The Myrrhgushing Miracle of St. Demetrios in 1987: A Testimony

It was October 26, 1987. The time was past 10:00 p.m. The city was celebrating the memory of the contest of its patron saint, St. Demetrios, and the freedom from the nearly five hundred years (1430-1912) occupation by the Ottomans. The Church of St. Demetrios with open doors received its nightly venerators, who were kneeling in front of the silver casket with the holy relics of the Myrrhgusher. At that moment there must not have been more than thirty to forty people in the church. A circle of about ten women were in front of the shrine, chanting the Paraklesis of the Saint. The only clergyman who attended, was the young and newly-ordained deacon of the church with his deaconess-wife. The then head of the church and now Metropolitan Panteleimon of Beroia, Naousa and Campania, had ordered them to be there and wait for him.

Suddenly, the women singing the Paraklesis began to yell. The deacon ran to them and the women, with mixed feelings, showed him the casket. It was literally bathed in an oily myrrh formation (we say myrrh because the smell was incomparable). One could have said with certainty that someone poured onto it at least two "buckets" of aromatic liquid (I use the word "buckets" to mean that the quantity of myrrh that slid down the solid walls of the silver casket to the embossed depiction was great).

The deacon for a moment was baffled: the Saint is gushing myrrh! Without any doubt at all about the miracle, and finding himself in a state of joy, surprise and excitement, he ran to bring cotton from some furniture of the sanctuary. He returned running and started wiping with cotton the myrrh from the outer walls of the shrine and gave parts of this fragrant cotton to pilgrims. He would wipe it up and the myrrh would not stop, but kept mystically flowing, without any visible source. Characteristically, one fact made an impression: with a large piece of cotton he wiped the myrrh of a smooth area of ​​the casket. The cotton wiped away the myrrh, like when you wipe a glass with a dry cloth, pressing it well and removing moisture that can exist on it. A woman wiped with the palm of her hand on the part of the shrine that had just been wiped. The deacon, with amazement, saw her hand wet by the oily yellow myrrh!

Meanwhile, the scent flooded throughout the church and overflowed from the open doors to St. Demetrios Street, attracting passers-by who rushed in to see what was happening and from where came this fragrance. Everyone headed to the casket with the relics of Saint Demetrios, who was not placed in the tomb (it had not yet been constructed), but in front of the iconostasis.


The pleasant surprises did not stop there! The pilgrims found that all the icons of the church, wherever they were, in the shrines or church, flowed myrrh. Indeed, the deacon saw pilgrims take out paper towels and wipe the glass protected icons of the church and the paper towels turned yellow from the myrrh which "ran" from both sides of the glass, interior and exterior. The size of the miracle did not leave the slightest room for doubt. We did not understand what we were witnessing, it was like a dream in the mist, but we lived it! We touched it with our hands, we saw it with our eyes, we smelled it with our sense of smell!

In a short time there formed a line of people with tears in their eyes venerating the casket of the Myrrhgusher, who realized why he was so nicknamed.

Meanwhile there arrived to the church the head priest and other clergy. They unlocked the openings of the casket and found the holy relics of the patron saint of Thessaloniki. Though fragrant, it was the particular scent of sacred relics. The fragrance of myrrh was different and distinctive.

The blessed Metropolitan Panteleimon II Chrysofakis of Thessaloniki, attributed the miracle of the myrrhgushing of St. Demetrios to this fact: That evening, at the gala ceremony at the University for the freedom of Thessaloniki, the keynote speaker ignored in his speech entirely the Saint and there was no reference to him. Saint Demetrios spoke with his myrrhgushing that he never left the city of Thessaloniki, so now he is always present, and this is what saved her from slavery and from earthquakes, but complains when Thessalonians prove ungrateful and distance themselves from Christ and His saints.

24 years have passed since then. I was the then deacon of the church, and now a priest in Thessaloniki, and I write the facts as I remember. That moment was like living a mystery. I cannot describe what I felt! Joy, surprise, excitement, enthusiasm ... I cannot determine exactly. However, it is the events that reinforce belief that fill us with joy, hope and a sense of the presence of Christ and the saints. Our faith is "alive".


Fr. Christos Kotios
Vicar of the Holy Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos
Saranta Ekklesies, Thessaloniki

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Paul Did Not 'Invent' Christianity

Greg Carey
October 26, 2011
The Huffington Post

It's not rare to encounter people who claim that Paul "invented" Christianity. The basic idea is that Jesus taught a pure and ethical form of Judaism that focused on God and gracious living, while Paul developed a religion that worshiped Jesus rather than God. Though this idea literally makes no sense historically, it's gotten a lot of run. Even the occasional serious academic book "blames" Paul for perverting Jesus' message in inventing Christianity.

One easily appreciates the appeal of this position. In the first three Gospels -- Matthew, Mark and Luke -- Jesus speaks continually about the kingdom of God. He does not ordinarily speak about himself. In the fourth Gospel, however, Jesus talks about himself all the time. Even ancient Christians recognized this phenomenon. Writing around the year 200, Clement of Alexandria described John as "a spiritual Gospel" on the grounds that it relayed not the literal history of Jesus' career but its spiritual and theological significance. How did followers of Jesus move from a religion focused upon Israel's God and God's kingdom to a religion devoted to the person of Jesus? For many, the Apostle Paul fills that gap.

However, every bit of evidence we possess demonstrates that Paul did not, in fact, invent Christianity. Let's begin with how Paul came to follow Jesus in the first place. The book of Acts claims that Paul, having already persecuted some believers in Jesus, has a visionary encounter with the risen Christ. Paul himself describes that encounter as an "apocalypse," or a revelation. In any event, Acts agrees with Paul that the new apostle turned for support to a community of believers that already resided in Damascus.

If Paul invented Christianity, how did that community in Damascus come to exist? Paul's "conversion," as some call it, occurred within just two or three years of Jesus' death -- and already communities of Jesus followers were spreading beyond Judea and Galilee into Samaria, Syria and other parts of the ancient Mediterranean world.

Moreover, a look at Paul's missionary career debunks the notion that Paul invented Christianity. Having joined the believing community at Damascus, Paul later goes on to Syrian Antioch. The believing community there -- Acts refers to them being called "Christians" -- supports Paul and his partner Barnabas in their missionary activities (Acts 11:19-26). Obviously, the church would not have supported Paul if his teachings represented a radical departure from what they already knew.

Paul's next base of operations was Ephesus, a grand city in what is now southwestern Turkey. Again, the church in Ephesus existed prior to Paul's arrival, and Paul used Ephesus as a base of operations for his work to the west.

Finally, we have Paul's letter to the churches in Rome. This is the only surviving Pauline letter that addresses a church he has never visited -- again, we see an influential church that Paul had no role in founding. He hopes to visit Rome, build a relationship with the churches there, and rely upon their support for an ongoing mission to Spain (Romans 15:23-24).

