Former Journalist Now An Ascetic On Mount Athos

In a cave of "horrific" Karoulia on Mount Athos rests the Serbian monk Fr. Seraphim in the summertime. Because the winters here are particularly harsh, the rest of the year he lives in a wooden house outside of a cave which fits only one person at a time. Four boards and a rug are enough for him to sleep, as he told us.

Fr. Seraphim, the father of a 16-year-old girl, studied economics and worked as a media television journalist. "The things I believed in my religion had nothing to do with what I was doing as a journalist - two opposing roads with different values", he said.

"Here I pray for my daughter and my wife; I have not abandoned them. Noetically I am with them. I fell in love with our Triune God. In this way we will all benefit", he noted characteristically.

Fr. Seraphim is very tall and imposing. He lives by himself at a steep point of Karoulia. However he says: "I do not live alone here, I have many companions", he told me. And when he was asked "Who?", he responded to me: "The thousands of angels which you see only when you labor for the soul and not only the body. The body we sustain with some goods which are offered by the All-Good One."

"One day I had nothing to eat, and behold the miracle: I saw an eagle coming at a very high speed towards my cave and I said to myself what will he take with him...I had a bad thought. But as he was approaching I noticed that he was holding something. It was a fresh fish! Well, with this I passed the day," related Fr. Seraphim.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Video: Meteora In 1924

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Ephraim of Vatopaidi To Remain In Custody Despite Acquittal

January 13, 2012
Interfax

The partial acquittal by the Greek supreme court of Archimandrite Ephraim, the abbot of the Vatopaidi Monastery on Mt. Athos, prosecuted in connection with real estate deals between his monastery and the Greek state, does not mean his release from custody.

"This decision [acquitting of Father Ephraim] applies to the ruling of the Rhodope court of appeal but not to the ruling of the Athens court of appeal under which Father Ephraim was taken into custody. The acquittal by the [supreme court] is one more positive phase in the Vatopaidi case but it doesn't cancel the order on the pretrial detention of Archimandrite Ephraim," spokesman for the Russian Society of Friends of the Vatopedi Monastery told Interfax-Religion.

So Archimandrite Ephraim "remains behind bars and still needs support," the spokesman said.

The supreme court annulled a ruling by the Rhodope court of appeal to put the archimandrite and two others in detention for 10 months with three years' deferment.

The proceedings against Ephraim, which were first opened in Rhodope and then in Athens, will be reviewed by the appeal court of Thrace.

Archimandrite Ephraim was arrested by court order last month.

Late in December, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia wrote a letter to Greek President Karolos Papoulias in which he asked for Ephraim to be released, expressing surprise at the detention of "a monk who poses no public danger and has repeatedly offered to cooperate with the investigators."

The head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, branded Ephraim's arrest as an attack against the Mt. Athos community and against Orthodoxy as a whole.

Influential Russian politicians and the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed support for the archimandrite.

Among those who rose up in his defense was Russia's Foundation of St. Andrew the First-Called, which brought the Belt of the Most Holy Mother of God to Russia this autumn in what was the first time the highly venerated Orthodox relic, which is kept at the Vatopaidi Monastery, was taken outside Greece.

The cincture was shown in various Russian cities from October 20 to November 28 and was seen by nearly 3 million people, including top Russian state leaders.

The Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a statement in which it deplored the Ephraim affair but said it respected the independence of Greek justice and generally avoided interfering with unfinished court cases, one reason being it does not know all the details of any such case.

The Constantinople Patriarchate also pointed out the fact that the Athonite community comprising its see includes monks of various nationalities and did not authorize the entire world Orthodox community nor give it the right to interfere in the affairs of other Churches.

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God’s Gulag

A remote archipelago is one of Russia’s holiest places—and its most haunted.

By Jeffrey Taylor
January 2012
The Atlantic

From the upper reaches of the whitewashed belfry—between the gunmetal onion domes of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral—a giant bell announced the evening liturgy. Scarved women in loose woolen skirts and shaggy-bearded monks in black frocks hurried across the cobbled courtyard of Solovetsky Monastery, passing me, their eyes averted.

I turned to face the sun above the massive stone walls, seeking a warmth that’s fleeting here in Russia’s farthest-flung holy citadel, located on the largest of the Solovetsky Islands amid the gale-lashed White Sea, just outside the Arctic Circle.

The Solovetsky Monastery ranks as one of the country’s most important. But the monastery, and indeed the Solovetsky Islands (Solovki, for short) themselves, also played host to Joseph Stalin’s most notorious prison, the gulag to which he banished many of his ideological opponents. This dual purpose has made Solovetsky Monastery a kind of Russian Golgotha, a temple-graveyard haunted by both the holy and the horrifying. Mass graves are scattered across the island. My guide summed up the experience of living here: “Wherever we go here, we feel we’re stepping on bones.”

Even from Moscow, where I live, a trip to the Solovki, almost 650 miles due north, is a long one—and tough on new arrivals. A choppy flight landed me on a runway plagued with Arctic mosquitoes; a kidney-bruising ride from the airport by four-wheel-drive van took me down a pitted dirt track into the shack-and-barrack settlement of fewer than 1,000. My hotel, tranquil and half-embowered in alder trees and birches, stood by an abandoned prison open to the winds, with skulls and crossbones still painted on cell doors. Almost everywhere I went during my stay, I heard the wind, not voices, and was alone or almost alone or felt alone—a sublime, and at times eerie, experience. But perhaps not a new one.

The prospect of solitude drew the first Russians here. Early in the 15th century, two monks debarked on the island’s northern coast, seeking a place of religious retreat amid pristine taiga and bog. They initiated cloistral traditions that led, soon after, to the founding of Solovetsky Monastery. But almost from the beginning, the Solovetsky Islands were also abodes of exile and detention. The isolation and severe climate well suited the penal needs of an authoritarian state ruled by a czar. Monks both served God and acted as prison wardens. In the monastery’s darkest corners, they built cells that would hold a spectrum of prisoners, from the dissident gentry and errant clergy, to rebellious Cossacks and Decembrist revolutionaries.

I climbed stairs above the monastery’s granary and examined a few of the cells—low, vaulted brick chambers with tiny barred windows overlooking the desolate, churning Bay of Prosperity. The experience created by the monks was easily outdone when the Bolsheviks instituted a reign of sadistic terror that earned the Solovki infamy throughout the Soviet Union. Behind glass in one of the monastery’s chilly, damp corridors, an exposition of photographs and documents displays that regime’s grisly legacy—twisted corpses strewn across fields, stacked skulls, ransacked churches, smashed church bells, and orders of execution. In 1923, the authorities reconstituted the monastery-prison (and the rest of the island) as the country’s first concentration camp, designed to “rehabilitate” the most potentially dangerous “enemies of the people”—writers, poets, academics, and anyone else who fell afoul of the revolution. During the 1930s, when Stalin and Hitler enjoyed cordial, if wary, relations, German officers visited the island and studied its “correctional” regimen, gleaning elements that they would soon put to use on a far more horrific scale.

The macabre cruelties of all the Soviet gulags have been well documented, but even so, those of the Solovki stand out. Camp officials welcomed each group of arriving inmates by immediately shooting two prisoners dead, and pummeling the rest with shovels. Locked in unheated cells in the winter, the prisoners slept in piles three or four deep for warmth. Guards doused some in water and made them huddle for hours in the cold. Of the 80,000 Soviets condemned to the Solovki between 1923 and 1939, some 40,000 died here.

Finally, even for Stalinist authorities on the mainland, the Solovki’s unsanctioned atrocities exceeded the acceptable. In 1939, the camp was closed, and some of its administrators were executed. The remaining prisoners were moved to the mainland. As another tour guide, the historian Oleg Kodola, pointed out, “By 1940, the whole country had been turned into a prison camp. It made no difference which side of the barbed wire you were on.”

It does now, of course. In 1967, Soviet authorities opened a museum in Solovetsky Monastery, and monks returned in 1990. Judging from the conservative dress of most of the Russian tourists around me in the courtyard, a good number were on a pilgrimage of sorts, something the former, atheistic regime would never have countenanced. Their presence, and that of the monks heading to church for evening services, reminds one that, to survive in the Solovki’s austere setting, faith may be the one constant.

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Jacques Barzun On Science, Facts, and Darwin’s Influence

Jacques Martin Barzun (born November 30, 1907) is a French-born American historian of ideas and culture. He has written on a wide range of topics, but is perhaps best known as a philosopher of education, his Teacher in America (1945) being a strong influence on post-WWII training of schoolteachers in the United States. In 2000 he wrote his popular book From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present.

