all Christians at a given time — if it attempts to pass for a Church dogma, by this very claim excludes itself from the Church. For the Church does not limit its self-consciousness to any particular epoch, however much this epoch might consider itself more rational than any former. The sum total of all Christians of all ages, past and present, comprises one indivisible, eternal, living assembly of the faithful, held together just as much by the unity of consciousness as through the communion of prayer.

This inviolability of the limits of Divine Revelation is an assurance of the purity and firmness of faith in the Church. It guards its teaching from incorrect reinterpretations of natural reason on the one hand, and, on the other, guards against illegitimate intervention by Church authority. Thus, for the Orthodox Christian it will forever remain equally incomprehensible how it was possible to burn Galileo [Kireyevsky apparently confused Galileo with Giordano Bruno] for holding opinions differing from the opinions of the Latin hierarchy, and how it was possible to reject the credibility of an apostolic epistle on the ground that the truths it expressed were not in accord with the notions of some person or some epoch [a reference to Luther’s rejection of the Epistle of James].

But the more clearly and firmly the limits of Divine Revelation are defined, stronger is the urgency for believing thought [noesis] to reconcile the concept of reason with the teaching of faith. For truth is one, and striving for the consciousness of this unity is the constant law and the basic stimulus of rational activity.

The more free and more sincere believing reason is in its natural activities, the more fully and more correctly it aspires towards Divine truth. For the thinking Orthodox Christian, the teaching of the Church is not an empty mirror which reflects the features of each personality; it is not a Procrustean bed which deforms living personalities according to one arbitrary yardstick; it is rather the highest ideal towards which believing reason alone can aspire, the ultimate limit to the highest kind of thought, the guiding star which burns on high and, reflected in the heart, illumines the path to truth for reason.

But, in order to bring faith and reason into accord, it is not enough for the thinking Orthodox Christian to construct rational concepts in accordance with the tenets of faith, selecting the appropriate, excluding the offensive, and thus ridding reason of everything which contradicts faith. If Orthodox thinking consisted of such a negative approach to faith, the results would have been the same as in the West. Concepts irreconcilable with faith deriving from the same source and in the same manner as those compatible with it would have an equal right to recognition. Thus, the same painful dichotomy would occur in the very basis of self-consciousness and would sooner or later unavoidably deflect thought from faith.

But the main difference in Orthodox thinking is precisely this: it seeks not to arrange separate concepts according to the demands of faith, but rather to elevate reason itself above its usual level [move from dianoetic to noetic thinking], thus striving to elevate the very source of reason, the very manner of rational thinking, to the level of sympathetic agreement with faith.

The first condition for the elevation of reason is that man should strive to gather into one indivisible whole all his separate faculties, which in the ordinary condition of man are in dispersion and contradiction; that he should not consider his abstract logical [dianoetic] faculty as the only organ for comprehending truth; that he should not consider the voice of enraptured feeling, uncoordinated with other forces of the spirit, as the faultless guide to truth; that he should not consider the promptings of an isolated aesthetic sense, independent of other faculties, as the true guide to the comprehension of the supreme organisation of the universe; that he should not consider even the dominant love of his heart, separate from the other demands of the spirit, as the infallible guide to the attainment of the supreme good; but that he should constantly seek in the depth of his soul that inner root of understanding where all the separate faculties merge into one living and whole vision of the mind [integral knowledge].

And, for the comprehension of truth in this union of all spiritual faculties, the mind should not bring the thoughts present before it to a sequence of separate judgments by each individual faculty, attempting to coordinate their judgments into one common meaning. But, when the whole vision of the mind is complete with every movement of the soul, all its strivings should be heard in full accord, blending into a single, harmonious sound.

The inner consciousness, which forms the common life-forces in the depth of the soul for all the separate faculties of reason, is hidden from the usual state of the human spirit, but is accessible to the person who seeks it and is worthy of attaining the highest truth. Such consciousness constantly elevates man’s very manner of thought and, whilst humbling his rational conceit, does not constrain the freedom of the natural laws of his reason. On the contrary, inner consciousness strengthens his independence and, meanwhile, willingly subordinates it to faith. Then he looks on all thinking emanating from the highest source of rationality as incomplete and, therefore, erroneous knowledge — knowledge which cannot serve as the expression of the highest truth, although it might be useful in its subordinate position and might sometimes even be a necessary step on the way to other knowledge which stands at a still lower level.