So we have a pattern. From Damascus in southern Syria, to Antioch in northern Syria, to Ephesus in Asia (today, Turkey), to Rome and hopefully on to Spain, Paul extends his missionary work to embrace the entire northern Mediterranean rim. As he does so, he relies upon churches located in major cosmopolitan cities to support his mission. All of these churches existed prior to and independent of Paul's mission, yet they support him. This could not be the case were Paul inventing a dramatically new interpretation of Jesus.

Many people note that Paul rarely quotes Jesus or appeals to stories from Jesus' life. That is true. Apart from the traditions of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, Paul explicitly refers only to Jesus' teaching concerning divorce (1 Corinthians 7:10) and the Lord's Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). But he also insists that his teaching is consistent with that of Peter and the other apostles (1 Corinthians 3:22; 15:3-11; Galatians 1:18).

And while Paul rarely mentions specific examples from Jesus' sayings and ministry, his core values strongly reflect the influence of Jesus' teaching. Jesus taught his followers to lead by serving; so did Paul. Jesus promoted love as the greatest virtue; so did Paul. Jesus announced the coming kingdom of God; Paul taught that the kingdom would fully manifest itself upon the risen Jesus' return (1 Corinthians 15:24). Jesus' ministry involved an outreach to "sinners," prostitutes, lepers and other outcast persons; Paul extended the good news to Gentiles.

None of this is to deny the different sense one receives when one compares the Jesus stories to Paul's letters. Obviously things have changed from Jesus' ministry among Jews in Galilee and Judea to Paul's mission to Gentiles around the Mediterranean. For Paul, Jesus' resurrection required a dramatic reinterpretation of many things, including the significance of Jesus' ministry. However, Paul did not invent that idea; instead, he shared it with many other believers who were founding churches and cultivating communities far beyond his own reach.

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13th Century Byzantine Prayer Book Written Over Text of Archimedes

Thirteenth-century manuscript, overwritten with prayer book, deciphered after years of painstaking work.

Alison Flood
October 26 2011
Guardian.co.uk

Years of painstaking work by scientists to expose a manuscript hidden for nearly a thousand years have shed new light on the genius of Archimedes, antiquity's greatest mathematician.

Known as The Archimedes Palimpsest, the manuscript is a Byzantine prayer book from the 13th century which was assembled using pages from several earlier manuscripts – one of which contained several treatises by the Greek mathematician Archimedes that were copied in 10th-century Constantinople. These were first discovered in 1906 by the Danish Archimedes scholar Johan Ludwig Heiberg, but as the text had been scraped away to make room for the prayer book he was only able to partially read them, and the book then went missing until it was auctioned – in a much more damaged state – at Christie's in New York in 1998. Bought by an anonymous American collector for $2m (£1.25m), it was deposited at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, where scientists, conservators, classicists and historians have been working on uncovering the secrets of oldest surviving copy of Archimedes' works.

Using multispectral imaging and an x-ray technique which picked up the iron in the ink that had been scraped away, they discovered that Archimedes, working in the third century BC, considered the concept of actual infinity, something thought to have only been developed in the 19th century, and anticipated calculus. As well as seven treatises by the ancient Greek mathematician, including the only surviving copy of his The Method of Mechanical Theorems and Stomachion, new speeches by the classical Athenian orator Hyperides and a lost commentary on Aristotle's Categories from the second or third century AD were also found beneath the text of the prayer book.

The manuscript is now being displayed in an exhibition at the Walters, and Cambridge University Press is publishing later this month the two-volume book The Archimedes Palimpsest Project, which lays out the findings with images of the manuscripts, transcriptions of the texts and new readings of Archimedes' work.

The book's editor Michael Sharp called the discovery, in the treatise The Method of Mechanical Theorems, that at one point Archimedes considers the concept of actual infinity "very important for the history of mathematics and science". It sees Archimedes claiming that two different sets of lines are equal in multitude, although it is clearly understood that they are infinite, an approach which is "remarkably similar" to 16th and 17th-century works leading to the invention of calculus, according to the Walters Museum.

"The passage which makes this clear is one that Heiberg, the Danish mathematician of the early 20th century, had been completely unable to read. Since the concept of actual infinity has been crucial to the entire subsequent study of mathematics and physics, this is a particularly important new insight," said Sharp.

The palimpsest also contains the only existing copy of Archimedes' treatise Stomachion, in which he tries to discover how many ways 14 fixed pieces can be recombined to make a perfect square. The answer is 17,152 combinations. "Stomachion means bellyache – in antiquity you didn't call them brainteasers, you called them bellyachers. It's very interesting: not only is it completely different to his other works [but] it has been shown that it is actually the first work to develop the science of combinatorics – the maths of combinations which lies behind the mathematics of probability," said Sharp. "Before we knew this it was thought that combinatorics arose in the 17th or 18th century."

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Miniature Byzantine Prayer Box Found Near City of David

October 27, 2011
Biblical Archaeology

Archaeologists excavating near the Givati parking lot area in Jerusalem’s City of David have found a rare miniature prayer box of a Byzantine pilgrim to the Holy City. Measuring less than 1-inch square, the delicate bone box—probably a personal prayer object—contains two icon paintings surrounded by gold leaf. One image depicts a bearded man with dark hair wearing a white tunic; the other shows a female figure dressed in blue. It has been suggested the paintings are of Jesus and Mary.

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Russian Businessman Donates 70 Icons Worth Around $1m To the Church

The property developer Sergei Shmakov has spent over a year tracking down the works, which were removed from Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and during the second world war.

Sophia Kishkovsky
October 26, 2011
The Art Newspaper

A Russian businessman has donated more than 70 icons with an estimated value of Ru 30m (around $1m) to the Russian Orthodox Church. Property mogul Sergei Shmakov has spent over a year tracking down the icons—which were taken out of Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution and during the second world war—at auctions, antique stores and flea markets abroad. The icons include a rare mid-18th-century icon, St John the Theologian in Silence, which depicts the apostle with his fingers over his lips and an angel peering over his shoulder as he contemplates the gospel he is composing.

At a ceremony on 4 October, the Russian culture minister Alexander Avdeyev praised Shmakov for his donation. “Your help is a matter of great patriotism,” said Avdeyev. “You could have spent your money on something else, on developing your business, for example, but you are returning to Russia not only sacred, but cultural treasures, works of art.”

The culture ministry said that Avdeyev had accompanied Shmakov on some of his travels abroad in search of the icons. Avdeyev supported a law passed last November that calls for the return of religious property seized by the state after the revolution to the Church. The law, which focuses on real estate, triggered fears that the Russian Orthodox Church would lay claim to all icons in museums.