In 1941 he wrote Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. Below are a few worthwhile quotes from the book:

On Science:

Science as a Delphic oracle exists only in the popular imagination and the silent assumptions of certain scientists. At any given time there are only searchers who agree or disagree. The March of Science is not an orderly army or parade, but rather a land rush for the free spaces ahead. This means a degree of anarchy. Besides, fogeyism, faddism, love of stability, self-seeking, personal likes and dislikes, and all other infirmities of mind, play as decisive a part in science as in any other cultural enterprise.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 336

On Facts:

Facts themselves are not the “hard” or “cold” items to which we constantly appeal in order to silence our opponents. They are in a sense products of our ingenuity and often inseparable from our hypothetical interpretation of them. Most statistical fallacies come from neglect of this usual obstacle, just as our imputations of ignorance or bad motives come from supposing that our “undeniable facts” are direct messages from experience which can mean only one thing.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 337

On Darwin’s Influence:

Part of their [Darwin, Marx, and Wagner] success in reaching and teaching a great miscellaneous audience lay, surely, in their being somewhat less than great thinkers. When their systems are examined they appear unusually, almost incredibly, incoherent, both in thought and in form. Of the many books which Darwin, Marx, and Wagner have left us not one is a masterpiece. With their work as a whole our practices show that we are not satisfied. We cut them, abstract them, reorder their parts to make them palatable: they failed in artistry at least. Imperfectly aware of their intellectual antecedents and impatient of exact expression, they jumbled together a bewildering collection of truths and errors and platitudes. They borrowed and pilfered without stint or shame, whence the body of each man’s work stands as a sort of Scripture, quotable for almost all purposes on an infinity of subjects.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 324

On Natural Selection:

To scientists and laymen alike, the appeal of natural selection was manifold. It had the persuasiveness of “small doses”; it was entirely automatic, doing away with both the religious will of a Creator and the Lamarckian will of his creatures; it substituted a “true cause” for the “metaphysical” sort of explanation; lastly, natural selection was an exact parallel in nature to the kind of individual competition familiar to everyone in the social world of man. By joining the well-established notion of natural selection to the development theory which had been talked about for a hundred years, Darwin was felt to have solved the greatest problem of modern science. He had explained life, or almost. He had at any rate shown the primary animal basis of human progress and told “its law and cause.”

— Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 57

The genetic fallacy dating back to Comte is at the root of the trouble — the fallacy of reducing all experiences to one condition of their origin and so killing meanings by explanations. With its mechanical and historical bias, evolution reduced everything to something else. From fear of being anthropomorphic, it deanthropomorphized man. With its suspicion that feeling was an epiphenomenon, it made “refined music” into a “a factor of survival.” Nothing as what it seemed.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 91

“We are not descended from the apes, but we are rapidly getting there.”

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 96

Believers in the class struggle often saw little difference between race and class…The North and South of Italy were races, with the industrial North naturally superior. Anglos-Saxons and Latins were two races, since Protestantism and Industry could be aligned against Catholicism and centralized government…Politics, art, religion, language, science, everything had a natural, therefore a racial, basis. Nations were races and professions too; there were races of poets and races of sailors, races of democrats and races of pessimists, races of struggle-for-lifers and races of suicides. Apparently the only race not entered on the books was the race of true Christians.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 97

In truth, once the word “selection” was used, no other course was possible, than that of personifying Nature and making her “watch and seize unerringly” those of her children who deserved survival. The idea of merely resisting the universe, sitting tight and enduring, was not sufficiently anthropomorphic. Competition with other species or individuals, victory earned because of inward merit or determination to win — these were intelligible principles.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 125

The same injection of a selecting mind into natural affairs led to picturing animals as constantly at each other’s throats. Enlightened opinion condemned as “sentimental” the view that Nature was harmonious; calling it “cruel” instead, and not seeing that to speak of cruelty in reference to the millions of seeds or eggs that perish is a piece of far worse sentimentality. For there is balance and interdependency among living things, whereas ascribing conscious agency to Nature can make it be anything one wants: Nature is kind in that it solicitously feeds the frog with gnats; it is cruel in that it allows innocent gnats to be eaten by frogs. Still as an excuse for human cruelty the ascription was endlessly useful…

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 125 – 126

The small random variation would accumulate, and in course of time lead to partial or complete change of form. New species would arise bearing new and useful characteristics; for all changes, in order to be perpetuated, must be adaptive, that is to say, must be of help to the creature possessing them.

Such is Darwin’s “distinctive theory,” and its correspondence with the argument of the classical economists to prove that unlimited competition brings out the best and cheapest product is complete. Even now, after a century of criticism, the persuasive exposition of either theory leaves the mind paralyzed with enchantment. It is so simple, so neat, so like a well-designed machine,. Even better than a machine, in that it really provides for perpetual motion; the struggle for existence is constant, so is variation; improvement should therefore be endless. After its beauty had once been grasped it was difficult not to fall down and adore the theory.

—Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 58 – 59

On Materialism In Science:

Now materialism in science produced such magnificent results in practical life that to the men of the late nineteenth century these results seemed tantamount to a proof of the system. Thousands of miles of railway track, millions of yards of cloth, unlimited steam power, iron and steel machinery, devices for instant communication, and the multiplication of innumerable conveniences for the benefit of mankind — all struck the imaginations of men so forcibly as to make any questioning of the materialist assumption look like superstitious folly. At the same time, the age-old passion for uniformity drove the scientists to explain by material cause the inner life of man which alone gave value to the things. Vitalism was thus driven out of biology and man came once more to be considered a machine — a physico-chemical compound — as he had been in the middle of the eighteenth century.

-Darwin, Marx, Wagner, Jacques Barzun, p. 9 – 10

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The Skull of Saint Tatiana the Martyr of Rome

Read her life: Saint Tatiana the Martyr of Rome

After the Fall of Constantinople (1453), when the pious prince Neagoe Basarab (1512-1521) ruled in Romania, the Craioveşti rulers brought the skull of Saint Tatiana and the relics of Saint Gregory of Decapolite to Bistritsa Monastery. In 1955 the skull of Saint Tatiana was brought to the Cathedral of Saint Demetrios in Craiova, Romania. It is encased with the skulls of Sts. Sergius, Bacchus and Niphon of Constantinople.

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What the Allegorist Origen Taught About Adam and Eve

Dr. Denis Alexander, who is the Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at Cambridge University, is an eminently qualified molecular biologist with a very odd combination of theological beliefs. In a recent article in The Guardian (December 23, 2011) entitled, "Evolution, Christmas and the Atonement", he rejected belief in a literal Adam and Eve and an historical Fall, on the grounds that it was totally incompatible with scientific discoveries over the last few decades, which clearly indicate that “we last shared a common ancestor with the chimps about 5-6 million years ago, and humans have been gradually emerging through a series of hominid intermediates ever since.” Dr. Alexander had no time for belief in an immaterial soul, either: in his view, it is our complex brains that endow us with free will.

[Dr. Alexander cites Philo and Origen as justification for his theological beliefs. But do these writers support his theories. The author shows this is not the case. Below the position of Origen is set forward.]

What did Origen (c. 185-254 A.D.) teach about Adam and Eve?

It might surprise Dr. Alexander to learn that Origen also taught that Adam was a real, historical individual. In the Preface to his work, De Principiis, Origen summarizes the central points of Christian doctrine, as taught by the apostles:

4. The particular points clearly delivered in the teaching of the apostles are as follows:—

First, that there is one God, who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing existed, called all things into being — God from the first creation and foundation of the world — the God of all just men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noe [Noah], Sere [Serug], Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets; and that this God in the last days, as He had announced beforehand by His prophets, sent our Lord Jesus Christ to call in the first place Israel to Himself, and in the second place the Gentiles, after the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. This just and good God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself gave the law and the prophets, and the Gospels, being also the God of the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments.

Secondly, that Jesus Christ Himself, who came (into the world), was born of the Father before all creatures; that, after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation of all things — for by Him were all things made — He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory), became a man, and was incarnate although God, and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit: that this Jesus Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not endure this death common (to man) in appearance only, but did truly die; that He did truly rise from the dead; and that after His resurrection He conversed with His disciples, and was taken up (into heaven).

Then, thirdly, the apostles related that the Holy Spirit was associated in honour and dignity with the Father and the Son. But in His case it is not clearly distinguished whether He is to be regarded as born or innate, or also as a Son of God or not: for these are points which have to be inquired into out of sacred Scripture according to the best of our ability, and which demand careful investigation. And that this Spirit inspired each one of the saints, whether prophets or apostles; and that there was not one Spirit in the men of the old dispensation, and another in those who were inspired at the advent of Christ, is most clearly taught throughout the Churches. (Italics mine – VJT.)

Origen was writing before the ecumenical councils of Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) had been held; hence his vagueness regarding the Holy Spirit.

Notice that in the passage above, Origen describes God as “the God of all just men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Noe [Noah], Sere [Serug], Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses, and the prophets.” Since Origen is giving a summary here of the essentials of Christian teaching, and since he clearly regards the other individuals named as historical characters, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that for Origen, the historicity of Adam was an essential Christian teaching.