That is why the free development of the natural laws of reason cannot be harmful to the faith of the thinking Orthodox Christian. He might be contaminated by unbelief, though only if his external indigenous culture were inadequate. He could not arrive at unbelief through the natural development of reason as thinking people of other confessions have done. His basic notions about faith and reason guard him against this misfortune. To him, faith is not a blind notion which is in the state of faith only because it has not been developed by natural reason, and needs to be elevated by reason to the level of rationality and broken down into its constituent parts as evidence there is nothing specifically in it which cannot be found could not be found without the help of Divine Revelation in natural reason. Neither is faith an external authority alone, before which reason is compelled to become blind. It is, rather, an external and an inner authority simultaneously; the highest wisdom, life-giving for the mind. The development of natural reason serves faith only as a series of steps, and going beyond the usual state of the mind, faith thereby informs reason that it has departed from its original natural wholeness, and by this communication, instructs it to return to the level of higher activity. For the Orthodox believer knows the wholeness of truth needs the wholeness of reason, and the quest of this wholeness is his constant preoccupation.

In the presence of such a conviction, the entire chain of the basic principles of natural reason [dianoia] which can serve as the point of departure for all possible systems of thought is below the reason of the believer [noesis], just as in external nature the whole chain of organic life is below man, who is capable of an inner consciousness of God and prayer at all levels of development. Standing on this highest level of [noetic] thought, the Orthodox believer can easily and harmlessly comprehend all systems of thought deriving from the lower levels of reason; he can see their limitations and their relative truthfulness. However, for the lower form of thought, the higher is incomprehensible and appears nonsensical. Such, in general, is the law of the human mind.

This independence of the basic thought of the Orthodox believer from lower systems which might reach his mind is not the exclusive possession of learned theologians, but is, so to speak, in the very air of Orthodoxy. No matter how undeveloped the reasoning faculties of the believer are, every Orthodox person is conscious in the depths of his soul that Divine truth cannot be embraced by considerations of ordinary reason and that it demands a higher spiritual view acquired through inner existence, not through external erudition. That is why he seeks true contemplation of God where he thinks he can find a pure whole life which would assure him the wholeness of reason and not where academic learning alone is exalted. That is why instances are very rare of an Orthodox believer losing his faith solely as a result of logical arguments capable of changing his rational concepts. In most cases, he is enticed, rather than convinced, by unbelief. He loses faith not because of intellectual difficulties, but because of the temptations of life, and he brings in rationalistic considerations only to justify the apostasy of his own heart to himself. Later, his unbelief becomes fortified by some sort of rational system which replaces his former faith, so that it then becomes difficult for him to return to faith without first clearing the way for his reason. But, as long as he believes with his heart, logical reasoning is harmless to him. For him there is no thought separated from the memory of the inner wholeness of the mind, of that point of concentration of self-consciousness which is the true locus of supreme truth, and where not abstract reasoning alone, but the sum total of man’s intellectual and spiritual faculties stamps with one common imprint the credibility of the thought which confronts reason — just as on Mount Athos each monastery bears only one part of the seal which, when all its parts are put together at the general council of the monastic representatives, constitutes the one legal seal of the Holy Mountain.

Therefore, there are always two activities combined in the thinking of the Orthodox believer. Following the development of his own understanding, he meantime follows the very manner of his thinking, constantly striving to elevate reason to the level at which it can be in sympathy with faith. Inner consciousness, or sometimes only a vague awareness of this ultimate limit which is being sought, is present in every exertion of his reason, in every breath of his thought; and if, at any time, the development of an original culture in the world of the Orthodox believer is possible, it is thus obvious that this peculiarity of Orthodox thought deriving from the special relationship of reason to faith must determine its predominant orientation. Only such thought could, in time, liberate the intellectual life of the Orthodox world from the distorting influences of alien culture and also from the suffocating oppression of ignorance, both equally odious to Orthodox culture. For the development of thought giving a particular meaning to all intellectual life, or, even better, the development of philosophy, is determined by the union of the two opposite ends of human thought, the one wedded to the highest questions of faith and the one where philosophy touches on the development of the sciences and external culture.