In 2009, the state-run Russian Museum in St Petersburg agreed to loan a 14th-century icon of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus, known as the Toropets Virgin Mary, to a church built by Shmakov near one of his housing developments outside Moscow. The loan has been extended several times, provoking outcry among the media and museum officials. At the October ceremony, Avdeyev announced that the icon would be sent for at least one year to the Toropets monastery in the Tver region from which it was taken. However, the icon, said Avdeyev, would remain federal museum property.

Shmakov paid for a special dual layer climate-controlled capsule to protect the icon at the Church of St Alexander Nevsky where it is currently located, and said a similar capsule that regulates ventilation and humidity and provides protection from vandals is being created for the Toropets monastery. Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate’s culture committee, said hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Russians have had the opportunity to venerate the icon at the Church of St Alexander Nevsky. It had not been displayed at the Russian Museum because of fears that it was too fragile. Museum experts have warned, for example, that candle wax is a serious threat to icons.

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Qatar & Greek Orthodox Church Discuss Solar Energy & Quarrying

Leone Kaye
October 27, 2011
GreenGoPost.com

Despite Greece thrown another lifeline after the announcement that the EU has agreed to halve Greece’s stifling debt, many of the nation’s institutions are still struggling financially. Ordinary Greeks have been hit hard by the crisis, as well as a trusted icon within many communities.

The Greek Orthodox Church has seen revenues fall during the economic downturn, according to a report in Ta Nea. In Greece’s three largest cities alone (Athens, Piraeus, and Thessaloniki), one-fourth of the church’s 486 properties are vacant. The church also owns a sizable amount of property throughout the Greek countryside, and it there that a path towards salvaging some of that lost rental income may emerge. To that end, the Athens archbishop, Hieronymos II, just visited Qatar to start discussions with officials in the tiny emirate to explore the possibilities of opening marble quarries and solar farms on church property.

How parishioners will react to a gulf country digging marble out from church property will be a matter church leaders will sort out next week. Watch for the discussion to be a heated one when the church’s Holy Synod meets on November 1. Qatar clearly needs the building materials with a host of international events leading up to the 2022 World Cup. The solar investment may be a more palatable option, as Qatar has demonstrated in recent months that it wants to become an important global hub of clean energy innovation and sustainability. Qatar has also shown more interest in the Balkans region with the emir’s recent visit to Macedonia.

So as the BRIC countries edge closer to bailing out their western allies, look for more curious deals like this Qatar-Greece engagement to come forward in the coming years. And watch for Qatar to continue its influence on the global scene, in southeastern Europe and beyond, that far outsizes its tiny corner of the Persian Gulf.

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Saint Nestor the Martyr of Thessaloniki

St. Nestor (Feast Day - October 27)

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

In the time of the suffering of St. Demetrios the Myrrhgusher, there was a young man of Thessalonica, Nestor, who learned the Christian Faith from St. Demetrios himself.

At that time Christ's enemy, Emperor Maximian, organized various games and amusements for the people. The emperor's favorite in these games was a Vandal by the name of Lyaeus, a man of Goliath-like size and strength. As the emperor's gladiator, Lyaeus challenged men every day to single combat and slew them. Thus, the bloodthirsty Lyaeus amused the bloodthirsty, idolatrous Maximian. The emperor built a special stage for Lyaeus's battles, similar to a threshing floor on pillars. Spears, points upward, were planted beneath this platform. When Lyaeus defeated someone in wrestling, he would throw him from the platform onto the forest of spears. The emperor and his pagan subjects cheered as some poor wretch writhed in torment on the spears until he died.

Among Lyaeus's innocent victims were many Christians: when no one volunteered to duel with Lyaeus, by the emperor's orders Christians were arrested and forced to duel with him. Seeing this horrifying amusement of the pagan world, Nestor's heart was torn with pain, and he decided to come forward for a duel with the gigantic Lyaeus. But first, he went to prison to see St. Demetrios and sought a blessing from him to do this. St. Demetrios blessed him, signed him with the sign of the Cross on the forehead and on the chest and prophesied to him: "You will defeat Lyaeus, but you will suffer for Christ." Thus, young Nestor went to duel with Lyaeus.

Maximian was present with a multitude of people; everyone felt pity for the young Nestor, who would surely die, and tried to dissuade him from dueling with Lyaeus. Nestor crossed himself and said: "O God of Demetrios, help me!" and with God's help, he overcame Lyaeus, knocked him down, and threw him onto the sharp spears, where the heavy giant soon found death. Then all the people cried out: "Great is the God of Demetrios!" But the emperor, shamed before the people and sorrowing for his favorite Lyaeus, was greatly angered at Nestor and Demetrios, and commanded that Nestor be beheaded and Demetrios run through with lances. Thus, the Christian hero Nestor ended his earthly life and took up his habitation in the Kingdom of his Lord in the year 306.

HYMN OF PRAISE: The Holy Martyr Nestor

St. Nestor was outraged at evil
And was zealous for the Christian Faith.
The young disciple of St. Demetrios
Seemed young and weak against the terrible Lyaeus,
But he traced the sign of the Cross on himself
And impaled the powerful Lyaeus on a spear.
He had been given power from above,
Like David against Goliath.
"You will conquer, but you will be tortured,
And will lay down your life for Christ."
Thus Demetrios prophesied to him,
And as he said, so it came to pass.
Nestor jubilantly went to torture,
And wonderfully magnified the wondrous Christ
With sweet words and sweet hymns,
And fervent prayers for the Church.
Great in spirit, small in years,
He did not grieve over his young life;
His blood strengthened the Church,
And Nestor was eternally glorified.

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

Kontakion in the Second Tone
Well didst thou contest; hence, thou hast now inherited immortal renown, wise Nestor, and thou art become Christ the Master's excellent soldier by the holy and fervent prayers of the Martyr Demetrios. Thus, with him, cease not to pray for all of us.

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The Skeptic Who Investigated the Tomb of Saint Demetrios

There lived once an ascetic on the Mount of Solomon who, hearing of the reports of the holy myrrh [of St. Demetrios], had doubts, saying in his mind that there were many other great martyrs who suffered more than St. Demetrios, yet they were not honored by God in such a manner. And one night later he saw, as if in a dream, that he was in the Church of St. Demetrios and he met the man who had the keys to the tomb of the Saint, and he asked him to open it that he might venerate it. When he was kissing the shrine, he observed that it was wet with fragrant myrrh, and he said to the keeper, "Come, help me that we might see from whence comes this holy myrrh." They dug, therefore, and came to a large marble slab which they removed with great difficulty, and immediately there appeared the body of the Saint, shining and fragrant, from which welled up abundant myrrh coming from the openings of his holy body made by the piercings of the lances. There flowed so much myrrh that both the keeper and the ascetic were drenched, and fearing to be drowned, the monk cried out, "Saint Demetrios, help!" Whereupon, he awoke from this vision and found himself to be drenched with the holy myrrh.