In Book II, Chapter 3 of his work, De Principiis, Origen discusses the beginning of the world, and attacks the view of those philosophers who hold that everything goes around again and again, in a never-ending cycle. Origen contends that such a view would make a mockery of free will:

4. And now I do not understand by what proofs they can maintain their position, who assert that worlds sometimes come into existence which are not dissimilar to each other, but in all respects equal. For if there is said to be a world similar in all respects (to the present), then it will come to pass that Adam and Eve will do the same things which they did before: there will be a second time the same deluge, and the same Moses will again lead a nation numbering nearly six hundred thousand out of Egypt; Judas will also a second time betray the Lord; Paul will a second time keep the garments of those who stoned Stephen; and everything which has been done in this life will be said to be repeated – a state of things which I think cannot be established by any reasoning, if souls are actuated by freedom of will, and maintain either their advance or retrogression according to the power of their will. For souls are not driven on in a cycle which returns after many ages to the same round, so as either to do or desire this or that; but at whatever point the freedom of their own will aims, there do they direct the course of their actions. (Italics mine – VJT.)

Once again, the reader will notice the reference to Adam and Eve. Since Origen is making a point about actual choices made by actual individuals in time past, he clearly intends to affirm the literal historicity of Adam and Eve. For if he did not, then what about Moses, Judas and Paul? Are they mythical too?

But wait, there’s more! In Book I, chapter 22 of his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Origen declares that Wisdom is Christ’s fundamental characteristic: Jesus is the Wisdom of God, who was sent into the world in order to redeem it. Origen writes that Jesus is called the light of the world, because men, who are spiritually darkened by wickedness, need the light. Likewise, Jesus is called the first-born from the dead, because He had to rescue those who had died. Origen explains that this was necessary only because Adam and Eve fell and failed to attain the goal of freedom from bodily death and corruption, that God had originally planned for them:

Now God is altogether one and simple; but our Saviour, for many reasons, since God set Him forth a propitiation and a first fruits of the whole creation, is made many things, or perhaps all these things; the whole creation, so far as capable of redemption, stands in need of Him. And, hence, He is made the light of men, because men, being darkened by wickedness, need the light that shines in darkness, and is not overtaken by the darkness; had not men been in darkness, He would not have become the light of men. The same thing may be observed in respect of His being the first-born of the dead. For supposing the woman had not been deceived, and Adam had not fallen, and man created for incorruption had obtained it, then He would not have descended into the grave, nor would He have died, there being no sin, nor would His love of men have required that He should die, and if He had not died, He could not have been the first-born of the dead. We may also ask whether He would ever have become a shepherd, had man not been thrown together with the beasts which are devoid of reason, and made like to them. (Italics mine – VJT.)

In the above passage, there can be no doubt that Origen believed in a real Fall, in which one woman (Eve) was deceived, and one man (Adam) fell from grace. Had it not been for the Fall, man would have escaped the grim fate of bodily corruption, which is our lot. In other words, Origen taught that human beings would not have died had Adam and Eve not fallen. Contrary to Dr. Alexander, Origen clearly believed that the Bible teaches that physical death originates with the sin of Adam.

Origen, discusses some other consequences of the Fall in Contra Celsum, Book VII, chapter 28, where he writes that “the earth … was originally cursed for the transgression of Adam.” He goes on to explain:

For these words, "Cursed shall the ground be for what you have done; with grief, that is, with labour, shall you eat of the fruit of it all the days of your life", were spoken of the whole earth, the fruit of which every man who died in Adam eats with sorrow or labour all the days of his life. And as all the earth has been cursed, it brings forth thorns and briers all the days of the life of those who in Adam were driven out of paradise; and in the sweat of his face every man eats bread until he returns to the ground from which he was taken.

(Emphases mine – VJT.)

In his article written for The Guardian, Dr. Alexander maintains that for Origen, Adam is Everyman. Alexander even contends that Scripture supports this view, since “the definite article in front of Adam in chapters 2 and 3 – ‘the man’ – suggests a representative man.” But we can see from the above passage that Origen’s point is quite a different one. Precisely because Adam is the original man, he is a type or symbol for the whole human race. Hence, in Adam, every man died. And in Adam, every man was driven out of Paradise. There is nothing in the above passage that Augustine would have disagreed with.

In Contra Celsum, Book VI, chapter 36, Origen criticises the pagan philosopher Celsus for mocking a Christian doctrine which he does not understand: the doctrine of the resurrection. Origen affirms in passing that “death was in Adam”:

Celsus, moreover, has often mocked at the subject of a resurrection,— a doctrine which he did not comprehend; and on the present occasion, not satisfied with what he has formerly said, he adds, And there is said to be a resurrection of the flesh by means of the tree; not understanding, I think, the symbolic expression, that through the tree came death, and through the tree comes life, because death was in Adam, and life in Christ. (Italics mine – VJT.)

It would have been easy to overlook this passage if I had not previously highlighted other passages where Origen explicitly declares his belief in a literal Adam. But now we can see that Origen probably understood the saying, “death was in Adam, and life in Christ,” in a fully orthodox Christian sense.

Now we can address the celebrated passage in Contra Celsum, Book IV, chapter 40, where Origen seems to affirm that Adam is a purely symbolic figure. In this passage, Origen is replying to an objection made by the pagan philosopher Celsus, that if God were truly omnipotent, then surely one insignificant man, Adam, could not have thwarted his purposes by sinning at the very beginning of human history; for an omnipotent God could have simply prevented Adam from succumbing to temptation. Origen replies that the consequences of the sin of Adam apply not to one human being but to the entire human race:

For as those whose business it is to defend the doctrine of providence do so by means of arguments which are not to be despised, so also the subjects of Adam and his son will be philosophically dealt with by those who are aware that in the Hebrew language Adam signifies man; and that in those parts of the narrative which appear to refer to Adam as an individual, Moses is discoursing upon the nature of man in general. For in Adam (as the Scripture says) all die, and were condemned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression, the word of God asserting this not so much of one particular individual as of the whole human race. For in the connected series of statements which appears to apply as to one particular individual, the curse pronounced upon Adam is regarded as common to all (the members of the race), and what was spoken with reference to the woman is spoken of every woman without exception. (Italics mine – VJT.)

Origen is not arguing here that Adam is Everyman, as Dr. Alexander thinks. Instead, he is arguing that precisely because the name “Adam” means “man in general,” the consequences of the historical Adam’s Fall must affect the whole human race. Origen is employing typological reasoning here: he is arguing that because Adam’s name has a certain significance (“man in general”), his actions have a mystical (one is tempted to say, magical) significance for the whole of humanity. The same goes for Eve.

Origen was surprisingly literal in his interpretation of Genesis

In the very next chapter, Origen goes on to interpret Genesis in a way that should make Dr. Alexander blush with embarrassment. Yes, Dr. Alexander’s theological hero believed in a literal global flood and an Ark! In Contra Celsum, Book IV, chapter 41, Origen addresses head-on the objections of the pagan philosopher Celsus, who scoffed at the notion of a Deluge covering the entire earth, and of an Ark that carried the survivng humans and animals. Origen argued that the Ark was the product of one hundred years of careful construction by Noah, who was also assisted by God, according to the book of Genesis. Moreover, Origen maintained that the Ark would have been quite big enough to hold all the animals, if the Biblical cubits were Egyptian cubits, which were several times longer than standard cubits. Finally, Origen reasoned that the animals would have been perfectly secure inside the Ark, as it was specially designed by God:

After this he [Celsus] continues as follows: "They [Jews and Christians] speak, in the next place, of a deluge, and of a monstrous ark, having within it all things, and of a dove and a crow as messengers, falsifying and recklessly altering the story of Deucalion; not expecting, I suppose, that these things would come to light, but imagining that they were inventing stories merely for young children." Now in these remarks observe the hostility — so unbecoming a philosopher — displayed by this man towards this very ancient Jewish narrative. For, not being able to say anything against the history of the deluge, and not perceiving what he might have urged against the ark and its dimensions — viz., that, according to the general opinion, which accepted the statements that it was three hundred cubits in length, and fifty in breadth, and thirty in height, it was impossible to maintain that it contained (all) the animals that were upon the earth, fourteen specimens of every clean and four of every unclean beast — he merely termed it monstrous, containing all things within it. Now wherein was its monstrous character, seeing it is related to have been a hundred years in building, and to have had the three hundred cubits of its length and the fifty of its breadth contracted, until the thirty cubits of its height terminated in a top one cubit long and one cubit broad? Why should we not rather admire a structure which resembled an extensive city, if its measurements be taken to mean what they are capable of meaning, so that it was nine myriads of cubits long in the base, and two thousand five hundred in breadth? And why should we not admire the design evinced in having it so compactly built, and rendered capable of sustaining a tempest which caused a deluge? For it was not daubed with pitch, or any material of that kind, but was securely coated with bitumen. And is it not a subject of admiration, that by the providential arrangement of God, the elements of all the races were brought into it, that the earth might receive again the seeds of all living things, while God made use of a most righteous man to be the progenitor of those who were to be born after the deluge?