Philosophy is neither one of the sciences nor faith. It is both the sum total and the common basis of all sciences and is the conductor of thought between them and faith. Where there is faith but no development of rational learning, philosophy cannot exist. Where science and learning have developed but there is no faith or where faith has disappeared, philosophical convictions replace convictions of faith and, appearing in the form of prejudice, give direction to the thought and life of a people. Not all who share philosophical convictions have studied the systems from which they derive, but all accept the final conclusions of these systems, so to speak, on faith that others are correct in their convictions. Resting on these mental prejudices on the one hand, and stimulated by the problems of contemporary learning on the other, human reason gives birth to new philosophical systems corresponding to the mutual relationship between established prejudices and contemporary culture.

But where the faith of a people has one meaning and one orientation whilst the learning borrowed from another people has a different meaning and different orientation, one of two things must happen: learning will force out faith, giving rise to appropriate philosophical convictions, or faith, overcoming this external learning in the thinking consciousness of the people, will produce its own philosophy from contact with it, which will give a different meaning to external learning and will endow it with a different dominant principle.

The latter occurred when Christianity appeared in the midst of pagan culture. Not only science, but pagan philosophy was transformed into an instrument of Christian culture and was incorporated into the body of Christian philosophy as a subordinate principle.

As long as external culture continued to exist in the East, Orthodox Christian philosophy flourished. It was extinguished when freedom died in Greece and Greek culture was destroyed. But traces have been preserved in the writings of the Holy Fathers like living sparks ready to flare up at first contact with believing thought and again to ignite the guiding beacon for reason in search of truth.

Yet, restoring the philosophy of the Holy Fathers as it was in their time is impossible. Having grown out of the relationship of faith to their contemporary culture, it had to correspond to the problems of its own time and to the culture in which it developed. Development of new aspects of systematic and social learning also demands a corresponding new development of philosophy. But the truths expressed in the speculative writings of the Holy Fathers could serve the development of philosophy as a life-bearing embryo and a bright guiding light.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Liturgical Arts and Man's Cure

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

There is a trend nowadays to chant in a Byzantine way, to make icons in a Byzantine manner, to build churches according to Byzantine architecture, etc. This is good. Yet, it must be done in parallel with the effort to find and use the therapeutic treatment of the Church. For, liturgical arts as well as the entire teaching of the Church are the expression of this inner life. In other words, liturgical art was developed by sanctified people who had personal experience of the stages of spiritual perfection. In their attempt to create art they infused into their art all the experiences they had. The iconographer passed down in the Byzantine icon the therapeutic method and the way in which man reaches to theosis; he even imparted the state of theosis itself. When he paints the Saint in glory, he also renders the transfiguration of the human body. The same thing applies to the sacred hymns, the church building, the chanting. The healed person, he who has acquired the experience of noetic worship, knows how the intellectual worship must be expressed, so that it is attuned, as much as possible, with the inner state of the soul. I think that the revival of the liturgical arts which do not express and do not lead to purification, illumination and theosis is not Orthodox despite its external conformity. It is just a culture of the tradition and of art. The Apostle Paul, for example, lived the whole rabbinical tradition of his age, however he fought Christ. He had zeal for God but his zeal was not according to knowledge. The same thing may happen with us. Also, it is possible that a contemporary deified person may express tradition differently, concerning the liturgical arts, without naturally being estranged from the basic structure of the Byzantine tradition. This occurs because the Saint obtains the tradition, he is a bearer of tradition and, therefore, he creates tradition.

Source

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

My Letter To Harold Camping In 1994

"Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; they speak a vision of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:16).

It has become well-known that Harold Camping has proclaimed the rapture will happen on May 21, 2011. He says if you don't believe "his" prediction with all your heart, then you will be left behind to face the wrath of God. Listen to him here and here.

Back in the early 1990's I would sometimes listen to Harold Camping on my local Christian radio station at night before bed. For the most part I enjoyed his program, being mainly interested in listening to the questions of his callers. But then he started proclaiming that the end of the world was near and started getting into weird numerological interpretations of Scripture, and that's when I began to lose a lot of respect for the man. But his prediction at the time was not for May 21, 2011. Rather the date was in a book he wrote titled 1994?.

In his book 1994? Harold Camping stated the end of the world may occur in this year, somewhere between September 15-17 (p. 531). He did not know the exact day back then because Scripture says “no man knows the day nor the hour” (Matt. 24:36). But according to Camping we can certainly know the month and the year that Christ will return.