Source: "The Life of St. Demetrios of Thessalonica", The Orthodox Word, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California.

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The Megalynaria of Saint Demetrios

ΜΕΓΑΛΥΝΑΡΙΑ ΑΓΙΟΥ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ
(Ποίημα Ἁγίου Συμεών, Ἀρχιεπισκόπου Θεσσαλονίκης - Σε μορφή διαλόγου)

Ὁ Ἅγιος Δημήτριος: Ὦ Πατρὶς φιλτάτη μὴ δειλιᾷς, ἀεὶ γὰρ εὐχαῖς μου, ἐκ δεινῶν σὲ ἐλευθερῶ, ἀγαθῶν τε πάντων, πληρώσω σε ἐνθέων, καὶ σώσω καὶ φυλάξω, λέγει Δημήτριος.

Ἡ Θεσσαλονίκη: Ὑπὸ τὰς σὰς πτέρυγας Ἀθλητά, ἀεὶ σκεπομένη, ἐκλυτροῦμαι πάντων δεινῶν, νῦν δὲ ἡ πατρίς σου, κινδύνοις κλονουμένη, προστρέχω σοι καὶ κράζω· Μάρτυς βοήθει μοι.

Ὁ Ἅγιος Δημήτριος: Τάφος με καλύπτει Ἑλλάδος γῇ, ἀλλ’ ὁ κόσμος πλήρης, ἐκ τῶν μύρων μου τῆς ὀσμῆς, χαῖρε οὖν πατρίς μου, κατέχουσά με ἐχθρούς σου, πατάξω καὶ φυλάξω σὲ τὴν τιμῶσάν με.

Ἡ Θεσσαλονίκη: Ὄλβιος ὁ τάφος ὄντως ὁ σός, καὶ ὀλβιωτέρα, σοῦ ἡ πόλις ὡς θησαυρόν, σὲ νεκρὸν πλουτοῦσα, κρουνοὺς βλύζοντα μύρων, βοώσῃ· Δημητρίου Θεὸς βοήθει μοι.

Ἡ Ἐκκλησια: Χαῖρε καὶ ἀγάλλου σφόδρα ἀεί, ἡ Θεσσαλονίκη, ὁ ὁπλίτης γὰρ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, μετὰ σοῦ φρουρῶν σε, συντρίβων τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου, ᾧ εὐγνωμόνως κράζε· Χαίροις Δημήτριε.

Ὁ Λαός: Σχόντες τὸ σὸν Λείψανον σῷ ναῷ, Δημήτριε Μάρτυς, ὡς προπύργιον νοητόν, προσφεύγομεν τούτῳ, κινδύνοις καὶ πολέμοις, καὶ πάσης ἐπηρείας ἀπολυτρούμεθα.

Source

Megalynaria of St. Demetrios
(A poem by St. Symeon Archbishop of Thessaloniki in the form of a dialogue.)

St. Demetrios: O beloved Homeland do not grieve, for I will ever deliver you from dangers by my prayer, I will fill you with all good things, and save and protect you, so says Demetrios.

Thessaloniki: Under your wings O Champion, ever protected and delivered from every danger, therefore your Hometown, surrounded by dangers, I take refuge in you and cry, O Martyr help me.

St. Demetrios: A grave may cover me O Grecian land, but the whole world is filled with the fragrance of my myrrh, rejoice O my Homeland, for I hold back your enemies, I conquer them and protect you who honor me.

Thessaloniki: Blessed is your tomb, and more blessed is your city as a treasure, though you are dead you fill up, pouring forth rivers of myrrh, crying out: O God of Demetrios help me.

The Church: Ever rejoice and be glad greatly, Thessaloniki, for the soldier of Christ, is behind you protecting you, shattering your enemies, cry out in gratitude, Rejoice Demetrios.

The People: Possesing your Relic in your church, O Martyr Demetrios, as a noetic protecting wall, we take refuge in it, and are delivered from dangers and wars, and all temptations.

Source

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The Largest Face of Christ in the Western Hemisphere

Cheryl Girard
October 22, 2011
Winnipeg Free Press

He has worked on the mosaic icons of more than 25 churches in the United States and on the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in London, England.

More recently, renowned American iconographer Robert J. Andrews was in Winnipeg to talk about one of the greatest challenges of his artistic career -- what he says is the "largest face of Christ in the Western Hemisphere."

Speaking to parishioners of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church on Grant Avenue at a catechism session on iconography, the 86-year-old Andrews shared a video and spoke of the massive icon project -- the climax of his 43 years working on the icons of another Greek church, Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in San Francisco.


This particular icon of Christ is also known as the Pantocrator in Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic iconography and commonly translates to mean Almighty. In Byzantine church art, it often occupies the space in the central dome of the church.

The giant mosaic of the face of Jesus is 7.5 metres from the top of the head to the chin and spans the church's 3,200-square-metre dome.

"The eyes alone are four feet," says Andrews.

More than two million pieces of mosaic glass were used, all imported from Italy, "all hand-cut, and that's why you get such a beautiful reflection."

The tiles are created in a way similar to how it was done thousands of years ago, Andrews says.

The dome is 30 metres off the floor, he adds, requiring scaffolding to be erected. That alone took 10 days to set up. On top of that were smaller, moveable pieces of scaffolding so workers could reach all parts of the dome.

Parishioners raised the $1.7 million originally budgeted for the project.

Because of the weight and pressure of the mosaic, the dome had to first be carefully reinforced with steel beams carried up to the dome, cut and then welded together.

A frame came next in order to create a plaster dome for the installation of the mosaic. A metal mesh, referred to as lath, was attached to the frame so the plaster would have something to stick to.

For 10 months, parishioners attended services in the basement of the church as the pieces of the project slowly came together.

Some 175 bags equalling almost nine tons of added weight were ordered for the plastering of the enormous dome.

Andrews, with his son Tim and an installation crew from the studio in Italy where the tiles were made, began the careful process of giving shape to Jesus' face.

Using a map created in Italy, the team cemented sheets of mosaic tiles to the dome and later peeled off the paper containing Andrews' original drawing.

A final beautification phase revealed the face of Christ surrounded by a golden halo and nine angels, with Jesus holding a Bible in his left hand and his right hand formed to offer a blessing.

"I'd like to remember that a lot of heart went into the whole thing; it was a labour of love in many respects," Andrews says in a documentary about the creation of the icon.

The artist, who specializes in mosaics, told the Winnipeg parishioners he was raised in a very religious family and started drawing icons when he was 13.

"My grandmother was in the Armenian holocaust and I spent summers with her in her house and I spent hours on my knees. My mother, too, was a very religious person. I was really interested in medicine, but we couldn't afford it. My second choice was art and teaching... I worked in iconography and taught for 34 years also."