That’s how Origen defended the Biblical account of the Flood. This is the Christian theologian whom Dr. Alexander lauds for “interpreting the early chapters of Genesis figuratively – as a theological essay, not as science”? Surely you jest, Dr. Alexander.

But I haven’t finished yet. In Contra Celsum, Book I, chapter 19, Origen declares himself to be a young-earth creationist:

After these statements [assailing the Mosaic narrative - VJT], Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that, while concealing his wish, intimates his agreement with those who hold that the world is uncreated.

There you have it. According to Origen, Genesis actually teaches that the world is less than 10,000 years old!

Let me hasten to add that I believe, with Dr. Alexander, that the world is much, much older than 10,000 years. I see no reason to doubt the evidence of science, which suggests that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, and I’ve read so many different interpretations of the “days” in Genesis that I think it would be foolish to insist that the human author of Genesis intended to declare that the world was only a few thousand years old – especially as some Church Fathers interpreted the “days” in a non-literal manner. But on the subject of Adam and Eve, there is a theological unanimity among both Jewish and Christian teachers and religious authorities from antiquity: all of them insisted that Adam and Eve were real, historical individuals. Yes, even Philo and Origen. We cannot rewrite the past to suit our whims. Facts must be faced.

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Documentary: The Athonite Monastery of Simonopetra (1981)

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Documentary: The Architecture of Emperor Justinian

A not-so-complete look at a controversial Roman emperor who also became one of its most revered. I personally liked the architectural reconstructions. This is from the documentary series "Engineering An Empire" by The History Channel.

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Can Anyone Trace the Source of This Quote By St. John Chrysostom?

A few times over the past couple of months I have been asked by my readers to either post or trace the origins of the quote below by St. John Chrysostom. Reading the quote, one could easily make St. John sound like a Tea Party Republican. In fact, if one Google's this quote one will see that this quote is quoted in just this way many times on various conservative websites. The only problem is that when one Google's this quote, an original source never comes up from the works of St. John. The only source that is given is a book titled On Living Simply, which is a book of quotes by Chrysostom compiled by Robert Van De Weyer, an author who has published various books of quotes by spiritual leaders of various religions and sifts out the ones that apply to 20th century life. I have not researched this issue for more than a few hours so I may be wrong, but I am beginning to think the quote is not authentic. Since I have little time to do the research for this, I am asking my readers, if they want, to do the research and leave in the comment section below the original source for this quote (or email me privately and I will post it). It should be noted that I have no political agenda, as I care little about politics and do not consider myself to fall neither in the category of liberal nor that of conservative (I despise both categories), but I do have a pet peeve when people quote Scripture or the Church Fathers out of context to fit their political agendas. The context is all I seek. Your help is appreciated. The quote is below:

Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold, and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the Emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor, and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. Worse still, the rich - whose gold was taken away - would feel bitter and resentful; while the poor - who received the gold from the hands of soldiers - would feel no gratitude, because no generosity would have prompted the gift. Far from bringing moral benefit to society, it would actually do moral harm. Material justice cannot be accomplished by compulsion, a change of heart will not follow. The only way to achieve true justice is to change people’s hearts first—and then they will joyfully share their wealth.

Read also: St. John Chrysostom On Poverty and Wealth

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12 Life Prisoners Take Monastic Vows in Ukraine

January 11, 2012
Interfax

12 convicts of the Vinnitsa prison sentenced for life decided to take monastic vows, the Segodnya Ukrainian paper reports.

Today, 12 novices and two monks live in the monastery on the territory of the prison.

After 20 years in prison, life prisoners can ask for mercy, but perhaps, monks will have more chances to be released.

The morning of one monk, life imprisoned Andrey Chistyakov, starts with 40 prostrations and prayer. "For ten years I read works of the holy fathers for six-eight hours a day. I could have never had so much time as I have here in prison, even in the monastery," the prisoner said.

The Penitentiary Service of Ukraine says there have never been cases when life prisoners massively took monastic vows before.


новости от 24tv.com.ua

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Putin Speaks of His Secret Baptism

January 7, 2012
Asia One

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attended an Orthodox Christmas service Saturday at the church in his hometown of Saint Petersburg where he said he was secretly baptized as a baby in Soviet days.

Both members of the Russian ruling tandem, Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, attended services for Orthodox Christmas, which is celebrated on the night of January 6 and on Jan 7, a public holiday.

Putin, who hopes to win a third presidential term in March elections, went to a midnight service in a cathedral in the northwestern city of Saint Petersburg and was shown on television standing in the front row of believers.

After coming out of the cathedral, he told journalists: "This is a special cathedral for me. I was baptized here," in comments published on his official website.

He said that his mother and a neighbour took him secretly to be baptized, fearing the disapproval of his father, a member of the Communist Party, which promoted atheism as the official state ideology.

Putin was born in 1952, a year before the death of Stalin.

"My father was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was a consistent, strict person. They did this in secret from him - or at least they thought it was in secret," Putin said in unusually personal comments.

He added that funerals for his mother and father were held in the same cathedral.

Putin served as a member of the Soviet KGB secret service, which also frowned on religious beliefs, but has openly talked of his faith since becoming a politician and often meets top church officials.

In a Christmas message released on Saturday, Putin called for the Church to continue "developing constructive cooperation with state and public institutions" in spheres including "counteracting extremism."

Medvedev and his wife Svetlana attended a midnight service at the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, led by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.

The Orthodox Church celebrates Christmas and other religious holidays according to the Julian calendar, while other Christian churches have adopted the later Gregorian calendar.

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Inn from the Good Samaritan Parable Becomes a Museum

Israeli archaeologist Yitzhak Magen brings together mosaics from synagogues and churches in Israel.

January 11, 2012
Biblical Archaeology

The Good Samaritan parable begins on the ancient road between Jerusalem and Jericho, where a man is robbed, brutally beaten and given up for dead before finally being helped by a passing Samaritan. The Samaritan brings the injured man to an inn and pays for his care before continuing on his journey. Although no additional details are given in Luke’s gospel as to the whereabouts of the inn, by the fifth century, the church father Jerome writes that the site of the inn is identified as Ma’ale Adummim, along the Jerusalem-Jericho road, and that there is a way-station for travelers located there.

In the late 1990s, Yitzhak Magen, the staff officer of archaeology for the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, began an excavation at Ma’ale Adummim. He discovered that the site had been rebuilt in several historical periods—the late Second Temple period, the Byzantine period, the Crusader period and the Ottoman period—and in every phase the site had apparently functioned as a khan, or way-station for travelers. In the Byzantine period a church was also built at the site (in the basilical style, like many early churches in Israel), suggesting its importance as a pilgrimage site for early Christians. The floor of the church was once a beautiful mosaic of geometric patterns that had largely disappeared in modern times, so Yitzhak Magen decided that he and his team would restore the mosaic based on early photographs taken before the tiles had disappeared.

After the successful restoration of the church’s mosaic floor, Yitzhak Magen decided that he would take the project further and, using the newly acquired expertise of his mosaic team, create a mosaic museum at the site. Because the Good Samaritan parable is connected to Jews, Samaritans and Christians, Yitzhak Magen determined that the new museum would feature mosaics important to all three religions. He brought important mosaics (or reconstructions if the original was already displayed elsewhere) from Jewish and Samaritan synagogues and Christian churches in Israel and set them up in attractive displays both inside and outside of the former inn, creating a diverse collection of mosaics that is unique in the Holy Land.

Read about the new museum of mosaics from synagogues and churches in Israel at the Inn of the Good Samaritan in Yitzhak Magen, “The Inn of the Good Samaritan Becomes a Museum,” Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2012.

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Contentment Comes From Within

By St. Nikolai Velimorivich

"If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that" (I Timothy 6:8).

The apostles of God taught others that which they themselves fulfilled in their own lives. When they had food and clothing they were content. Even when it occurred that they had neither food nor clothing they were content. For their contentment did not emanate from the outside but emanated from within. Their contentment was not so cheap as the contentment of an animal, but costly, more costly and more rare. Internal contentment, the contentment of peace and love of God in the heart, that is the contentment of greater men, that was the apostolic contentment.

In great battles, generals are dressed and fed as ordinary soldiers and they do not seek contentment in food nor in clothes but in victory. Victory is the primary principle of contentment of those who battle. Brethren, Christians are constantly in battle, in battle for the victory of the spirit over the material, in battle for conquest of the higher over the lower, man over beast. Is it not, therefore, absurd to engage in battle and not to worry about victory but to concern oneself with external decorations and ornaments? Is it not foolish to give to one's enemies the marks of identification? Our invisible enemy [Satan] rejoices at our vanity and supports us in every vain thought. The invisible enemy occupies us with every possible unreasonable pettiness and idleness only to impose upon our minds the heavy forgetfulness relative to that for which we are here on earth. The invisible enemy [Satan] presents to us the worthless as important, the irrelevant as essential and that which is detrimental as beneficial only in order to achieve victory and to destroy us forever.

