Olet, the Beloved Bird of Elder Paisios

The following is a letter written by Elder Paisios the Athonite to the nuns of the Monastery of St. John the Theologian in Souroti sent in the Spring of 1975. At the time he lived in the Kalyva of the Holy Cross.

In your last letter you sent me an icon of Adam and the animals in Paradise. So I thought I would send in my turn the drawing of a bird, my closest friend, because if I sent you the drawing of a snake, I think you would be captured by fright. I have named him Olet, which in Arabic means "child". He lives in a hill five hundred meters from my kalyva. Every afternoon I bring him goodies and treats. As soon as I give him something to eat, he takes a little and leaves. I call for him to come, but he leaves and after a little while he comes secretly from behind and hides under my jacket. When I go to leave he walks behind me at a distance of about one hundred meters and I, so that he will not continue coming behind me and get tired, leave him a crumb so that he may occupy himself, and I leave quickly so he will lose me.

Lately he has abandoned his asceticism and seeks good times! He neither eats broken rice or soaked dry bread, but only worms, which he wants me to put on a "plate" - the palm of my hands - and he climbs up there and eats. Progress!

There are days when I celebrate with Olet and his partner. One can say: "Why do you make exceptions for Olet? Why don't you do the same for other birds?" I respond: "When I call for Olet to come, he brings with him other birds, friends of his, who run right to the food, but Olet comes out of obedience and love. Even when he is hungry, he sits a while with me and forgets food; I remind him. And now that the weather has turned beautiful and he finds bugs to eat, when I call he still comes out of obedience, even though he is full and not bothered by hunger. Well, how can you not rejoice more for this philotimo bird than the other birds?

Many times I am moved by such great love that I want to squeeze him in my clutch, but I fear that I will be like the monkey which out of love squeezes its child and in the end suffocates them. So I clench my heart, and I rejoice for him from afar, so I will not harm him.

One day I was late to go to the hill and Olet, because he was chirping a lot, had relaxed early. I left his food and departed without seeing him. The next day I left to go very early, because I was worried that a hawk had eaten him. When he saw the food that I had left overnight, his "thoughts bothered him" and he went halfway and waited for me. When he saw me he was like a crazy person because of his joy. I gave him to eat, but he wanted company more than food. I marvel at his asceticism and the love he has, as well as his gratitude. Pray that I may imitate his virtues.

I believe you will not complain, since I told you everything, that I did not receive the consent of Olet. I hope I will not upset him, even though these things will not be known to the outside. You have the greetings of his and mine, the many.

At my kalyvi I not only have birds of the air, but all the animals come here - jackals, hares, ferrets, turtles, lizards, snakes - they get their full from the overflow of my love, and I am satisfied myself when they are satisfied, and all of us together, "the beasts, the cattle, the birds and the reptiles", "praise, bless, and worship the Lord."

Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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(7) Orthodoxy's Worship: The Sanctification of the Entire World

By Protopresbyter George Metallinos

7. The Sanctification of the Entire World

The objective of ecclesiastical worship is the sanctification of the entire world. Man’s life is sanctified, but so is the environment that surrounds him. Within the boundaries of worship, Man is projected in Christ as the master and the king of Creation, who is called upon to refer himself, along with Creation, to the Creator – the source of their existence and sanctification.

a) The Sanctification of Time: The liturgical year is the transcending “in Christ” of the “calendar year” and the transformation of the calendar into a feast-day almanac. With Her celebrations and Her services, the Church sanctifies and transforms the year of our daily lives, by unifying and orienting it towards the kingdom of God. Liturgically speaking, Time ceases to be a simple, natural framework, inasmuch as it is transformed into a point of reference used for determining the content of worship. This is evidenced by the terminology used: “Matins” (=morning), “Vespers” (=evening), “Midnight”, “Hours”, etc.... From the liturgiological aspect, the organizing of the annual cycle on the basis of time periods (day, week, year), with an analogous organizing of one’s very life, is called the “Annual Liturgy”.

The liturgical year “baptizes” Man’s entire life into the worship of the Church. The repetition of the feast-days every year renews the catechesis of the faithful and it gives a special meaning to the customary (Greek) wishes: “and next year, also”, or, “for many more years” – wishes that refer to new opportunities for learning. The liturgical year is linked to the Church’s cycle of feast-days, whose basic structural element is festivity. There is a cycle of “mobile” feast-days with Easter at its centre, and a cycle of “immobile” feast days, with the Epiphany and Christmas at its centre. The periods of the Triodion and the Pentecostarion belong to the former cycle, having received their names from the respective liturgical books that predominate therein.

The Triodion period is a sectioned one, just as the human body is sectioned: the first four weeks can be regarded as the body’s extremes; the body itself is the Great Lenten period, and the Holy Week of Easter is the head. Hymns, readings and rituals all comprise a spiritual preparation for one’s participation in the Holy Week and the Resurrection. From Easter Day, the period of the Pentecostarion begins. Easter and Pentecost were already feast-days of the pre-Constantine order, and albeit Hebrew in origin, they now had a Christian content. Christ and His Passion are what differentiated the Christian from the Jewish Passover-Pascha, which had now become a symbol of the new life; of the divine kingdom. The coming of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost inaugurated the new century.