I was 17 years old and in high school when Camping proclaimed the end of the world. September 1994 was supposed to be the beginning of my first year in college. I never bought into his wacky interpretations of Scripture, but I always did wonder if he believed in them. I decided to write him a letter to see where he really stood in his position that the end was near. Below is my letter:

June 20, 1994

Dear Mr. Camping:

I am a recent graduate of high school and am preparing for college in September. I have listened to your radio program many times over the past few years and have often benefited from it. However I am wondering how seriously you believe that the end of the world will be coming this September. To me it seems you are twisting the Scriptures in an occultic way through numerology and allegory, much like many cults have been doing since the 19th century.

To even begin to take you seriously, I am making a proposal for you. As you know, college is expensive and I'm actually looking forward to it. If you really believe the end is near and you want to get this message across to the world, then, like the Prophets and Apostles, you should abandon all your earthly possessions and cares to show how much you believe it through your sacrifice. My proposal therefore is that you do this in the final months of your existence here on earth before the rapture, and that you do this by signing everything you own over to me as of October 1994. This would include your house, your car, your bank account, and everything else in your name.

If you would not be willing to do this, then I will have to dismiss you as a false prophet. My information is below.

Sincerely,

John Sanidopoulos

I never heard from him, as expected.

Well, September 1994 came and went like any other month and year. How did he explain this? According to Harold Camping, the Church age of 1,900 years was over at that time. The Church as an organized entity has come to an end. The invisible or eternal Church still exists in heaven, but the visible Church, made up of congregations and denominations, has been done away with. God has destroyed the Church. In essence, he teaches that God has done away with the Church, and thus there should be no more local congregations, elders, deacons, and ordinances such as baptism or the Lord’s Supper. He maintains that the Holy Spirit has left the Church as an empty shell with no power to proclaim the gospel.

One would think he would have been dismissed as a false prophet. To most he was, though not all. Now he has mostly become a target for the media to make religious quacks look quackier than most really are.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Pontian Genocide 1916-1923

ΓΕΝΟΚΤΟΝΙΑ ΠΟΝΤΙΩΝ - PONTIAN GENOCIDE by rodibill

May 19 has been recognized by the Greek parliament as the day of remembrance of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. There are various estimates of the toll. Records kept mainly by priests show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops and Kurdish para-militaries. Other estimates, including those of foreign missionaries, spoke of 500,000 deaths, most through deportation and forced marches into the Anatolian desert interior. Thriving Greek cities like Pafra, Samsous, Kerasous, and Trapezous, at the heart of Pontian Hellenism on the coast of the Black Sea, endured recurring massacres and deportations that eventually destroyed their Greek population.

The opening bell of the genocide came with the order in 1914 for all Pontian men between the ages of 18 and 50 to report for military duty. Those who “refused” or “failed” to appear, the order provided, were to be summarily shot. The immediate result of this firman (decree) was the murder of thousands of the more prominent Pontians, whose name appeared on lists of “undesirables” already prepared by the Young Turk regime.

Added thousands ended up in the notorious Labor Battalions (amele taburu). In a precursor of what was to become a favorite practice in Hitler’s extermination camps, Pontian men were driven from their homes into the wilderness to perform hard labor and expire from exhaustion, thirst, and disease. German advisors of the Turkish regime (what a surprise!) suggested that Pontian populations be forced into internal exile. This “advise” led directly to the emptying of hundreds of Pontian villages and the forced march of women, children, and old people to nowhere. The details of this systematic slaughter of the Pontians by the Turks were dutifully recorded by both German and Austrian diplomats.

The Pontians, unlike Greeks elsewhere in Asia Minor, did try to organize armed resistance against their butchers. Pontian guerrilla bands had appeared in the mountains of Santa as early as 1916. Brave leaders, like Capitan Stylianos Kosmidis, even hoisted the flag of independent Pontus in the hope of help from Greece and Russia (which never arrived). But the struggle was unequal. The Turkish army, assisted by the blood-thirsty Tsets, cuthroats of mostly Kurdish extraction, attacked and destroyed undefended Pontian villages in revenge.