Andrews credits his family, who worked along with him out of his home studio.

Andrews told the parishioners of St. Demetrios, who have recently begun their own enormous project of adorning their church with icons, he was pleased with the Christ mosaic.

"I have a legacy to leave for many years to come and I knew it would be around much longer than me or anyone else I know."

A documentary on the making of the Christ mosaic can be viewed at www.vimeo.com/1164833.

Holy Trinity's Artist/Iconographer: Stories and Reflections with Robert J. Andrews from Anthony Catchatoorian on Vimeo.

Holy Trinity's Pantocrator: Scaffolding Time Lapse from Anthony Catchatoorian on Vimeo.

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Video: The Incorrupt Relics of St. Alexander of Svir

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Whale Evolution: The Real Fossil Record

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Thousands Line Up To Venerate Holy Belt of the Theotokos

For the first time in its history since being kept at Vatopaidi Monastery on Mount Athos, the holy belt of the Theotokos has never been outside of Greece until its current visit to Russia. This is despite the many requests from the United States, Romania, and many other countries.

For more than 24 hours thousands of faithful stood in line to venerate the holy belt at the Holy Monastery of Novodevichy in St. Petersburg. The line was five kilometers in length and until today 400,000 people have venerated the holy belt.

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The Skull of the Apostle Andrew in Romania

From Monday, October 24th until Monday, October 31st the holy skull of the Apostle Andrew will be in Bucharest, Romania for the faithful to venerate. It was brought by Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Patras and received by Patriarch Daniel of Romania. Many bishops, 600 priests and thousands of faithful welcomed the holy relic. The last time the holy skull of the Apostle Andrew came to Romania was 15 years ago in 1996 when Metropolitan Nikodemos of Patras brought it to Iasi.

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Memorial Saturday of Saint Demetrios and the Battle of Kulikovo

In the spiritual experience of the Russian Church, veneration of the holy Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessalonica is closely linked with the memory of the defense of the nation and Church by the Great Prince of Moscow, Demetrius of the Don (May 19).

St Demetrios of the Don smashed the military might of the Golden Horde at the Battle of Kulikovo Field on September 8, 1380 (the Feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos), set between the Rivers Don and Nepryadva. The Battle of Kulikovo, for which the nation calls him Demetrius of the Don, became the first Russian national deed, rallying the spiritual power of the Russian nation around Moscow. The "Zadonschina" [read here], an inspiring historic poem written by the priest Sophronius of Ryazem (1381), is devoted to this event.

Prince Demetrius of the Don was greatly devoted to the holy Great Martyr Demetrios. In 1380, on the eve of the Battle of Kulikovo, he solemnly transferred from Vladimir to Moscow the most holy object in the Dimitriev Cathedral of Vladimir: the icon of the Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessalonica, painted on a piece of wood from the saint's grave. A chapel in honor of the Great Martyr Demetrios was built at Moscow's Dormition Cathedral.

The St Demetrios Memorial Saturday was established for the churchwide remembrance of the soldiers who fell in the Battle of Kulidovo. This memorial service was held for the first time at the Trinity-St Sergius Monastery on October 20, 1380 by St Sergius of Radonezh, in the presence of Great Prince Demetrius of the Don. It is an annual remembrance of the heroes of the Battle of Kulikovo, among whom are the schemamonks Alexander (Peresvet) and Andrew (Oslyab).

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The "Byzantine" Tax Code: How Complicated Was Byzantium?

Right-wingers are always complaining about the "Byzantine" tax code.

Brian Palmer
October 20, 2011
Slate Magazine

The Republican candidates for president debated Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Cain’s flat rate for income, corporate, and sales tax would replace the Byzantine U.S. income tax code, which runs to more than 72,000 pages. Critics often refer to the complicated politics of Constantinople (which used to be Byzantium and is now Istanbul) when discussing American tax laws. Was the Byzantine system of government especially complex?

Only compared to those of medieval Europe. Ceremony and ritual were important features of the imperial court at Constantinople. Guests at royal banquets were assigned titles that denoted where they could sit in relation to the emperor, whom they could talk to, and what they were allowed to discuss. Eventually, the rituals became so complex that treatises were written to help outsiders understand proper etiquette, and the emperor employed officials to teach newbies how to behave. During this period, Western Europeans had lost a taste for the pomp and circumstance of empire. Their leaders were little more than feudal lords who more closely resembled generals than true emperors, although they sometimes carried that title. Ambassadors to Constantinople complained loudly about the formality of the court: For example, in the late 10th century, Liutprand of Cremona, who traveled twice to Byzantium as an ambassador of German emperor Otto, wrote a book in which he bemoaned the overly choreographed Byzantine court ceremonies. Still, Byzantium was far less complicated than any modern government.

The crusaders, too, found the rituals confusing, and they were baffled by Byzantine diplomacy. Constantinople provided financial and military support to the crusaders in some situations but not others. The emperor may even have passed intelligence to the crusaders’ Muslim opponents. As a result, the crusaders viewed Byzantine diplomacy as complex and inscrutable. This partially explains why modern use of the word Byzantine refers not just to things that are complex but also to those that are deviously convoluted—i.e., intentionally designed to be incomprehensible.

Modern historians are quick to point out that modern contempt for Byzantine government is based more on bias than on fact. They blame Byzantium’s bad reputation largely on 18th-century English historian Edward Gibbon. In his influential multi-volume work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon caricatured the history of the Byzantine Empire as little more than a series of shady backroom deals, backstabbing, and power grabs. (In fact, the same could easily be said of Ancient Rome—which Gibbon glorified—or the Islamic societies nearby.) Later historians seized on Gibbon’s portrait of the complexity of Constantinople’s ever-shifting political alliances and its reliance on rituals to maintain power distinctions. French scholar Jules Michelet was the first to use the adjective Byzantine to describe something excessively complex or subtle in his 1846 work Le Peuple, and the term had spread to nonpolitical contexts by the 1880s. (Louis Pasteur complained about Byzantine medical discussions in 1882.)

According to William Safire's Political Dictionary, the modern use didn’t enter the English political lexicon until 1937, when Arthur Koestler—who spoke French and spent some years living in Paris—described the structure of the Spanish army as “Byzantine.”

Bonus Explainer: Was Byzantium’s tax code Byzantine? Not at all. Byzantium’s two-pronged system would have made Steve Forbes proud. There was a flat tax on all citizens. Farmers paid an additional tax based on the size and quality of their land and their annual production. While the equation was straightforward, putting it to work was not. The Byzantines used alphabetic, rather than Arabic, numerals that were notoriously difficult to crunch.

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What Is It About Africa?