The cycle of immobile feast-days was organized with the day of the Epiphany at its centre (6th January), a date that originally also commemorated the Birth of Christ. The separation of the two celebrations for historical and theological reasons was effected around the middle of the 4th century. With Christmas as their basis, the other, Magisterial feast-days (Circumcision, Baptism, Presentation, Transfiguration) were each put in their respective place. But the Theotokos also comprises a “liturgical sacrament”. The feast-days relating to the Holy Mother (Birth, Presentation, Annunciation, Dormition, etc.) are all linked to the Magisterial feast-days, expressing the same sacrament. The celebrating of the memory of Saints is an extension of the liturgical honour bestowed on the Theotokos. What seems odd for some people however is that the Church “celebrates” by honouring the memory – that is, the dormition – of Her children and not their birth. We Orthodox Christians do not celebrate our birthdays; we celebrate on the day of commemoration of the Saint whose name we bear. In Christian terms, a “birthday” is the day of one’s ‘dormition’, i.e., the day that one is born into eternity. The Saints embody the “common life” and are projected as the leaders of mankind, in its course for making man real. Our nation’s association with the Saints – with the Most Holy Mother at the head – is apparent in the two-fold festivity that is performed in their memory, both inside the temple with the Holy Altar at the centre, and outside the temple, with the secular table at the centre. The book of the lives of Saints is a cherished article for the people, as it is seen as a “hoarding” of the Church’s historical memory and a guideline for the faithful. The course of the faithful is shaped, “along with all the Saints”.

The liturgical organizing of Time in its micro-temporal dimension is analyzed in the weekly cycle of services and the day-to-evening services. The weekly cycle is composed of two parts: the Saturday-Sunday cycle and the five-day cycle. Each day of the week is dedicated to the memory of a certain soteriological event or a certain Saint: Sunday is dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ; Monday to the Angels; Tuesday to Saint John the Baptist; Wednesday and Friday are respectively linked to Judas’ betrayal and Christ’s Crucifixion (which is why these are two days of fasting); on Friday, the Church also commemorates the presence of the Holy Mother by the Cross; Thursday is dedicated to the Apostles and Saint Nicholas; and Saturday is dedicated to the deceased.

The weekly cycle was organized on the basis of Sunday (Greek=Kyriaké), the first celebration – historically - to be set down by the Church. Being directly related to the Lord (Greek=Kyrios) Jesus Christ (Cor.I, 12:3), it represents a confession of faith unto Him. Being also related to the “eighth day”, it was linked to the Divine Eucharist as a permanent and immobile day for its commemoration. The Sunday “day of rest” – which was imposed by Constantine the Great in 324 A.D. – did not relate Sunday with the Sabbath, but instead portrayed itself as the transcending of the Sabbath. Sunday is “the first of the Sabbaths (=the first day of every week), the Queen and the Mistress”, we chant. The Sabbath reflects the natural life of the world, whereas Sunday represents the eschatological day of entry into the new aeon.

The day-to-evening services include the following: The 24-hour cycle begins with Vespers (see Genesis 1: “and it became evening, and it became morning….”) and its services coincide with the ancient division of Time (evening, midnight, dawn, third, sixth, ninth hours). The services are: the “Esperinos” (Vespers = of the day’s end) or “Lychnikon” (=of the lamp), the Major and Minor “Apodeipnon” (=after the evening meal); the “Mesonyktikon” (=of midnight); the “Orthros” (=of dawn) – the most extensive and theologically opulent service, and the “Ores” (=Hours), which are the 1st, the 3rd, the 6th and the 9th, in commemoration of the major moments affecting our salvation (the Crucifixion, the Death of Christ, the descent of the Holy Spirit).

But, while all of ecclesiastical worship was indissolubly interwoven with natural Time, the Divine Liturgy remained beyond Time and its confinements. Thus, it does not belong to the cycle of day-to-evening services, nor are any of the other services regarded as preparation for it. That is why it can be performed at any time – morning, noon or night – as the par excellence celebration and festivity of the Church.

b) The Sanctification of Life: The epicenter of the sanctifying function of the Church is Man. From the moment of his birth into this world and his spiritual re-birth in the Church, through to the last moment of his presence in this lifetime, ecclesiastical worship constantly provides Man with opportunities for “ecclesiasm” and continuous rebirth. The catholicity of the spiritual and everyday caring of the Church for Her faithful is evident in the liturgical book “Major Book of Benedictions”. Its very structure and its texts embody the objective of the Church, which is the “complete” incorporation of Man in the ecclesiastical body, the struggle for victory over the devil, the demonic powers of the world and sin, and the confronting of everyday problems and needs. The wealth and the variety of the benedictions and the Services of the book of Benedictions is indicative of the love and the concern of Orthodoxy for the personal and the social life of the faithful; for the cycles of his life, and his more common and everyday labours.

The Church sanctifies Man from the moment of his birth, giving Her blessing to the new mother and the newborn child, preparing the latter to be eventually received into Her bosom. After all, the sanctification of the family begins from the Sacrament of Marriage. On the 8th day, the infant receives its name with a special liturgical act, and its personal “otherness” is thus confirmed – something that is afterwards proven by its incorporation in the ecclesiastical body. On the 40th day, the infant is “led to” the temple to be “churchified”, to begin its ecclesiastical life, which corresponds to the commencement of adult catechesis.

After this spiritual preparation, Baptism follows; this is the entry into the body of Christ, which gives Man the possibility of living the life of Christ and of constantly receiving His Grace. Infant baptism, familiar since Christian antiquity, can be comprehended only in the cases of pious parents and godparents - in other words, of a Christian background – and cannot be imposed by any legislation. Through Baptism, the “neophyte” is inducted into a specific community – the local Church – by participating in the ethos and the way of existence of the Church. The more perfect this induction is, the more consistently will his Christian status evolve.