On May 19, 1919, chief butcher Kemal himself disembarked at Samsous to begin organizing the final phase of the Pontian genocide. Assisted by his German advisers, and surrounded by his own band of killers — monsters like Topal Osman, Refet Bey, Ismet Inonu, and Talaat Pasha — the founder of “modern” Turkey applied himself to the destruction of the Pontian Greeks. With the Greek army engaged in Anatolia, a new wave of deportations, mass killings, and “preventative” executions destroyed the remnants of Pontian Hellenism. The plan worked with deadly precision. In the Amasia province alone, with a pre-war population of some 180,000, records show a final tally of 134,000 people liquidated.

The memory of the Pontian Genocide is dedicated to all those in Europe and the U.S. who shamelessly advocate admitting Turkey into the EU and describe it as a “democracy.” They are all blind as they are shameless.

AUSTRIAN AND GERMAN ARCHIVES REVEAL THE CRIME

24 July 1909 German Ambassador in Athens Wangenheim to Chancellor Bulow quoting Turkish Prime Minister Sefker Pasha: “The Turks have decided upon a war of extermination against their Christian subjects.”

26 July 1909 Sefker Pasha visited Patriarch Ioakeim III and tells him: “we will cut off your heads, we will make you disappear. It is either you or us who will survive.”

14 May 1914 Official document from Talaat Bey Minister of the Interior to Prefect of Smyrna: The Greeks, who are Ottoman subjects, and form the majority of inhabitants in your district, take advantage of the circumstances in order to provoke a revolutionary current, favourable to the intervention of the Great Powers. Consequently, it is urgently necessary that the Greeks occupying the coast-line of Asia Minor be compelled to evacuate their villages and install themselves in the vilayets of Erzerum and Chaldea. If they should refuse to be transported to the appointed places, kindly give instructions to our Moslem brothers, so that they shall induce the Greeks, through excesses of all sorts, to leave their native places of their own accord. Do not forget to obtain, in such cases, from the emigrants certificates stating that they leave their homes on their own initiative, so that we shall not have political complications ensuing from their displacement.

31 July 1915 German priest J. Lepsius: “The anti-Greek and anti-Armenian persecutions are two phases of one programme – the extermination of the Christian element from Turkey.

16 July 1916 German Consul Kuchhoff from Amisos to Berlin: “The entire Greek population of Sinope and the coastal region of the county of Kastanome has been exiled. Exile and extermination in Turkish are the same, for whoever is not murdered, will die from hunger or illness.”

30 November 1916 Austrian consul at Amisos Kwiatkowski to Austria Foreign Minister Baron Burian: “on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: “we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians . . . on 28 November. Rafet Bey told me: “today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight.” I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of what occurred last year” (meaning the Armenian genocide).

13 December 1916 German Ambassador Kuhlman to Chancellor Hollweg in Berlin: “Consuls Bergfeld in Samsun and Schede in Kerasun report of displacement of local population and murders. Prisoners are not kept. Villages reduced to ashes. Greek refugee families consisting mostly of women and children being marched from the coasts to Sebasteia. The need is great.”

19 December 1916 Austrian Ambassador to Turkey Pallavicini to Vienna lists the villages in the region of Amisos that were being burnt to the ground and their inhabitants raped, murdered or dispersed.

20 January 1917 Austrian Ambassador Pallavicini: “the situation for the displaced is desperate. Death awaits them all. I spoke to the Grand Vizier and told him that it would be sad if the persecution of the Greek element took the same scope and dimension as the Armenia persecution. The Grand Vizier promised that he would influence Talaat Bey and Emver Pasha.”

31 January 1917 Austrian Chancellor Hollweg’s report: “. . . the indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger and illness. The abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks.

Thus, by government decree 1,500,000 Armenians and 300,000 Pontian Greeks were annihilated through exile, starvation, cold, illness, slaughter, murder, gallows, axe, and fire. Those who survived fled never to return. The Pontians now lie scattered all over the world as a result of the genocide and their unique history, language (the dialect is a valuable link between ancient and modern Greek), and culture are endangered and face extinction.

A double crime was committed – genocide and the uprooting of a people from their ancestral homelands of three millenia. The Christian nations were not only witnesses to this horrible and monstrous crime, which remains unpunished, but for reasons of political expediency and self interest have, by their silence, pardoned the criminal. The Ottoman and Kemalist Turks were responsible for the genocide of the Pontian people, the most heinous of all crimes according to international law. The international community must recognise this crime.