What’s wrong with Africa? The answer is, of course, nothing – at least not with the continent itself. Africa is a bountiful land of incredible diversity and productive potential, boasting the largest mammals, the great apes, geological diversity, vast panoramas of beauty, and numerous spectacular plants and animals. What comes to mind to many westerners, though, is starvation, drought, disease, war, genocide, and a long history of slavery, exploitation and corruption. For decades the charities have assaulted our emotions with heart-wrenching images of starving children with distended stomachs and flimsy arms, covered in flies and mosquitoes. Is Africa to blame? No; these are mostly human-caused problems, offering hope of solutions. A diverse continent with vastly different political systems, Africa offers striking contrasts of riches and horrors.

Take farming. According to Science Daily, parts of Africa have some of the most nutrient-depleted soils in the world (and this speaking of land south of the Sahara Desert). The BBC News said, “Researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre say poor soil fertility is one of the main obstacles to improving food production in Africa.” Here’s a simple solution: plant trees. The BBC News said that planting the right kind of trees can bring back the soil: “Fertiliser tree systems (FTS) ... help boost food security and play a role in ‘climate proofing‘ the region’s arable land”. Can this help forestall some of the desertification that worries scientists? According to the Science Daily article, some 400,000 farmers are now benefiting from this simple, elegant solution so economical it grows on trees. Readers may remember the amazing Moringa tree, a literal “tree of life” that provides food, fuel, clean water and soil fertilizer.

Take the desert. A BBC News nature feature reported that a rocky, arid part of Niger is a literal Noah’s Ark for migrating wildlife. The photo gallery affirms that this part of Africa is “one of the most inhospitable deserts,” and yet biologists are calling for its protection, because it is a “biodiversity hotspot.” Who would have thought? In America, deserts are no hindrance to booming, thriving cities (Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and many others). Technologies are available to find and extract clean water, to derive energy, and to improve the standard of living for everyone – when there is the political will, the right principles, the right leadership and ability for the people to oust evil dictators.

But the atrocities continue. Recent news has called attention to America’s latest effort to help stop the misnamed “Lord’s Resistance Army” led by brutal bad guy Joseph Kony in Uganda, who sends children into villages to massacre everyone and tortures them if they don’t. South Sudan is trying to hold onto a flimsy new sovereignty after 15 years of civll war. Robert Mugabe destroyed once-productive Zimbabwe with his irrational, ego-driven policies. One of the worst sudden genocides happened in Rwanda just 17 years ago. Somalia remains a hotbed of death, piracy and terrorism. This is all recent history in “darkest Africa,” in spite of the fact that the old slave trade is gone, and the old colonial empires are gone. What’s wrong with Africa?

“The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice” (Proverbs 13:23).

“There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away” (Hosea 4:1-3).

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Mystagogy Helps Bring Relic of St. Polycarp to Thousands in Romania

I often receive emails concerning how Mystagogy has helped people personally, but a few days ago I received a surprising and moving email from Romania which shows how a post I made on the relic of the right hand of St. Polycarp became a blessing to thousands of people in Romania on the great feast of St. Parascheva. To understand the context of the feast before reading the letter below, read Saint Parascheva and Her Feast Day in Romania. Many thanks to Silviu Cluci for informing me about this and his permission to reproduce his emails.

Hello John!

My name is Silviu Cluci. I'm a Romanian weblogger living in Iasi. First of all I'm writing you this email to congratulate you for your wonderful work on your blog and second, and maybe the most important, I want to thank you in the name of all pilgrims, wich came last week to Iasi to venerate the relics of Saint Parascheva and the hand of Saint Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna.

With this article
http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/wonderworking-right-hand-of-st-polycarp.html
from your blog, you helped us first to know where we can find the relics of this wonderful saint. My friend, A. V., was very happy to hear that in Greece at Nafpaktos there is the hand of Saint Polycarp. Andrei has a great devoutness to Saint Polycarp and he wrote a very beautiful akathist hymn of the Saint in Romanian in 7 years. He was so happy for this discovery that he called Metropolitan Teofan and asked him to talk with Metropolit Hierotheos Vlachos about the posibility of getting the relics to Iasi for the celebration of Saint Parascheva on the 14th of October. (In each year this celebration is an occasion for a large Orthodox pilgrimage of up to 1 million people). And glory to God, Saint Polycarp came to bless our city last week.

Here are some videos from a procession from the 12th of October
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWPx3htHmE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teOACDP19Ds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkeMAYsN3nI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a42RLZj9ABI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRRdrR-HgLc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdzGq-Z4ISU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHuMnUAnDOc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmZ1yoIYJWo
http://www.doxologia.ro/video/hramul-sfintei-cuvioase-parascheva/sosirea-moastelor-sf-mc-policarp-pelerinajul-calea

And here are some pictures http://www.doxologia.ro/foto/hramul-sfintei-cuvioase-parascheva/stiri/rugaciune-marturisire-pe-calea-sfintilor.

If you whant to know more about the events from the last week from our city, ask me for this.

Thank you once again for the great joy!

Silviu Cluci
http://cidadededeus.wordpress.com/

After requesting his permission to publish his letter, I asked him to tell me more about the feast. Here is what he wrote:

About the feast I can tell you that it started on the 11th day of October when the relics of Saint Parascheva were taken out from the cathedral in a procession and seated out for the pilgrims to venerate it. From the night before a large number of pilgrims came from the entire Romania and even from Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Moldova, Belgium, Canada and so on. The Police estimate the final number of pilgrims at 200,000. The queue wasn't so long in this year - 3 kilometers and around 12 hours of waiting. In the afternoon of the 12th of October, the Greek delegation with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou arrived at Iasi carrying the hand of Saint Polycarp. Soon after the arrival, in Iasi there started a procession with the relics of Saint Parascheva and Saint Polycarp with a large number of priests, monks and simple believers from the city. On the day before the celebration of Saint Parascheva we had some events like the launching of some books about Saint Parascheva. At 21 p.m. in the cathedral the vigil started and finished at 3 a.m. In the morning at 9 a.m., 24 bishops from Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece served the Divine Liturgy outside of the cathedral on a platform. Metropolitan Hierotheos had preached and, at the end of the service, Metropolitan Teofon of Moldavia and Bucovina thanked all for the contribution at the celebration.

In the afternoon of the 14th of October in the auditorium of Cuza Univerity, in front of more than 400 people, Metropolitan Hierotheos held a conference about the Theology of John Romanides.

In the morning of the next day, the Greek delegation went back home together with the hand of Saint Polycarp. But the queue of pilgrims continued to be long until the last pilgrim venerated the relics of Saint Parascheva on Sunday evening, when auxiliary bishop Calinic brought the relics back to cathedral.

In a few words this was the feast from the last week in Iasi, Romania.