But the faithful is called upon to augment the gift that he received through his baptism, by orienting his life in a Christ-centered manner. Thus, after “nature” (=soul and body) has died and risen (=immersion) in the baptismal font, the human persona is also sanctified through the Sacrament of Chrismation which functions as the personal Pentecost of the faithful, so that through his spiritual labor, he will become a “temple” of God and his life a veritable Liturgy. The Sacrament of Repentance (Confession) provides the opportunity for a continuous transcending of sin and the transforming of death into life.

Furthermore, the Church blesses the “paths” that the faithful voluntarily choose for their perfection: either marriage (in Christ), or monastic living. Both are “sacraments of love”, with a direct referral to Christ. Marriage, when preserved within the framework of a life in Christ, leads to the transcendence of the flesh and to one’s perfect delivery unto Christ, thenceforth coinciding with monastic ascesis. In this way, the Sacrament of Marriage reveals the truth of the Church without being used to serve conventional expediencies of everyday living. Wherever marriage is perceived simply as a moralistic adjustment or a “legal transaction”, “political” marriage is preferred, which may be a legal act, but it is nevertheless a marriage that is not spiritually “equivalent” to the ecclesiastical one, which is a Sacrament of Grace.

Furthermore, ecclesiastical worship provides sanctifying acts for every moment of one’s life. In fact, through them, it proves that it is not a “spiritualist” (abstractly spiritual) affair, or a “religious” affair, because the sanctification it provides also constitutes a proposal for confronting the everyday problems of each person. In one of the Matins Prayers, we ask God to grant Man His “terrestrial and celestial gifts”.

There are blessings even for instances in life that seem trite and insignificant, such as (for example) “for a child’s haircut”, “for when a child leaves to learn the sacred texts”, “for ill-natured children”, etc.. Other blessings refer to the intake of food, the various “vocations” and works of the faithful (eg, travels) as well as “professions”; inter-personal relations are blessed, so that there will be justice, peace and love; God’s Grace is requested for man’s tribulations, for his illnesses, his mental health and his psychosomatic passions. An important place in the worship of the Church is given to death: the cessation of the body’s collaboration with the soul, until the moment of the “common resurrection”. The Church does not overlook this supreme existential event of life; in fact, She stands near the person from the moment that death makes its appearance. She confesses the near-death person and offers him Holy Communion; She inters his body, which has now been delivered to mortification and corruption, sending off the soul to its last journey and beseeching Christ to receive His child, who has abandoned the world with the hope of acquiring “eternal life”. The funeral service is one of the tenderest and touching texts in ecclesiastical worship.

In parallel to the above, the church offers prayers for various moments of public life: serious circumstances and disasters, dangers, malfunctions in public life, both in the micro-society of the village or the town, as well as the macro-community of the homeland and the nation. The relative prayer material refers to national anniversaries, the structures of civil life, education, the armed forces, public health… This incomparable liturgical wealth remains broadly unknown and so we remain ignorant of all those elements that can give meaning to our lives.

c) The Sanctification of Material Creation: Creation, both liturgically and theologically, is the broader territory provided for man’s fulfillment; it is the framework of his everyday life – especially in rural communities, where this is perceived more profoundly. Man’s association with Creation constitutes a special theme of ecclesiastical worship and it unfolds during special services that prove the ecclesiastical acknowledgement of material creation (bread), which was assumed by Christ’s human nature and which is constantly transformed into the “flesh” of Christ during the Divine Eucharist.

Our liturgical act blesses and sanctifies water, wine, sustenance, living and working quarters, flora, fauna, natural phenomena (wind, thunder, rain, earthquake, etc.), for the protection, finally, and the salvation of man. During worship, the faithful offers the Creator’s gifts - in lieu of his giving thanks - so that they might be “baptized” in Divine Grace and be returned to the offerers, for their own sanctification and preservation. During the Divine Liturgy, “one could say that a march, a parade of the whole world towards the Holy Altar is taking place” (Fr. John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamus). This negates every notion of an opposition between the natural and the supernatural, since the creation being offered to God (bread and wine) becomes the carrier of the Uncreated (Grace) and sanctifies the participants.

The God-centeredness of existence is inspired by the theology of such texts. Through nature, Man is referred to the Creator, by comprehending the world as a gift of the Creator, learning to use Creation eucharistically (with gratitide) and acquiring the empirical certainty that the issue is not “what does man eat”, but with what presuppositions he eats something, given that sanctified nature co-sanctifies man also. Thus, the faithful learns to become an “officiator” of Creation, in a “cosmic liturgy” that is officiated by the Saints. The Saints, with their imperishable and miracle-working relics, reveal the destination of Creation, which are its sanctification and its incorruptibility. Each faithful is invited to our worship, so that he can be wholly sanctified; so that he will be enabled to co-sanctify Creation along with him, through his association with it.

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Video: The Fall of an Empire - The Lesson of Byzantium

THE TEXT OF THE FILM “THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE—THE LESSON OF BYZANTIUM”

The YouTube video above is the first of nine parts. The entire video can be seen in one video here.

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The Roman Chain of the Golden Horn

The Romans had this chain stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn to keep out the navy of Mehmed II in 1453 during the siege of Constantinople. Each link is about 2 feet long and they were only broken once, during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Desiring to get his fleet into the Golden Horn from the Bosphorus and prevented by these chains, Mehmed ordered that several ships be rolled on land across Galata on greased logs two days later. Moving around the Genoese colony of Pera, the ships were able to be refloated in the Golden Horn behind the chain. They are currently on display in the Istanbul Military Museum, as well as other parts in the city.