Source

See also:

Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance

The “Pontian Genocide”: Distortions, Misconceptions and Falsehoods

Τὸ Μαρτύριον τοῦ ᾿Αρχιμανδρίτου Πλάτωνος Αϊβαζίδου

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

The Love of the Prophet Jeremiah After Death

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"This done, in like manner there appeared a man with gray hairs and exceeding glorious, who was of a wonderful and excellent majesty. Then Onias answered, saying, 'This is a lover of the brethren, who prays much for the people and for the holy city, that is, Jeremiah the prophet of God'" (2 Maccabees 15:13-14).

This was the vision which was seen by the courageous Judas Maccabees. The first to appear to him from the other world was Onias the high priest and after that the holy Prophet Jeremiah. Just as Moses and Elijah were seen in glory by the apostles on Mt. Tabor, thus, at one time Judas Maccabees saw the Prophet Jeremiah in glory. Not even before the resurrected Christ did God the Merciful leave men without proof of life after death. In Christian times, however, those proofs are without number and without end. Whoever, even after all of this, doubts in life after death, that one stands under the curse of his sin as under his grave stone. As inanimate things cannot see the light of day, so neither can he see who doubts life which is and to which there is no end.

But, behold with what kind of glory is the Prophet Jeremiah wedded in the other life! "Gray hairs and exceeding glorious." Around him a certain indescribable dignity, a certain bright aureole, a certain inexpressible pleasure and beauty. He who was dragged and beaten by men to whom he communicated and imparted the will of God and who was a captive in prison and a martyr in a fetid hole and who was ridiculed as folly and was tried as a traitor and finally, as a transgressor, was stoned to death. However, one is the judgment of sinners, another is the judgment of God. The most humiliated among men became wedded with angelic glory before God.

And yet behold how heaven calls one, whom the earth called false, a traitor and a transgressor! "Lover of the brethren" this is how heaven called him. "Lover of the brethren" who prays much for the people. Finally, see how the saints in heaven pray to God for us! Not sleeping, they are praying for us while we are asleep; not eating, they are praying for us while we are eating and have over-eaten; not sinning, they are praying for us while we are sinning. O brethren, let us be ashamed before so many of our sincere friends. Let us be ashamed, let us be ashamed of so many prayers for us by the saints and let us join with their prayers.

O Lord All-wonderful, forgive us our sinful slothfulness and dullness. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Video: Sai Baba Exposed

Read also: The Trickery of Sai Baba

Tweet

Share on Tumblr

Miracles of Saint John Karastamatis of Santa Cruz

To read the life of Fr. John Karastamatis (+ 1985), whose memory is celebrated on May 19th, read here and here.

The following miracles were compiled by Claude Lopez, one of Father Dorotheos Themelis spiritual sons living in Switzerland. Concerning these, he writes: "All the miracles mentioned were either told by Fr. Dorotheos, who is a personal friend, or were written to me from Greece by spiritual children of Fr. Dorotheos; or, as in the case of the ones from Switzerland, they happened at our place in Geneva."

1. A New Quick-Hearer In Greece

St. John's mother is very old and does not know that her son died. She is often visited by a priest "who is very kind but won't accept to drink or eat with her." It is her son!

One day at the Monastery of St. Nicholas on Andros, Fr. Dorotheos Themelis, Spiritual Father of St. John, was sitting and talking with four different people. Suddenly they saw St. John in the entrance door. Fr. Dorotheos, very moved, cried out to him, "Father John!" But he disappeared. A few minutes later, the postman came with two parcels: one contained the service to St. John in English and the second one an icon of the latter.

Father Dorotheos, wishing to honor his spiritual son, ordered an icon to be made in Athens. The iconographer finished the icon and varnished it with a varnish that did not have a very pleasant scent. When he came back the next day, his workshop was filled with a very fine and subtle fragrance. He asked his brother whether he had burned any incense in the room. His brother replied to him that he did not have money to spend on such nonsense. (He obviously was not a very pious man.) The iconographer went closer to the icon and realized that the perfume was actually coming from the icon itself. This lasted a few days and disappeared.