O Lord, Holy, Mighty and Immortal, Who created us from the mud and breathed a living soul into mud, do not allow, O Lord, that the mud overwhelms! Help our spirit that it always be stronger than the earth.

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Communiqué of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on Ephraim of Vatopaidi

Regret for the results in the case of Vatopaidi were expressed today by the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate reports among other things that it respects Justice and avoids any involvement in the affair, because they do not know, as they state, the contents of the case.

A Metropolitan of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, commenting to the press, talked about the indirect yet discreet support of Abbot Ephraim by the Ecumenical Throne.

The Press Release is as follows:

Gathered today, 10 January 2012, under the presidency of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Holy and Sacred Synod at this tactical conference, among other things, discussed the emerged issue of the imprisonment of the Abbot of the Monastery of Vatopaidi Ephraim.

Regarding this matter we communicate the following:

1. The Ecumenical Throne and Its Holy and Sacred Synod express their sorrow for this shapening of the situation in relation to the decision of this matter.

2. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, according to its tactical consistency, respects the independence of the Justice system, always avoiding every interference in pending court cases, since, after all, they are ignorant of the contents of the case files.

3. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, in connection with statements expressed by sister Orthodox Churches in connection with this issue, recalls that the Holy Mountain, its canonical territory, is constituted of Orthodox monks from various nationalities, but this adds nothing to its Pan-Orthodox character by allowing any kind of interference within it by any Autocephalous Church.

At the Patriarchate, 10 January 2012

By the Chief Secretary of the Holy and Sacred Synod

Source : Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Metal Cross of St. Kosmas Aitolos Given To Metropolis of Beroia

January 10, 2012
Romfea.gr

On Monday morning 9 January 2012 Mr. Demetri Papaioannou of Polidendri in Imathia visited the Metropolitan of Beroia, Naoussa and Campania, in the presence also of the Police Director of Imathia, Mr. Papachristou.

Mr. Papaioannou delivered to the Metropolitan one of the four metallic crosses which Saint Kosmas Aitolos placed in trees on the four points of the horizon as he was passing through Polidendri in 1775.

The cross was discovered by Mr. Papaioannou in November of 2011 on a big log that was burning in his fireplace.

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Video: Religion and Atheism in Russia

With the fall of Communism, Orthodox Christianity has been revitalised in Russia. However, atheism has not died out. Peter Owen-Jones explores the revival of religion in post-Soviet Russia. He takes part in the Epiphany celebration in the re-built St Xavier's Orthodox Cathedral, a busy, chaotic ritual marking the baptism of Jesus. In the face of this rejuvenated Christianity, atheists in Moscow are not impressed. The presenter hears an atheist response to the religious revival, which is put down to people needing the guidance of an external force. Peter Owen-Jones then visits an atheist debating society to consider the strength of atheism in Russia.

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Video: Christmas In Tbilisi, Georgia

Thousands of Georgian worshipers celebrated Orthodox Christmas this past weekend throughout the country, participating in night-time services and a street procession known as Alilo, the name of a traditional carol.

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The Orthodox Celebration of Theophany

By Professor Ioannes Fountoulis

On January 6th our Church celebrates the great despotic feast of "Theophany" or "Epiphany" or "Holy Lights". The forefeast begins the day after New Years, January 2nd. In this preparatory period is found the "Sunday Before the Lights". This fits into the functional forefeast preparation. In the Gospel reading from the Divine Liturgy on this Sunday we hear: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" from the prologue of the Gospel of Mark, who narrates the appearance of John the Forerunner in the Jordan desert, preaching and prophesying about Christ. John baptized "in water", one "more powerful" than him though, Who came "before him", He will baptize people "in the Holy Spirit" (Mark 1:1-8).

In the four-day forefeast period, from the 2nd until the 5th of January, the services are stacked with canons, triodia and other forefeast sacred hymns. We have here the "Holy Week" of the Lights, like we saw during Christmas, with the difference that the time of preparation here is less due to the extension of the feast of Christmas until December 31st and the feast of the Circumcision of Christ on January 1st. Again the similarities with the Services of Holy Week are evident, precisely because of the paralleling of the feast of the Theophany with that of Pascha. Again the preparation culminates on the eve with the bright Services of Great Hours and Great Vespers of the feast.

The celebration is extended eight days after the feast, including three special days - the day after Theophany with the Synaxis of Saint John the Forerunner and Baptist of Christ on January 7th, the "Sunday After the Lights", and the last day of the feast, the apodosis (leave-taking) on January 14th, at which time also is chanted the entire service of the feast.

In this excellent liturgical framework shines the great despotic celebration of the Theophany on January 6th. Its origin is similar to the celebration of Christmas. On January 6th was celebrated in the old calendar the winter solstice by the people of Egypt and Arabia. At the beginning of the third century followers of the heretic Basilides attempted to replace the pagan celebration of this feast with the baptism of Christ. Shortly afterwards the Church of the East set January 6th as the feast day of Epiphany, or Theophany. The apostle Paul speaks of "the glorious epiphany (appearing or manifestation) of our great God" (Tit. 2:13). Elsewhere he stresses that through Christ "the grace of God epiphanied (appeared or manifested) saving all people" (Tit. 2:11). The same speaks of God, Who "was manifested in the flesh" (I Tim. 3:16). Under the expressions of the Apostle of the Nations are acknowledged the known national terms "theophany" and "epiphany", which meant the appearing among people of the deity or god-emperor in a particular city. With the epiphany of false gods and emperors, the Christian Church opposed this with the epiphany of the true God and King Christ, the true theophany. Also the worship of the sun, which conquers during the winter solstice the darkness of night, was opposed with the worship of the true sun, Christ, who rose, as the prophet Isaiah said, in a world sitting in darkness and shadows. "Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined"(Isa. 8:23-9:2). This prophecy also the evangelist Matthew applies at the beginning of the public ministry of Christ, the epiphany among His people (Matthew 4:12-17). This pericope we will listen to read during the Liturgy of Epiphany.

However the meaning of the theophany or the epiphany of Christ was not connected to only a single historical fact of His life. We saw that Basilides and his followers celebrated on January 6th the Baptism at the Jordan, in which, according to their heretical teaching, divinity incarnated in Christ. But according to the Orthodox teaching of baptism it is the beginning, the first public appearance and prominence of Jesus as Messiah and Savior. As such He was recognized by the representative of the Old Testament, the prophet John the Forerunner who saw the Holy Spirit "descending and resting upon Him" (Jn. 1:32-34) and heard the voice of the Father: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased"(Matt. 3:17; Mrk. 1:11; Lk. 3:22), assuring him of the sonship. At the baptism the Son/God appeared, but God/Trinity was also revealed, as the poet characteristically sings in the apolytikion of the feast chanting: "In Jordan You were baptized, O Lord, and the veneration of the Trinity was manifested." The Son was baptized, the Father's voice was heard and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. "At the Jordan the Trinity was manifested," as the holy Kosmas sings in the third troparion of the eighth ode of the first canon of the feast.

But with the birth of Christ God is manifested to the world. Therefore it was celebrated at the same time as the feast of the baptism on January 6th. Again new accounts came to justify the birth of Christ on January 6th, as well as the co-celebration on the same day of the baptism. Christ, perfect God and perfect man, also had to have everything perfect and complete that arose in His life on earth. Perfect therefore should be the years of His earthly life and not missing. It is estimated that He died on the cross on April 6th. This should have been, according to the above calculations, the day of his conception by the Virgin Mary, the Annunciation. Thus His birth after nine full months should coincide with January 6th. He was baptized "when He was beginning to be about thirty years of age" according to the evangelist Luke (3:23), that is again on January 6th, if perfection required here the full number of years of His birth as on the day of His entry into public ministry.

Related to the events of the birth of Christ and the manifestation of the Divinity of Christ, is the worship of the shepherds and the Magi's offering of gifts. The first were the representatives of the Jewish people and the second the beginning of the idolaters, who recognized and worshiped first the manifested Son of God. And the celebration of these two events came to enrich the theme of the celebration of Theophany. The events celebrated already became four.

But we have a fifth Theophany event in the beginning of the ministry of the Lord. His first miracle at Cana of Galilee, where during the marriage feast He changed water into wine. And the evangelist John notes, who narrates the incident: "This beginning of the signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him" (Jn. 2:11). The revelation of divine glory to Christ's disciples, the beginning of His signs, the miracle of the wedding of Cana, was added to the other four festive themes.

The first two festive themes prevailed however, the birth and baptism of Christ co-celebrated on January 6th, and this remained long in the East and so far has been preserved in the Armenian Church. When in the fourth century Rome and the East began to celebrate Christmas on December 25th and this gradually prevailed there, the contents of the eortologion for Theophany split. Christmas celebrated the birth and Theophany the baptism at the Jordan. This is precisely the subject of today's feast of the Theophany.