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The Walls of Constantinople Still Stand

By coincidence, the dates and days of the week in 1453 coincide with those this year, and May 29th falls once again on a Black Tuesday. In 1453 the Ottoman Turks used a giant cannonade, tossing granite projectiles that weighed a full ton, to tear down the walls of Constantinople and conquer the city, and though the city eventually was conquered, the walls continued to stand despite the damage. The walls of Constantinople still stand, although there have been attempts to tear them down once they lost their defensive purpose. Right up to the end of the 20th century plans were made to destroy them. The railway from Europe runs right through them along the Sea of Marmara. Sultan Abdulaziz, who reigned from 1861 to 1876, was eager to tear them down during his reign because he felt they weren’t modern and western enough – these obviously were in the days before tourism. Some parts of the walls came down in order to widen the roads that ran through them – after all they weren’t built to accommodate the automobile and a city with millions of inhabitants. Even in the 1980s and 1990s there was nationalistic talk of tearing them down because the walls weren’t Turkish, but there was heavy opposition. Because of tourism, a large-scale restoration program has been under way since the 1980s, which allows the visitor to appreciate their original appearance. But the restoration program has been criticized for use of inappropriate materials and poor quality of work and destroying historical evidence. During the earthquake of 1999 some restored sections collapsed while the original structure underneath remained intact, as if showing contempt for the shoddy work that had been done on them.

For more on the walls of Constantinople, read here.

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The Great Mystery of Matrimony

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

The Mystery of Matrimony

"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cling to his wife and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24).

It is God's will that the human race multiply; it is God's artful manner how the human race is being multiplied. It is God's mystery how man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. To leave your parents does not mean to abandon your parents but rather to become parents yourself. When children become parents, they are no longer only children, but are companions of their parents. When wedded sons learn of the mystery and pain of childbirth, they then respect their parents even more. The marital union can never free a man from having respect and obedience toward his parents. The original commandment of God to honor your parents must be fulfilled. But, according to the natural cycle of things, a man leaves his parents and becomes a parent himself; he becomes a founder of a new future while his parents depart, having completed their role in the world. However, everything is not in "leaving" the parents. By a certain incomprehensible mystery, man clings to his wife and detaches himself from his parents. St. Theodoretus writes: "Christ Himself left his Father on high and united Himself to the Church."

My brethren, matrimony is a great and miraculous mystery, one of the greatest mysteries of God's plan. A pure and honorable marriage is overly replete with sublimeness. A pure and honorable marriage, in the fear of God, is a vessel of the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Whoever disdains marriage disdains the Spirit of God. Whoever defiles marriage with impurity, blasphemes against the Spirit of God. Whoever abstains from marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God must, in a different manner, prepare himself as a vessel of the Holy Spirit and, in the spiritual realm, make himself fruitful in order not to be cut down as the barren fig tree.

O God, Holy Spirit Almighty, assist those who are in the state of matrimony, that in purity, fear and mutual love be as the Church of God in which You joyfully abide and govern all things for good.

The Two-fold Mystery of Marriage

"This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church" (Ephesians 5:32).

Great is the mystery when a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. The apostle himself, who was raised to the third heaven and who saw many mysteries of heaven, calls the physical union of men and women in marriage on earth "a great mystery." That is the mystery of love and life and only the mystery of Christ's bond with His Church is greater. Christ is called the Bridegroom and the Church, the Bride. Christ loves His Church so much that, because of Her, He left His heavenly Father - remaining with Him, of course, in unity of substance and divinity - and descended to earth and attached Himself to His Church and suffered for Her so that, by His Blood cleanse Her from every sin and spot and make Her worthy to be called His Bride. With His love He warms the Church, with His Blood He feeds the Church, and by His Holy Spirit He causes the Church to live and sanctifies and adorns Her. What a husband is to a wife, so Christ is to the Church. Man is the head of a woman and Christ is the Head of the Church. A husband loves his wife as his own body. A woman listens to her husband and the Church listens to Christ. A husband loves his wife as he loves his own body and Christ loves the Church as His own Body. A husband loves his wife as he loves himself and a wife reveres her husband, and Christ loves the Church as He loves Himself and the Church reveres Christ. Since no one hates his own flesh but rather warms and nourishes it so also Christ warms and feeds the Church as His own Body. And every individual human soul is the bride of Christ the Bridegroom and the assembly of all the faithful is the bride of Christ the Bridegroom. The kind of relationship of a believing man toward Christ so also is the relationship of the entire Church toward Christ. Christ is the Head of that great Body which is called the Church, and which is in part visible and in part invisible.

O my brethren, this is a great mystery! It is revealed to us according to the measure of our love toward Christ and of our fear of Christ's judgment.

O Lord, Gentle Savior cleanse us, save us and adorn our souls that we may be worthy of the immortal and indescribable unity with You in time and in eternity. To You be glory and thanks always. Amen.

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Documentary: Constantine the Great

This documentary is a fine production, but sometimes walks the line between truth and fiction, especially towards the end. It avoids any supernatural explanations for certain incidents in Constantine's life, but does not necessarily discount them either. Towards the end, following the defeat of Licinius, Constantine is depicted as a bit maniacal and power hungry, of which there is no evidence, and the documentary suggests a certain hypocrisy in Constantine for killing Licinius and his son (during an unnecessary emotional scene), and his wife Fausta and son Crispus. An objective history would have been better, such as stating that Licinius was hanged by Constantine for conspiring to raise troops among the barbarians, and Fausta and Crispus were killed for an unmentionable crime that not even his successors and her sons repealed. For the most part, however, this documentary is useful and moderate, just completely ignore the last few minutes if you seek an objective history.