Mother K., superior of a small women's monastery in Athens, saw St. John in a dream. He told her that his icon should be spread in the world. She told the Saint's spiritual father and little reproductions were made and are now available.

A.K., a young girl, had serious personal problems. Through a friend of hers who knew Father Dorotheos on Andros, she phoned him and asked him to pray to the Saint (meaning St. John of Santa Cruz) in order that she might get help from him. He did so. When he finished praying, the phone rang: it was A.K.; her problems were solved.

The mother of the aforementioned girl saw St. John in a dream: light was coming from the Cross he was holding in his hand.

Archimandrite Dorotheos Themelis and Fr. John Karastamatis in 1981, serving together in the church of the Monastery of St. Nicholas on Andros.

2. Paradisal Fragrance

Father Dorotheos is used to coming to Switzerland twice a year. Some people knew about St. John (thanks to what was published in The Orthodox Word) but the presence of Father Dorotheos has permitted a better knowledge of the new martyr, and he has manifested himself several times in various places there.

In a little village of the Canton de Vaud, a relic of the Holy New Martyr John - a fragment of his epitrachelion - started giving a very strong fragrance one night (October, 1986) at the home of a couple of Orthodox Christians, Claude and Dominique Lopez. This part of the Saint's epitrachelion is inside a box. Inside the lid of this box there is a carved wooden icon, and on the lid there is a painted one.

The fragrance was a very strong one, a little like a lily.

They waited until the next day before mentioning anything to anyone. The wife Dominique did not want this to be publicized. Claude had been asked by Father Dorotheos to write a life of the New Martyr and to mention some of the miracles that had already happened. The husband tried to argue that this grace of God was to be proclaimed, but he finally accepted his wife's position.

During the night, the wife woke up because of the strong fragrance of lily which had come all the way from the icon corner to her bed. She could not sleep because of it and went to the icon corner. It was lit as if it were daytime. She prayed for a while and then went back to bed. On the next morning she told her husband that she agreed to have the wonder of the epitrachelion published. The Saint had convinced her.

This epitrachelion has kept its perfume; at times, its fragrance fills the whole apartment. In February, 1989, the inside wooden icon started smelling, too, and tiny drops of myrrh appeared during three days and disappeared. Both the epitrachelion and the icon are still very fragrant to this day (19 October 1989). Cotton put in contact with the relic keeps this subtle fragrance in a very strange way.

In the same place, one night Dominique had a dream. She saw herself and her husband in Greece, in a huge church where people were venerating the relics of a saint. Her husband had venerated the relics and told her: "There are three bones! Can't you see?" She could not see. She wiped the glass that covered the top of the reliquery, and she saw the face of a priest. The dream ended there.

The next morning the postman came with a parcel from the United States. In it were several things concerning St. John and in an envelope a photograph of the tomb of Father John the New Martyr. On the tombstone there was a photograph in a medallion: Father John! This was the face Dominique recognized from her dream.

The grave of Fr. John at Greek Orthodox Memorial Park in Colma, California.

3. Healing Of A Growth

In Geneva, Mrs. S.P., a pious Greek Orthodox woman, once called one of her Orthodox friends, asking for help. She had developed a growth - about the size of a pigeon egg - under one of her eyes; she could hardly see and could not wear her glasses. Her friend told her that she should pray to St. John. She went to the Saint's icon and she prayed thus: "My Saint John, please, pray to God for me; you notice how miserable I feel...." She kissed the icon and the relic of the epitrachelion that it contained, and she went to do her various duties. A few minutes later she happened to be in the washroom; she looked at herself in a mirror and was flabbergasted: the growth had disappeared!

In Aigle, a young Orthodox lady A.M. had big problems: she was unemployed and could not get paid for what she had done previously. She had been fired by her employer after having been "badmouthed" by some of her colleagues. She prayed to St. John and very unexpectedly her boss met her, apologized and decided to grant her whatever she was trying to get through her lawyer.

She also had problems with taxes which were solved very remarkably through St. John's intercessions.

She is used to visiting friends who happen to have the fragrant relic of St. John's epitrachelion and the fragrant icon. She always brings flowers to them, for the icon of St. John.

Claude Lopez
October 6/19, 1989
Batiment Cugnoni, 1855 Saint Triphon
Switzerland

Source: The Orthodox Word, No. 1 (156), January-February, 1991.

Tweet

Share on Tumblr