Here are some video recordings:
http://wtrns.fr/vsl47gpsxxhHhU,
And here is the audio recording of the conference of Metropolitan Hierotheos:
http://fastupload.rol.ro/d51b4c03b8f7d027d5360fbedfb611d6.html

With joy,
Silviu Cluci

Below is video of the feast together with the arrival of the relic of St. Polycarp and Metropolitan Hierotheos. I also include a sermon delivered by Metropolitan Hierotheos in Iasi.





>

Andrei Vladareanu

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Saint Parascheva and Her Feast Day in Romania

Saint Parascheva was born in the village Epivat in Eastern Tracia, at the beginning of the 11th century, to a pious family. Then, by the age of 15, she dedicated herself to the monastic life.

Saint Parascheva’s relics were brought to Iasi in 1641, during the reign of the ruler Vasile Lupu, and they were exposed in the Church of the Three Hierarchs.


Saint Parascheva is considered the Protector of Moldavia and Bucovina, being the most popular of all the Saints whose relics are in Romania. Christians believe her relics to be miraculous.

Saint Parascheva’s feast day, and at the same time the feast of the Metropolitan Cathedral in Iasi, has become, these last 15 years, an important Christian manifestation for the region of Moldavia. On this occasion there arrive in Iasi, in pilgrimage, about one million pilgrims, most of them waiting for hours in a line which covers 2-3 kilometers in order to reach the relics of the Saint and pray.


Generally, on the 12th of October the holy relics are brought out of the church and they are exposed on the esplanade of the Metropolitan Cathedral. Then, on the 13th of October, the feast day, a procession takes place on the streets nearby.

During the last few years, besides the relics of Saint Parascheva, there have also been brought here the relics of other important Saints such as: Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Nektarios of Aegina and those of Saint Andrew the First-called. In 2011 the arm of St. Polycarp of Smyrna was brought from Nafpaktos.


After the procession, the reliquary is exposed again in the courtyard of the Metropolitan Cathedral in order to allow the pilgrims to pray.

Also, after the Festal Divine Liturgy, the City Hall of Iasi organizes a lunch for the pilgrims, where they serve traditional meals.


The Life of Saint Parascheva

St. Parascheva was born at the beginning of the 11th century into a wealthy, noble, and pious Christian family in the town of Epivat (now in Turkey) on the shores of the Marmara Sea. At the age of ten, while attending the Liturgy in the Church of the Holy Theotokos, she heard the words, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross, and follow me.” The words of the Lord had a profound effect on the young girl, and they became the subject of her meditations.

The future St. Parascheva began to dress poor people in her expensive clothes – her good deeds later earning her recognition as a patron saint of such trades as spinning, sewing, weaving, and knitting – but her parents objected, finding the girl’s charity more than they could understand or support, and tried to get her to stop. To follow her calling, Parascheva abandoned her wealth and privileges, left her parents, and ran away to Constantinople. There, near relics of saints, she spent her time in prayer, meditating on the words of Christ.


To elude her parents, who were traveling from city to city trying to find her, she moved to Chalcedon, and then to the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos, in Heraclea Pontica, near the Black Sea. She spent the next five years there, living an austere life of continuous prayer and devotion. During her prayers she received visions of the Holy Virgin Mary and in one of the visions, she was instructed to go to Jerusalem. After spending some time in the city, she joined a convent in the Jordanian desert. A few years later, she returned to Constantinople and then, at the age of twenty-five, moved to the village of Katikratia where, at the Church of the Holy Apostles, she lived the remaining two years of her life.

Legend has it that many years later an old sinner was buried near her grave. Parascheva appeared in a dream to a local monk, showed him the place of her burial, and asked him to “take that stinky corpse away from me. I am light and sun, and I cannot bear to have near me darkness and stench.“ The monk, with some local help, began to dig out the place he had seen in his dream and when they found the remains of the Saint, her uncorrupted body was emitting spiritual fragrances. Then they interred the Saint in the Church of the Holy Apostles, where she had spent the last years of her earthly existence.


Later on her relics were moved to Tirnovo, in Bulgaria, then to Belgrade, in Serbia, and finally to Constantinople. In 1641, they were given as a gift to the Prince of Moldavia, Vasile Lupu, in recognition of his support for the Ecumenical Patriarchy of Constantinople. Her intact relics have remained in Iasi ever since. She is venerated as the Protector of Iasi and all of Moldavia and each year, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox faithful and hierarchs from many countries gather in Iasi to celebrate her feast day and venerate her holy relics, which continue to work miracles.







More photos from the feast can be seen here.

Οδοιπορικό στους Επιβάτες της Θράκης,τον τόπο καταγωγής της Οσίας Παρασκευής της Επιβατινής

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The Belt of the Virgin Mary In Russia For the First Time

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met a delegation of Greek monks from Vatopaidi Monastery on Mount Athos in an airport in St. Petersburg, who brought with them the miraculous belt of the Virgin Mary. It is believed that the belt has the grace to help childless women to have children.

Hundreds, mostly women, stood in line to venerate this precious relic. The relic will remain in the Russian imperial capital until Tuesday.

It will then be taken on a month-long tour across the country, with stops including the northern city of Norilsk, the Pacific port of Vladivostok, the western exclave city of Kaliningrad and Moscow.

Clerics said they hoped the relic would help more Russian women become mothers as the influential Russian Orthodox Church is actively promoting motherhood to help the government curtail a population decline.

Church officials in several cities plan to take the relic, whose full name is the Belt of the Mother of God, to pregnancy centres that counsel women contemplating an abortion, the church said.

"This event is of huge significance especially when it comes to strengthening people's faith," Father Kirill, a spokesman for the Saint Petersburg diocese, said.

"And the fact that this is such a singular relic helping women is especially important for our city and our country, where the demographic situation leaves much to be desired."

Russian leaders have called the shrinking population a matter of national security.

The country's latest census released earlier this year shows the country's population has shrunk by another 2.2 million people since 2002 and now stands at 142.9 million.

"It's a serious problem and an important topic for our country," the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, said this week.

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Ugandan Witch Doctors Sacrifice Thousands of Children

October 20, 2011
ABC News

MARK COLVIN: A week ago, the BBC broadcast a shocking story from Uganda about widespread child sacrifice. As a result of an undercover investigation, it said many cases were not being followed up by the police, and little was being done to protect potential victims.

The reporters spoke to a witch doctor who offered to kill a child for them to bring luck to a construction project.

Peter M Sewakiryanga is director of Kyampisi Childcare Ministries in Uganda, which helped with the investigation.

He's in Australia to draw attention to the child sacrifice problem, and he spoke to me this afternoon.

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Many people in Uganda have come to believe that when you sacrifice a child to evil spirits you get blessings, you get wealth, you get protection of some kind.

And there are many people involved in witchcraft, who are called witch doctors, who have been going on telling people that you need to sacrifice to be able to succeed in life.