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St. Nikodemos on the Prophecies of St. Andrew the Fool for Christ

In his Synaxaristes For the Twelve Months of the Year (vol. 3), St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite makes an important note for the commemoration of St. Andrew the Fool for Christ on May 28th. He does not write anything about the life of this Saint, but after stating that he reposed in peace and giving the Verse of Praise, he notes the following reason for not writing anything further:

"The Life of this Saint Andrew is preserved in a manuscript of much breadth, a book almost of great composition, in which are contained numerous prophecies concerning the future. I will never issue this here, as it is said, it contains some things that are doubly unacceptable, and it is found at Iveron, as well as other places."

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St. John the Russian and the Collapse of the School

In 1862, after attending liturgy in the nearby Church of Saint Basil, an Orthodox woman told the Christians that the previous night she had dreamt that St. John the Russian had risen up from his coffin and gone to the neighboring school, where, with his own hands, he held up the collapsing roof. As she finished her story, they all heard a tremendous crash, and ran outside to see that the roof of the school had indeed collapsed over the schoolhouse. Expecting the twenty children to be dead, the despairing villagers ran to lift up the heavy roof beams, but to their astonishment all of the children crawled out of the debris unharmed. They told the villagers that, seconds before the roof collapsed, they had heard a terrible creaking sound and hidden under their desks. When the roof fell, the beams were supported on the desks, and no one was hurt.

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Video: Trisagion at the Tomb of Dostoevsky

On Sunday 27 May 2012 the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos, together with other bishops and clergy, visited the tomb of Fyodor Dostoevsky at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Russia, where he performed a Trisagion Service for the repose of the soul of the great Russian writer.

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Sunday of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod

By Sergei V. Bulgakov

Devoting this Sunday to the memory of the Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, the Holy Church sings:

"Let us, the pious assembly of true believers, celebrate today in prayerful memory the God-bearing Fathers from every part of the world who assembled in the brilliant city of Nicaea. For these pious wise ones put down the godless teachings of the terrible Arius, and expelled him from the unity of the Catholic Church, and clearly taught everyone to profess their faith in the consubstantial and coeternal Son of God, existing before the ages, expressing this clearly in the symbol of faith". 

The heresy of Arius was one of the most destructive heresies.* It concerned the teaching about the divinity of the Son of God, i.e. that main doctrine of Christianity, on which all our faith and the whole Church of Christ is founded, which makes it the unique basis for all hope of our salvation. If the Arian heresy, rejecting the divinity of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, then exasperated the whole Church and carried away with itself a great many pastors and shepherds; if this heresy had overcome the true teaching of the Church and was made dominant; then for a long time Christianity itself would no longer exist and the whole world would be plunged into its former darkness of unbelief and superstitions. The Holy Fathers at the First Ecumenical Council laid down the Orthodox teaching, having established it universally. And the Holy Church, after a comfortable time, glorifies these same Holy Fathers of Nicaea on the Sunday after the Ascension because the most glorious Ascension of the Lord serves as clear proof of the inseparable connection of the two natures in Jesus Christ, the divine and the human.

In the service for the present day, the Holy Nicaean fathers are hymned, as "the hierarchs of Christ", "hierarchs, glorious pastors", "most blessed fathers of divine knowledge", "as luminous stars bright with the truth of Christ", "keepers of the known apostolic traditions", "O divine array, God-proclaiming knights of the Lord's company, most brilliant stars of the spiritual firmament, impregnable towers of the mystical Zion, fragrant flowers of Paradise, all-golden mouths of the Word, the praise of Nicaea, the adornment of the universe".

Commemorating the efforts of the Holy Fathers of the Nicaea Council, the Holy Church glorifies them because they, "gathered all pastoral art and righteous ascetic passion, avenging the difficult rotten and pernicious wolves, with the sling of the spirit casting them out from church performance", "preaching peace, with the peace most of the world was united", and "all the gathered spiritual art and through the Divine Spirit immediately seeing the heavenly and honorable symbol of faith divinely written sketched out", i.e. as St. Demetrius of Rostov says, "a true canon of the Christian faith". According to the manual of this hierarch, firmly containing this canon of the Orthodox faith in Christ, as the bright candlestick in the darkness of this world, we should go the way of the commandments of the Lord, in order for us to inherit a bright and blessed place. With all our life we should confess, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the true God and the perfect man, and He, our Savior, will call us true servants and His confessors (Mt. 10:12). With a loud voice we should most sweetly glorify the name of Christ, before whom every heavenly, earthly, infernal worldly knee bends, but the Lord will glorify us with heavenly glory for He says: "I will glorify those who glorify me". Continuously we should hymn Him as the true God, and He will bless us in this contemporary life with the fulfillment of His grace, and for the praise of our mouths He will satisfy our flesh and souls with the glory of eternal life in His kingdom of heaven where He in unapproachable glory reigns with the Unoriginate Father, the Coeternal and Lifecreating Spirit to ages of ages without end.

Notes:

* By the way, in the service of the present day we commemorate the wonderful vision of one of the Holy Fathers who attended the Council of Nicaea, St. Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria. This zealous advocate of the Orthodox faith, "seeing Christ like the Child on the holy offering table, dressed in a torn robe" asked: "who are you, O Savior, in torn clothes?"  "Arius", replied the Lord. "Truly", as St. Demetrius of Rostov says, "this wolf (Arius) tore the clothes of the Lamb of God, when he denied His divinity, when the Creator of all called creation as created, when the faithful people, through the blood of Christ, were divided from the unity of faith and love, when the only begotten Son was called the servant and attendant to God the Father. But for tearing the clothes of the Lamb, the blasphemer accepted the reward for his deeds. For the Lord tore the belly of Arius, (all his innards dropped out), as a second Judas, and at the same time also tore the impious soul from the corrupt body, as an example and lesson to other heretics, blasphemers".