This decongestion did not hurt, but instead was favorable for the great feast. The splitting of the epiphanies allowed more depth for their developments. The baptism of the Lord, the Theophany, the prototypes in the Old Testament, its expansion and its consequences in the life of the Church, gave wonderful and rich themes to the poets of the prayers and hymns of the feast and to the holy commemorators. Of particular brilliance is the Service of the Great Blessing of the Waters, which now in order to serve the faithful is celebrated twice - on the eve and after the Divine Liturgy of the feast. It is a vivid depiction of the baptism of Christ. First, as the beginning and the head of the new people, Christ is baptized and sanctifies the created waters to create through them the new world, the New Creation, new people, faithful Christbearers and Godbearers. In the pannychida of the Theophany, after the blessing of the water and the communion and the sprinkling of believers, the catechumens were baptized. It was the feast of "the Lights". The "illumination" - the baptism of Christ and Christians.

The hymnology of the feast of the Theophany is unparalleled in beauty. In it is included works by famous ancient hymnographers of the brightest hymnography of our Church. In the Service of Matins for the feastday in the eirmos of the first canon, the poet Kosmas the bishop of Maiouma, in the second ode, which are chanted as katavasies at the end of the odes, combine in a remarkable way the themes of each ode to the theme of the feast: the crossing of the Red Sea through water for the salvation of the people; the upholding of the humble Anna and the defeat of the dragon by the omnipotent God in the water of baptism; the prophetic voice of Habakkuk and the Baptist's voice of one crying in the wilderness; the peaceful preaching of Isaiah and the salvation of Adam's work by the peacemaker Christ in the Jordan; the lament "in sorrow" of Jonah and the Baptist's preaching of repentance; the dew of the furnace of Babylon, the immaterial fire which accepted the kennels of the River Jordan, and the hymnology to the Mother of the one baptized. All this, Old and New Testaments, type and truth, are intertwined in a supra-cosmic marriage.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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Elder Paisios: "We Feel Insecurity Because We Are Insured"

- Elder, why do people today feel insecure?

Because we are all insured! We insure our car, our house, and our life. Having worldly insurance, we put aside the protection and providence of God.

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Who Is Vulnerable To Cults?

Everyone has the potential to be susceptible to cult recruitment and coercion at particularly vulnerable points of their life.

Transitional times tend to increase vulnerability:

-During a vacation
-First year away at school
-A year "off" or after graduation
-A job change or loss
-After suffering any loss
-Upon reaching new life stages
-Following the break-up of a relationship
-Soon after moving to another city or country
-During a search for meaning, or to "find oneself."
-Lonely, without, or away from friends or family

Who is the "typical" recruit?

The recruit can be almost anyone including:

-From middle to upper socio-economic family backgrounds
-Sixteen to senior citizen
-Of average or above-average intelligence
-Usually well educated, including college graduates
-Intellectually curious
-Idealistic or seeking meaning or purpose in life
-Most vulnerable between high school and college, and between college and career
-When temporarily unattached
-Cult recruitment is usually done by a very friendly, charismatic, and persuasive person, who recruits new members in order to move him, or herself, up the hierarchy within the cult.

Recruiters are persistent, seem very interested in you, don’t take "no" for an answer; and try to convince you that you are failing yourself or the world if you decline the offer to get involved. They will avoid responding to your questions while simultaneously pressing you for personal information.

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Movie Reviews: The Devil Inside; A Dangerous Method; My Week With Marilyn

Since I tend to consistently keep up to date with the latest movies in filmland, I will begin 2012 with weekly movie reviews that will likely be posted every Sunday, usually in the evening. I will not go into any depth for each film, but will just offer my impressions and a traditional rating of up to five stars. I will also offer additional links for each movie for those who may be interested in knowing more about the film, such as the official site, IMDB page and the trailer. Reviewed each week will be those films which I saw over the previous week.

Since writing my post last week for my favorite movies of 2011, I had the opportunity to view two other movies from 2011 that I did not see on time (A Dangerous Method; My Week With Marilyn) and my first look at a film from 2012 (The Devil Inside).

1. A Dangerous Method (2011)

Story: A look at how the intense relationship between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud gives birth to psychoanalysis.

Director: David Cronenberg
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley and Viggo Mortensen

Official Trailer
Official Website
IMDB

Review: This movie captures a brief historical segment of the birth of psychoanalysis in a beautiful way. From what I know it accurately depicts the conflicts between the rigid scientism of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and his student Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) who was more open to the mysticism behind certain human experiences. Added to these tensions is how these men responded to a Russian mental patient, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), and how she may have influenced the two. In fact, her conception of the sexual drive as containing both an instinct of destruction and an instinct of transformation, presented to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1912, anticipates both Freud's "death drive" and Jung's views on "transformation". In the eve of World War I the world was transforming both intellectually and sexually and this movie captures a glimpse of that story. The acting between the three stars of the film is superb, and as I stated in my reviews of the top ten movies of 2011 elsewhere, Michael Fassbender should get the best male actor of 2011 award for his three great performances. Any movie that makes me want to read more about the subject gets high praise from me.

Rating:
2. My Week With Marilyn (2011)

Story: Colin Clark, an employee of Sir Laurence Olivier's, documents the tense interaction between Olivier and Marilyn Monroe during production of The Prince and the Showgirl.

Director: Simon Curtis
Stars: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne and Kenneth Branagh

Official Trailer
Official Website
IMDB

Review: The role of Marilyn Monroe either makes or breaks this dramatic biographical chronicle of one man's week-long love affair with her. I thought Michelle Williams' excellent and convincing portrayal made this film as good as it could be made. The film does portray Monroe a bit superficially, but I think that is the image we all have of Marilyn Monroe. Yet there is enough of the dichotomy between sexual sweetness and emotional pain Monroe is so known for to make this a very good biographical film. But what matters here most is the performance of the role, as you will learn little of anything new about Monroe herself.

Rating:
4. The Devil Inside (2012)

Story: In Italy, a woman becomes involved in a series of unauthorized exorcisms during her mission to discover what happened to her mother, who allegedly murdered three people during her own exorcism.

Director: William Brent Bell
Stars: Fernanda Andrade, Simon Quarterman and Evan Helmuth

Official Trailer
Official Website
IMDB

Review: I really don't know where to begin with this movie. I will first say that I have not seen such excitement for a film people know so little about in a while, especially with such an enticing trailer that gives you the feeling that this movie will deliver on the level of horror that people really are looking for. I met a friend to see this film and we had to go to three theatres to see it because it was sold out everywhere. Even for the 11:00pm showing the theatre was packed. It had an interesting enough opening that you thought it may deliver what you are looking for in a movie like this, but it didn't. The movie is lazy and uncreative and has one of the worst endings in film history. If the director added 15 minutes and gave it a better ending then it may have been redeemed, but he didn't. When the movie was over I thought there may possibly be a riot. People were booing and expressing how much they hated it, some even wanting their money back. The Blair Witch style cinematography is an interesting medium that can be effective if done right (like it was in Cannibal Holocaust, Blair Witch Project, REC, and Paranormal Activity), but movies like this may kill the method altogether. I'm hoping the DVD will have that extra 15 minutes for a better ending, but that's doubtful, despite it being #1 in the box office this weekend with 34.5 million dollars in profits. Despite all this however, it was an interesting movie experience. Spoiler Alert: The ending is ambiguous and leaves you to do your own research by referring you to a website. If a movie is good, it will make you want to do research, otherwise it is just homework.

Rating:

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Video: Waves Overturn Boat With Priest During Theophany Celebration

January 6, 2012
Keep Talking Greece

The Epiphany tradition wants Greek Orthodox priests to throw the Cross into the water and Greek Orthodox believers to jump into the cold water and catch the Cross. However this tradition had almost a fatal effect to one priest and six ambitious young divers due the rough weather in Scala of Makrysgialos in Pieria. At 10 o clock in the morning believers had gathered at the beach to attend the ceremony. The priest went on board with the young divers and the boat set sail for off shore. Just minutes after the start, strong winds and high waves brought the boat upside down and all passengers fell into the ice cold water. The audience on shore got panicked and watched the incident with strong heart-beating. The divers and the policemen from an accompanying boat manage to rescue the aging priest who was taken to a hospital for a health check. All seven people survived the incident without injuries and together with other believers will remember this incident until the end of their days.

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Video: The Christmas of Athonite Ascetics

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Theophany (Or Epiphany)

By Protopresbyter George Dion Dragas, Phd, Dd, Dth

1. Theophany (or Epiphany) and Christmas. Theophany is one of the great Feasts of the Lord of the ecclesiastical year. It is also called Epiphany and the Day of Lights and is celebrated on the 6th of January. The names of this Feast indicate the understanding of the ancient Church concerning this Feast. This understanding is connected with the revelation of God, that is, the manifestation of the One God in Trinity through the Incarnation of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. Consequently, Theophany comprises the birth of Christ and the related events (e.g. the visitation of the Magi) and also the beginning of the public manifestation of the incarnate economy of the Son of God which is connected with the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan by John the Baptizer.