MARK COLVIN: How many children get kidnapped and used in this way?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Last year we had reports of over 9,000 children (inaudible) lost and that is based on the United States human rights report. And unfortunately the most number of these children never get to be found and it's been come to our attention that most of them have been victims of child sacrifice.

Because people do it in such secrecy, it's very hard to find them dead until you find decapitated bodies of children with ritual stuff that is around them; others are castrated for ritual, you know castrated completely, others are mutilated, others are just cut heads off and remove body organs out of their bodies, and others you will never find them.

We did an investigation with the witch doctors, an undercover investigation, and we found out that 100 per cent of all those involved in witchcraft are willing to give child sacrifice as the best remedy for a problem that is going to bring success to business, it's going to protect business.

MARK COLVIN: So the people who buy this service, they think they're going to get good luck and good health, do they?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Yeah, they think they're going to get good luck, good health, they're going to get rich because there's a big number of people that are poor and they're going to get rich.

And the rich people want also to protect their wealth.

MARK COLVIN: Uganda is in many areas a Christian country. Are these people both practising both Christianity and witchcraft sort of side by side?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: You will find that the biggest, we have a very, very big number of people that believe in witchcraft. Uganda is …

MARK COLVIN: So it's possible to go to church on Sundays and believe in witchcraft the other days of the week?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Most people that are practising witchcraft don't believe in god.

MARK COLVIN: Has this been happening for a long time or is it a relatively new phenomenon?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: It's come very highly in the last couple of years and it's a very complex phenomena. It's become very high now in the last four, five years.

MARK COLVIN: It's an extraordinary phenomenon because Uganda during that period has been growing quite fast and people have a lot more technology, mobile phones, computers, that sort of thing.

It's extraordinary to imagine that witchcraft should be so strong in those circumstances.

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Yeah we have heard also foreign people coming into the country like from Tanzania. Those people that believe in the killing of albinos, that they'll get wealth.

And so any witch doctor that crosses from Tanzania to come to Uganda, they are allowed to announce on radios that they are going to offer the best spiritual power.

MARK COLVIN: They're allowed to advertise on the radio?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Yes, they are allowed to advertise on the radio.

MARK COLVIN: For killing albino children?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: No, no, no to offer evil spiritual success or solutions to problems and once people go there is when they are brought into the practice of child sacrifice.

MARK COLVIN: So you're campaigning against it in Uganda, what are you hoping for by campaigning here? What can Australians do?

PETER M SEWAKIRYANGA: Back in Uganda we have tried to ask the government to look up the child protection laws. We have asked the government to bring all pending cases in court to a logical conclusion so that justice can prevail.

But that has not happened and why we are making this an international campaign is to ask people to sign petitions, to show the government that the whole world is behind this campaign, is asking you to bring all these pending cases in court to a logical conclusion, to ask the government to look at the child protection laws.

They can look at them and this petition to help bring justice and protect children.

MARK COLVIN: Peter Sewakiryanga, director of Kyampisi Childcare Ministries in Uganda. If you're interested in that petition he was talking about you'll be able to see it at www.kyampisi.org or www.jubileecampaign.co.uk.

To see how Christians are battling against child sacrifice in Uganda, see this video.

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The Feast of St. Gerasimos in 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'

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Serbian Patriarch "Most Vocal Opposition" To EU Integration

October 19, 2011
B92

The SPC patriarch has emerged as the most vocal opposition to the government on the issue of the EU and the conditions for continued integrations, says a daily.

Belgrade-based Danas newspaper is writing that Patriarch Irinej's strong statements about the EU and Kosovo are more radical that those voiced by most opposition parties, with the exception of the SRS, and that he stresses more forcefully the need to give up on Serbia's European road.

The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church said in the town of Jagodina last weekend that Serbia was facing a great temptation, being offered to join the EU but with a horrible price - to renounce Kosovo and Metohija.

"If we should sacrifice Kosovo and Metohija in order to join Europe - then let's thank them for their goodness and love. Let them leave us alone, let them not do again to us what they've done recently, let our Kosovo remain ours," the patriarch said after a service dedicated to the fallen Jagodina residents,who took part in liberation and unification wars waged from 1912 until 1918.

In mid-September, the patriarch was in Kosovoska Mitrovica, where he told Serbs at the barricades: "If you are harmed, you know why you will be harmed, if you must spill your blood, you know why you'll do it. That is holy martyrdom and defense of the holy land. That is the message of our Church and those who care about you."

In early October, while visiting the SPC monastery of Mileševo along with Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Konuzin, the patriarch said that the Serb nation has had "many friends - at least that's what we thought - many of whom sided with those who do not like us, and who hate us."

"We stand with few friends now, but we have our greatest friend, the Russian people," concluded Irinej.

Religious affairs analyst Živica Tucić spoke for the newspaper to say that Serbia is divided over EU integrations, and asserted that "some 50 percent are in favor, while others are undecided or against".

He noted that there were Orthodox Christians "among those 50 percent", and added that "what the patriarch is saying is not in their interests".

"Still, the patriarch's words will not carry great influence on their opinion, because the Church is seen here in a more traditional sense, as a place to get christened, married and buried. In that sense, the political influence of the SPC is limited," Tucić believes.

He noted that churches and religious communities said in an official statement, amde when the Law Against Discrimination was adopted, that they would "not stand in the way of European integrations, and would aid it".

Asked by the newspaper "what happened in the meantime to make the SPC reach a position that could be interpreted as 'anti-European'," this analyst said that "euroskepticism" was on the rise in the society as a whole.

Still, Tucić advised the Church to "leave the issue of Kosovo to the state to solve", and to "bear in mind not its wishes, but the realistic situation".

Political analyst Dušan Janjić said the patriarch's statements can be interpreted as "announcements of very serious, dramatic events, and the Church's concern for its members".

"The government has reached a complete dead-end. There's not one person in Serbia who's satisfied with it. Even its members are behaving like they were never in power. That's a sign of a profound crisis. The Serbian Orthodox Church would not have left the confines of its role had it not heard the call of its people. If there were no believers there would be no Church, and that is the realistic concern that the SPC has," Janjić said.

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Learning the Bible With Alice Cooper

Andrew Snell
October 17, 2011
The Sun

Alice, 63 — once barred from performing at a venue over claims his show was anti-Christian — is a substitute teacher at his local church.

He said: "You should see the look on people's faces. 'Alice Cooper teaching Bible class? But he's the spawn of the Devil!'"

The reformed alcoholic — whose shows involve fake blood, electric chairs and snakes — holds the lessons in Arizona, US.

Alice — real name Vincent Furnier — added: "Surely people get it by now — Alice is just a character. Alice hates going to church, but I go every Sunday."

School's Out star Alice, whose dad was a pastor, said he cleaned up his act after daughter Calico was born in 1981.

He said: "Before Cali came along I was living Alice's life. Every day was just one big party, fuelled by a bottle of whisky and case of beer."

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