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How the Fame of St. John the Russian Revived

In 1922 with the Greek-Turkish war and the wave of nationalism and ethnic cleansing that swept Turkey, the body of St. John the Russian was carried to Greece by refugees during the exchange of populations. It was housed at a church dedicated to the Saint's name.

Remaining largely forgotten and ignored, Saint John's fame was revived in the 1970s, when he resumed his miraculous works of healing. Children with congenital deformities and diseases are the most common beneficiaries of the Saint's grace.

In 1970 a child was born to a family in Istiaia, Greece, living in extreme poverty. The boy's legs were horribly bent and his feet attached to his back. The doctors surgically separated the boy's legs from the rest of his body, but there was no hope of the boy being able to walk. There was no neural network in the lower half of his body.

While the child grew his family spent what little money they had with the hope of finding a treatment for the boy's disability. When the only thing left to them was a small lamb, a vision of Saint John the Russian led the family in a pilgrimage. Carrying the animal on his back and the boy on his arms, the desolate father took his family on a march of 80 miles through the wilderness leading to the church housing the coffin with the Saint's body.

Tying the lamb to the holy coffin, the father dedicated his last belonging to the Saint, praying for his son's recovery. After the ceremony of veneration and prayer to the miracle-working Saint, the family slept outside, in front of the church's door.

Soon after midnight the father woke the handicapped child. His wife, stirred by the noise, asked what he wanted of the child at this time. Ignoring her, he went on and asked the child for a drink of water. The healed child arose to bring his father water from the fountain outside the church.

This was one of the first in a sequence of miracles that made the saint rise again in popularity and make pilgrims flock to his church today with their gifts and wishes. Among them, every year in autumn a young man brings a living lamb in his arms, an offering to the Saint that turned his life from a condemnation to a blessing.

In 1974, in France, a devastated mother prayed at a monastery of the Virgin Mary. A Russian visitor approached the mother having heard her pray for her child born with a rare, congenital disease of the pituitary gland. He told her of his compatriot Saint, whose miraculous body remained intact in Greece. He showed her a small icon of the Saint.

Back at the hospital, the stranger maked the sign of the cross on the infant's forehead with the small image of the Saint. The child writhed and turned. It was covered with sweat. The mother touched her lips on its brow - the fever was gone. The child, whose death had been predicted as imminent and inevitable, continued to grow normally.

Since then many incidents of wondrous healing and recovery have been attributed to the young Saint and his miraculous body. His small church is now brimming with offerings of wax statues, silver vessels and icons of the Saint. He continues to perform miracles for those who pray to him and he attracts a large crowd of pilgrims every year.

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3000 Muslims Pray For Hagia Sophia To Become A Mosque

Ayla Jean Yackley

May 26, 2012

Reuters

Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey's historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque.

Worshippers shouted, "Break the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open," and "God is great" before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on.

Turkey's secular laws prevent Muslims and Christians from formal worship within the 6th-century monument, the world's greatest cathedral for almost a millennium before invading Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the 15th century.

"Keeping Hagia Sophia Mosque closed is an insult to our mostly Muslim population of 75 million. It symbolises our ill-treatment by the West," Salih Turhan, head of the Anatolian Youth Association, which organised the event, told the crowd, whose male and female worshippers prayed separately according to Islamic custom.

The government has rejected requests from both Christians and Muslims to hold formal prayers at the site, historically and spiritually significant to adherents of both religions.

The rally's size and location signals more tolerance for religious expression under Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose party traces its roots to a banned Islamist movement.

His government has also allowed Christian worship at sites that were off-limits for decades, as it seeks to bring human rights in line with the European Union, which it aims to join.

Turhan told Reuters his group staged the prayers ahead of celebrations next week marking the 559th anniversary of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet's conquest of Byzantine Constantinople.

"As the grandchildren of Mehmet the Conqueror, seeking the re-opening Hagia Sophia as a mosque is our legitimate right," Turhan said in an interview.

Worshippers refrained from entering the museum, one of Turkey's most-visited tourist destinations and whose famous dome is considered a triumph of Byzantine architecture.

Most Turks appear satisfied with it remaining a museum as a kind of compromise between its conflicting historic roles.

OTTOMAN PAST

However, some devout Turks believe that barring worship at Hagia Sophia is an affront against Sultan Mehmet, who designated it as a mosque and who, like other Ottoman leaders, served as caliph to the Islamic world.

Under Erdogan, many Turks have come to embrace their imperial Ottoman past and question the more austere, Western-oriented reforms that followed the last sultan's overthrow in 1923.

The shift coincides with a stalled EU bid and declining expectations Turkey will ever join the mostly Christian bloc.

The government's active diplomatic engagement in the Middle East with lands that once belonged to the Ottoman empire has also prompted Turks to reexamine the NATO member's Western tilt.

Meanwhile, some Orthodox argue Hagia Sophia should be returned to its original state as a Christian basilica.

In 2010, 200 or so Greek American Orthodox aborted plans to pray at Hagia Sophia after the Turkish government threatened to block their entry into the country on security grounds.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, spiritual leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox, does not support efforts to revert its former dominion into a church.

"We want it to remain a museum in line with the Republic of Turkey's principles," said Father Dositheos Anagnostopulos, the patriarch's spokesman.

"If it were to become a mosque, Christians wouldn't be able to pray there, and if it became a church it would be chaos."

Only a few thousand Greek Orthodox faithful are left in Turkey, but the patriarch's seat remains in Istanbul, a vestige of the Byzantine Empire.