In the 4th century AD, Christmas was separated from Theophany and constituted a separate Feast, which was celebrated on the 25th of December. This separation had been adopted in the Western Church, which was at that time united with the Eastern Churches. Since then Theophany was specifically connected with the Baptism of Christ, i.e. with the commencement of the public ministry of Christ through which he became the Savior and Redeemer of the world. The question that arises here is why was Christ baptized? Why did this take place and what is its deeper meaning?

2. The Baptism of Christ and the Sacrament of Baptism

a) The witness of John the Evangelist. In the Gospel of St. John we find the first hints regarding the relation between the Baptism of Christ and the Sacrament of Baptism. St. John the Forerunner speaks about the Baptism in water which he administered according to the divine calling and explains that the coming Christ would transform it into baptism in the Spirit so that through it human beings would enter into the kingdom of God: “John bore witness and said that he saw the Spirit descending like a Dove from heaven and resting upon Christ. He also said the he did not know him [i.e. Christ – until that point], but He who sent him to baptize had said that on whom he would see the Spirit descending and resting upon him, he would be the One who will baptize in the Holy Spirit. John also said that he saw this and bore witness to it, namely, that he is [the Christ] the Son of God” (1:32-34). Exactly the same was confirmed by the Lord himself when he said to Nicodemus: “Amen, amen I say to you, unless one is born of water and Spirit, one cannot enter the kingdom of God” (3:5). These words of the Lord constitute the institution of the holy sacrament of Baptism, through which human beings become Christians. The descent of the Holy Spirit, then, at the Baptism of Christ, revealed the sacrament of Christ which Christ instituted and operates through the Holy Spirit. It is the Baptism which the Lord delivered to his holy disciples as a basic element of their ministry in the world.

b) The witness of the Evangelists Matthew and Mark. In the two synoptic Evangelists, Matthew and Mark, there is an explicit statement about the necessity of the sacrament of Baptism as a means of participation of human beings in the salvation which Christ offers. This appears in the command of the Risen Lord to his Disciples to preach the Gospel and baptize human beings throughout the world. In other words, he asked them to initiate human beings into their new and saving relation with the one God in Trinity which was definitively revealed at his Baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptizer in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. “Go, then, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all those things which I commanded to you” (28:18-20). Mark the Evangelist states the same in a briefer way. “Go to the whole world and preach the Gospel to the entire creation. Whoever believes you and is baptized will be saved“ (16:15-16).

It is clear, then, that the sacrament of Baptism which Christ instituted by fulfilling and transforming the Baptism of John the Baptizer is the commencement of our reconnection with our creator, who is the leader and perfecter of our salvation. To understand the deeper meaning of this salvation we must pay attention to the details that the Gospel narratives supply concerning the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan.

3. The deeper meaning of the Baptism of Christ and the Sacrament of Baptism.

a) Man’s return to the true God. The Baptism of the Forerunner was a “baptism of repentance,” which signaled man’s return to God by obedience to the divine will. It was necessary in view of the coming of the Messiah and the kingdom of God which He would bring into the world. It was a kind of prelude and preparation which looked towards God’s intervention through the Messiah, that is, the justification of human beings and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is most clearly manifested in the words of Christ to John the Baptist, “This is necessary, so that all righteousness might be fulfilled” (Matth. 3:15). So, when Christ came forth to receive the baptism of John as a man, he accepted the divine will on behalf of the entire humanity. And then, the witness of the heavenly Father which recognized him as His beloved Son and the descent of the Holy Spirit in a bodily manner “in the form of a Dove” signaled the acceptance of Christ by the Father as the Messiah who would bring the kingdom of God into humanity. This kingdom was mainly and primarily represented by the communion of the Holy Spirit, as the prophet Isaiah had foretold: “Jacob is my son and I will take him up. Israel is my elect, whom my soul has accepted, and to whom I gave my Spirit so that he might judge among the nations“(42:1).

b) The humanity of Christ as the basis of man’s salvation. Both the acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah as well as the descent of the Holy Spirit upon him refer to his humanity, which he assumed for our sake, and made it the basis of our justification and salvation. As the ecclesiastical hymnology declares:

“Having put on the form of the servant, O Christ, you came forth to be baptized by a servant in the waters of Jordan, so that you may redeem from the ancient slavery and sanctify and enlighten all of us human beings” (Vespers of the eve of Theophany).

“It is redemption that Christ is coming forth to bring to all believers through his baptism. Because through this, he purifies Adam, he raises the fallen, he puts to shame the tyrant who caused the fall, he opens the heavens, he brings down the Holy Spirit, and he grants incorruption and participation” (8th Praise).

“Today the Lord comes to the waters of Jordan, and says to John: Be not shy for baptizing me, because I came to save Adam the protoplast” (Oikos).

“As man you came to the river, O Christ, King, and you hasten to receive baptism from the hands of the Forerunner, for our sins, O Lover of mankind” (Sophronios of Jerusalem)!

c) The revelation of the one God in Trinity and his communion with man. In the last analysis, however, what happened in the Jordan refers to the divinity of Christ, and especially to his eternal filial identity, which reveals the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Christ is the eternal Son of the Father who also became man in order to bring man back to the kingdom of the Holy Trinity. It is for this reason that the Sacrament of Baptism which grants to us regeneration and brings us into the life of Christ is celebrated in the name of the Holy Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The feast of Theophany, then, refers not only to man’s return to the true God, the creator and Savior through Christ, but also to the revelation of the mystery of God, i.e. to the truth that God is one in Trinity and as such he must be worshiped. As the ecclesiastical hymnology states it:

“When you were baptized in the Jordan, O Lord, it was then, that the worship of the Holy Trinity was manifested. Because it was then that the voice of the Begetter bore witness by calling you His Beloved Son. And then also, that the Spirit in the form of a Dove confirmed the assurance of the word. We glorify You in Your Epiphany, O Christ, as the God who enlightens the world” (Apolytikion).

“You manifested yourself to the world today, and your light, O Lord, was marked upon us who praise you with full understanding” (Kontakion).

The enlightenment about the One God in Trinity is also the reason for the feast of Theophany being called the feast of “The Lights.” The Lights in this case are the three blessed persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who are one divine Light unapproachable!

4. The Great Sanctification of the Waters. The Great Sanctification of the Waters, which is observed on the eve and on the day of Theophany, is a calling to remembrance of the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan by John the Baptist and the sanctification of the waters which was done by Christ at that time. Saint John Chrysostom speaks about this Great Sanctification of the feast of Theophany and says that the sanctified water was kept by the faithful and used for purifications, support, healing, etc. We realize its importance when we recall the words of the prayer which the priest offers at the epiclesis (invocation) of the Holy Spirit and the sanctification of the water: “…and make it a source of incorruption, a gift of sanctification, a release of sins, a cure of maladies, a extermination of demons, unreachable to the opposing powers, a plenitude of angelic potency…” What is particularly important in this case is the repentance and the fasting which is observed on the eve of the Feast. When we receive the sanctified water of the Great Sanctification with contrite spirit and true faith, then it truly becomes a healing means of soul and body and undoing of all opposing powers.

The feast of the Theophany is an invitation to renewal and return to the Lord of glory, who humbled himself, though he was God, and became man – a true man, sinless, forgiving and merciful, the way, the truth and the life. Let us follow him on the path of righteousness, along with his all-holy Mother the Theotokos, St. John the Baptist, the holy Apostles and all the Saints.

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The Baptism of Christ and the Baptism of Christians

By Bishop Theophilos of Campania

Preamble: The Month of January is marked by the Great Despotic Feast of Theophany (or Epiphany), which commemorates the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. This provides us with the occasion to consider both the Baptism of our Lord and also our own Baptism. The text published here is from Bishop Theophilos of Campania. Bishop Theophilos of Campania (1749-1795) was one of the brightest figures of the Church in the 18th century; distinguished for his theological and canonical expertise. He was born in Ioannina and became a Bishop in Campania, the area to the west of Thessaloniki and opposite Chalkidiki. He was probably a student of the famous teacher Eugenios Voulgaris and is particularly known for his book Tameion Orthodoxias, which ran through eight editions from 1780 to 1939. It is from this work that the text provided here is taken.

Ι. The Baptism of Christ: Christ was perfect God and as such he had the Holy Spirit within him. He was also perfect man united with God and as such he had a humanity that was totally deified. He was most pure and had no need of purification. He was also sinless, free from original sin and any other sin. But then, why was he baptized? Christ was baptized in order to reveal the truth to John the Baptist; to show the way that human beings have to follow in their life; and to sanctify the waters; “not to begin with receiving sanctification, but granting participation in sanctification,” as Gregory of Neocaesarea the Thaumatourgos says.

Christ submitted to Baptism in order to teach us how we should behave in order to attract the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is why he became an example, in all things, that he might reveal the Holy Trinity; the Father witnessing from above, the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove and Christ himself bearing witness that he is the Son of God.