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Uzbek Orthodox Church Introduces Tests for Would-Be Godparents

May 26, 2012

Uznews.net

The Orthodox churches of Uzbekistan have introduced a new procedure for the rite of baptism which provides for attending 12 Sunday lectures and passing exams.

“I have visited Tashkent’s St. Uspenskiy Cathedral Church to find out how to baptise my son and learnt that this is a whole problem,” a 28-year old resident of the Uzbek capital, Olga, has said.

Who will agree to become a godfather?

According to Olga, would-be godparents will now have to attend Sunday catechetical lectures which will explain the essence of Christianity and the main point and meaning of baptism.

After attending a total of 12 catechetical lectures, would-be godparents and those who want to be baptised, if they are already 15, will have to pass exams.

The matter is not about simple formality. “Skiving”, like at school, will be impossible because the attendance of catechetical lectures will be registered as visitors “have to sign in some book”.

“Where will I find godparents for my son under such conditions?” Olga wonders.

According to her, all her friends who had earlier been willing to become a godmother or a godfather have now refused politely to do so after learning that they will have to visit the church on Sundays for three months.

Godfather should help godchild!

Other church members approve the church innovation.

“It is a right thing that catechetical lectures and exams were introduced, otherwise people have been becoming godparents for no particular reason but just to drink during christening parties without having any idea about their new obligations,” a 50-year old member of Tashkent’s Saint Uspenskiy Church, Marina, has said.

She said that godparents would have to help their godchildren in the future in both practical circumstances and “in their kind and Christian education”.

“As for adults willing to be baptised, God ordered them to attend 12 catechetical lectures, otherwise many get baptised because it is just in fashion and they do not even know the basics of Orthodox Christianity,” a friend of hers, pensioner Mariya, added.

Metropolitan Vikentiy revives traditions

Many link the innovations at the Tashkent and Uzbekistan eparchy of the Russian Orthodox church’s Central Asian metropolitan area with the new leader of the church, Metropolitan Vikentiy, who came late in August 2011.

“Metropolitan Vikentiy has decided to revive old traditions and strengthen his confidence in orthodox believers,” members of the church have spoken of him respectfully.

The decision to hold 12 compulsory catechetical lectures before the rite of baptism was adopted at the 4 October 2011 eparchy clergy meeting at Tashkent’s eparchy directorate.

Since that day, catechetical lectures have been mandatory for all priests of the Tashkent and Uzbekistan eparchy.

The practice of baptism without catechetical lectures is only allowed for a person if he is seriously ill or about to die.

The meeting also decided that “it will be mandatory for both for children and adults to undergo the sacrament of baptism through full immersion” in a big baptismal bowl instead of previously practiced aspersion with holy water.

There is always a way out

“Not everyone likes the church innovation but there is a way out from any situation,” a 35-year old would-be godfather, Maksim, has said.

According to Maksim, the Tashkent eparchy understands that the innovation was a little bit too much and they are ready for compromise to prevent the alienation of less committed believers form the church.

“When I have announced at the Saint Uspenskiy cathedral church that because of certain circumstances I am not able to come to the church every Sunday, I was offered to buy a disc of catechetical lectures for 8,000 sums [about 2.5 dollars] and to listen to them at any time comfortable for me and then pass the exams,” says Lyudmila, who is going to become a godmother of her niece.

“It is quite obvious that catechetical lectures for future godparents were introduced in order to make people more religious and to attract new members to orthodox churches at the same time, but this is not fair at all,” a 30-year old Tashkent resident, Elena, has said.

In her opinion, mandatory catechetical lectures should be given only to adult people who want to receive baptism: “if they want to get baptised, let them learn more about orthodox Christianity.”

“And for those who have decided to become godparents it is enough for them to listen to a lecture about the rights and duties of godparents and to get a two-page booklet,” Elena suggested.

She thinks that this will also help people to learn more about religion and preserve a democratic atmosphere in Uzbekistan’s orthodox churches that is so necessary “at present difficult realities of life”.

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The Prerogatives of Sunday, the Lord's Day

By St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite

Brethren, we shudder when we think about the lofty and great and wondrous prerogatives of the resurrectional day of Sunday, which are these:

1) Sunday is the beginning of the Creation of the cosmos, on which day the Father especially acted, while co-operating with the Son and the Spirit.

2) Sunday became the beginning of the renewal of Creation, on which day the Son especially acted through His resurrection.

3) Sunday is the perfection of Creation, on which day the Holy Spirit especially acted, descending on Sunday in the likeness of fiery tongues, and enlightened and perfected the Apostles.

Behold how much the whole Holy Trinity honored the holy day of Sunday!

4) Sunday is the eighth day: a) Because it is numbered after the seventh day, and it superseded the seventh day of the Jewish Sabbath, according to Athanasios, Basil, and Gregory the Theologian in their reference to the inscription of the sixth Psalm. b) Because the resurrection of the Lord occurred on Sunday, being the eighth resurrection numbered after the previous seven resurrections, according to Gregory Palamas of Thessaloniki. Three resurrections occurred in the Old Testament: one by Elias, and two by Elissaios. Four occurred by the Lord: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow, Lazaros, and those who were resurrected on Great and Holy Friday. Therefore, the Lord’s resurrection is the eighth. c) It is called the eighth day because the Lord rose on the eighth day and appeared to the Apostles, and again, after eight days, He appeared to them, Thomas being present. d) Because all of the other Feasts of the Lord are celebrated only one time per year, but Sunday is celebrated every eight days, therefore it is celebrated fifty two times a year. Behold how much more exalted and supreme Sunday is over the other Feasts!

5) Sunday is one, as Moses calls it: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day” (Gen. 1:5).