Like the dove which warned Noah that the deluge had passed, so the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended and gave the message that the hour had come for the deluge of idolatry to cease and for God to be reconciled with human beings, and to present Christ who was not known to the majority of people by his divine birth from the Virgin. This is why John the Evangelist says: “he stood up in the midst of the people” (John 1:26); in other words, he suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Paul says that, “John baptized the people with a Baptism of repentance asking the people to believe in him who was to come after him, namely Jesus” (Acts 19:4).

So we see that Christ was baptized in order that the multitude of people who were there might know him and believe in him; but also in order that “all righteousness might be fulfilled” (Matth. 3:15), which meant that since not all were persuaded by the prophesy of John, he himself was persuaded on behalf of all. Indeed this is why he accepted the Circumcision, and kept the Sabbaths and the Feasts, and fulfilled as lawgiver all that the Law specified, so that he might not appear to be an opponent of the Law and the Types.

The appearance of the Holy Spirit at the Baptism of Christ took place so that we human beings might be persuaded that when we are baptized the Holy Spirit comes to glorify our baptism.

The Baptism of Christ taught human beings about their regeneration. Also the fact that, immediately following his Baptism, Christ went to the desert and fasted and was tempted by the Devil and conquered him as man, took place in order to teach us that it is impossible to us to undergo bravely the temptations of the Devil and conquer him unless we are based on the grace of the Holy Spirit which we receive at our Baptism.

Christ was submerged into the waters and reemerged again just once. This submersion specifies his descent into Hades and his emersion, his resurrection from the grave. Also the opening of the heavens, which is mentioned in the Gospel, –“for when Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up from the water and behold the heavens were opened to him” (Matth. 3:16) – took place for us, in order to indicate that every time a human person is baptized the heavens are opened and that the way to heaven is now open, if we keep our Baptism undefiled.

ΙΙ. The Baptism of the Christians.

1) Christ himself ordered this Sacrament of Baptism to his disciples. He told them “to go everywhere and to teach all nations, and to baptize those who believe in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all his commandments” (Matth. 28:19); in other words, he told them first to persuade people to reject the deception of idolatry (the worship of creation and the creatures of it, including themselves, instead of the Creator) and then to baptize them. Just as a good farmer first removes the useless and harmful roots and then sows the seed.

Holy Baptism creates equality among human beings, because it is equally necessary for all, the king and his subjects, the rich man and the poor, men and women; and also because the grace it grants is the same and no one gets more or less from it in comparison to the others.

2. The element that is necessary for Baptism is water, because it says: “Can anyone forbid water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit as we have” (Acts 10:47)? We see here that although these early Christians had already received the gift of the Holy Spirit, they still had to be baptized in water. Water hides a specific sacrament. There are many divine symbols that are fulfilled by the use of water: Christ’s tomb, death, Resurrection, life, all of which take place together. In the water we bury the old man and when we emerge from it there is a new, pure man that comes up.

The submersion into water and the emersion from it at Baptism takes place three times, because it is the power of the Holy Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that fulfills all things. Canon 49 of the Holy Apostles says: “If a Bishop or presbyter does not baptize in the manner of a triple submersion, but of one submersion only, which is connected with the death of the Lord, he should be defrocked; and this is the case because the Lord did not say baptize into my death, but, 'Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.'” The Great St. Basil also stresses the same in his Letter to Amphilochios of Iconium, in which he emphasizes the need to observe a triple submersion and emersion at Holy Baptism. And so do many other deified Fathers.

3. The triple submersion into the water at Holy Baptism reveals that as Christ remained for three days and nights at his tomb, likewise whoever is baptized becomes homeopathic by assimilation, because he is buried in the water; Christ is buried in the earth and we, in the water. It is necessary then that priests should do all baptisms, of children and of adults, by triple submersion, because this is demanded by the mystery that Holy Baptism enshrines. In other words, all precautions should be taken so that there is plenty of water and baptism is correctly done.

4. The priest pronounces the words and the power and the grace of the Holy Trinity reshapes the person who is baptized. Without being baptized no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven. One has to put off the old man with his sins and put on the new man, whose youth is rejuvenated like an eagle’s; for, as the specialists say, when an eagle gets old, it becomes blinded and his wings become heavy. When, however, he is exposed to the warmth of the sun, he goes down into a source of water and, submersing its wings in it, is rejuvenated. It is in exactly the same manner that he too that is baptized is rejuvenated pronouncing the Amen.

The Red Sea saved the Hebrews and drowned the Egyptians. Something similar takes place at Holy Baptism. It saved those who believe and are baptized, but condemns those who remain unbelievers. This is why we are obliged to cultivate the faith and never defy our Baptism lest we be condemned.

5. Various pre-figurations of Holy Baptism are found in the Old Testament: Moses’ “trench” and “washbasins” (III Kings 18:32ff and Ex. 30:18). Elisha sent Neeman the leper to be baptized in the river Jordan and be healed (II Kings 5:14). In the Gospel we read about the Pool of Siloam where sick people were healed; and also about the Baptism of the Forerunner in the River Jordan, which was done only for repentance. There are these and many other OT pre-figurations of the Holy Baptism, which takes place for the elimination of original sin and any other sin and also for the spiritual regeneration of man, as Micah predicted it: “He will submerge our iniquities and they will be thrown away into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).

6. Faith and Baptism are the two ways of our salvation and remain indissolubly joined together. Faith is perfected through Baptism, so that whoever believes and is baptized is saved. Since our faith is in the Holy Trinity, we are also baptized in the Holy Trinity and thus become pure, because we actually put on Christ. This is indeed the Baptism which Isaiah prophesized about: “Wash yourselves, be clean” (Isaiah 1:16).

7. Baptism in cases of emergency: The 13th canon of the 7th Ecumenical Synod says that, “if there is an emergency a monk or a deacon can do the Baptism.” The 16th canon says that, “if there is an emergency, then a father may baptize his own child, or someone else, any simple person, because this is no sin. All this, of course, presupposes that he who baptizes is a Christian. This is the case because even a priest baptizes his children and does not depart from his wife. Canon 84 of the Synod of Trullo and Canon 7 of Carthage say that, “whenever we are not sure whether a child has been baptized or not, then we should proceed to baptize it”. Indeed, Patriarch Nicephoros says, that “in an emergency even a simple Christian can do a baptism;” and the Commentary adds “that if in a case of emergency one does a baptism of a babe in the Name of the Holy Trinity, there will be no need afterwards to read the prayers and the exorcisms, but to have the priest do the Chrismation with the Holy Myrrh and the prayers related to it.” Also, if there is no pure running water, then the water of the sea can also be used for a Baptism, because seawater is basically water.

If a babe is born in a condition that makes it unclear whether it is dead or alive, then it is baptized supposedly, and he who baptizes it says, “the servant of God, supposedly alive is baptized in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” In all these cases of emergency there is no need of a sponsor, who is needed in normal cases. Thus, midwives and doctors who help in deliveries should be prepared to baptize the newly born in cases of emergency.

8. Baptism takes place only once in one’s life, because it is a type of Christ who was buried and rose again only once. As the Apostle Paul says, “we were baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3); and elsewhere, “it is impossible to be reborn again with baptism if we fall into sin” (cf. Heb. 6:4). This is why the Sacrament of Repentance (or Confession) was instituted so that when a Christian sins he may repent and be cleansed from his sins.

9. Baptism is a great Sacrament: it cleanses the entire human being with an ineffable grace which is greater than any other, even that of prophesy. This is why the Forerunner said, “I am in need to be baptized by You” (Matth. 14:16); he knew that the Holy Baptism not only cleanses man from sin, whether the origin or any other, but also grant him sonship by adoption, making him a relative of God, and so many more goods. Christ not only freed us from the hands of the Devil, but also raised us to a higher position. For this reason we die; not because we are so obliged by original sin, but in order that the father of sin, the Devil, is condemned and we are transposed from the earthly and vain condition to that which is heavenly and immortal, reigning with Christ for ever.

Thus Canon 111 of the Synod of Carthage says that, “whoever thinks that baptism is only for the forgiveness of sins and not for granting the future blessings, is anathematized.” Clement the Alexandrian says, “that those who are baptized are illumined; and those who are illumined are adopted as sons; and those who are adopted as sons become perfect; and those who become perfected become immortal; because, as Scriptures says, ‘I said, you are gods and sons of God, all of you. ”

There is a multitude of miracles that have been granted with Holy Baptism to the unbelievers. From all these we may recall one that occurred during the early Christian times. It is connected with a Greek pagan person, called Porphyrios, who used to ridicule and deride the Christians and, therefore, decided to mock in his theater the Holy Baptism. He constructed a font and baptized himself in it by submersing himself three times and saying, “In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” But lo and behold, as his audience was laughing at this act, he was suddenly wounded by the love of Christ, and openly confessed him as true God. This caused him many tortures in the hands of the pagans, but he refused to deny Christ. On the contrary, he shed his blood and ended his earthly life becoming a martyr of Christ.

Source: Translated and annotated from the original Greek By GEORGE DION. DRAGAS, PhD DD, Protopresbyter

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