6) Sunday is an icon and a prelude of the future age. Wherefore Basil the Great, wondering why Moses called it “one” and not “first,” says: “Thus it is in order that you may carry your thoughts forward towards the future life, that he marks by the word ‘one’ the day which is the icon of eternity, the first-fruit of days, the contemporary of light, Holy Sunday, honored by the resurrection of our Lord.” And Gregory of Thessaloniki says: “We call Sunday the new and first of all days. But Moses did not name it ‘first,’ but ‘one,’ as superseding all the other days, and being a prelude of the future age: one never-setting day.” Gregory the Theologian, in his Homily on Pentecost, said: “Seven being multiplied by seven generates fifty, minus one day, which we borrow from the age to come, at once the eighth and the first, or rather one and indestructible. For the present sabbatism of our souls can find its cessation there, that a portion may be given to seven and also to eight.”

7) Sunday greatly surpasses Saturday, as much as the truth and the end surpasses the beginning, the type, and the shadow, according to Gregory of Thessaloniki: “As Friday is to Saturday, so Saturday is to Sunday, Sunday clearly surpassing Saturday, just as the beginning and the type and the shadow is surpassed by the end and the truth.”

8) The Lord will come on Sunday at the Second Coming. Wherefore the Godbearing Maximos said: “The appearance of the Lord will be on the eighth day (which is Sunday, for there is no other eighth day), that is, His Second Coming.”

9) The general resurrection of the dead will occur on Sunday, and not on another day. Wherefore Gregory of Thessaloniki said: “Sunday is so sublime and sacred, on account of the supremely blessed end and the hoped-for common resurrection of all that will take place on Sunday.”

10) The Righteous will enter into the perfect rest of that eternal and absolute life on Sunday, according to the same Saint: “On Sunday will be the perfect entrance of the worthy into divine rest, and the dissolution and restoration of the entire cosmos.”

11) Now, Sunday is an icon of the future age; then, it will be in truth the eighth age, for on Sunday the Second Coming will happen, as the divine Maximos said above, and the resurrection of the dead, and the delightful rest of the Righteous, as Gregory of Thessaloniki said. Many Saints say that the Lord, the never-setting Sun of Righteousness, will come at midnight on Sunday, as this is inferred from the Gospel passage which says: “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet Him” (Mt. 25:6). The reason being that once that Sunday is illumined by the rays of Christ the spiritual Sun, it will never again see the evening, but it will be one never-setting day, without any successor, and eternal unto the ages of ages. Wherefore Basil the Great said: “The great day of the Lord (that is, the Sunday on which the Second Coming will occur, as we said above), not the day that the physical sun will bring, but the day that the rising Sun of Righteousness will exceedingly illumine, will be one and unending, having no successive night, but extending forever unto the ages.” And again: “And only the Lord will be exalted on that final day of all days, which day neither night will interrupt, nor time confine, nor will physical light give a beginning and end to it, but it is one, unmovable, never-setting, and perpetual.” And again, in his commentary on the six days of Creation he says: “This day without evening, without succession and without end is not unknown to Scripture, and it is the day that the Psalmist calls the eighth day, because it is outside this time of weeks. Thus whether you call it day, or whether you call it eternity, you express the same idea. Give this state the name of day; there are not several, but only one. If you call it eternity still it is unique and not manifold.”

In agreement, the brother of Basil the Great, the divine Gregory of Nyssa, also says: “When the time of weeks comes to an end, the eighth day (which is Sunday) will come after the seventh. And we call it ‘eighth’ because it follows the seventh, without however permitting itself to be superseded by any other number. For one day remains forever and the darkness of night will never interrupt it. For another Sun brings that day, which flashes the true light. When that Sun has illumined us but one time, as the Apostle says, it will never hide in the west again, but after it has embraced everything, it ceaselessly sends its light upon the worthy, upon which no darkness will follow, and those who participate in that light are made into other suns, as the Word says in the Gospel: ‘Then the righteous will shine like the sun’ (Mt. 13:43).”

And John of Damaskos says: “Eternal life and eternal hell prove that the age to come is unending. For time will not be counted by days and nights after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening (Sunday, that is), wherein the Sun of Righteousness will shine brightly on the Righteous, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless.”

All of these Fathers which have been quoted concerning the eighth and one day of the future age spoke of Sunday as the eighth and one day, according to Moses and the divine teachers, as was shown above. For this reason the Church of Christ also considers the whole of Bright Week as one brilliant Sunday in order to show by this that this entire seventh age of this present life will become one day, the eighth, that is, Sunday, which will be that eighth age of the future life.

12) We add a twelfth prerogative to the already mentioned eleven prerogatives of Sunday: the name of Sunday itself. Even if all of the other days of the week belong to the Lord, being His creations, none of them, however, bear His Name, for only that one and eighth day was worthy to be named Kyriaki [the Lord’s Day] after the Lord Himself. First, because on Sunday, and no other day, the Lord’s resurrection occurred. Second, because that day, apart from all of the other days, is especially consecrated to the Lord.

Do you see, brethren, the lofty prerogatives? Do you see the great prerogatives? Do you see the wondrous prerogatives of the resurrectional day of Sunday? These lofty and great prerogatives of Sunday, then, we fear to violate and to contravene. We fear to ascribe any dishonor to Sunday, the day so honored by the Holy Trinity. We fear to introduce the things of the seventh into the eighth. We fear to inject the shadow and the type of the Sabbath into the truth and perfection of Sunday, as Gregory Palamas designated it. We fear not offering the proper honor to the icon of the future age, for “the honor given to the icon passes to the prototype,” just as, contrarily, the dishonor given to the icon is brought upon the prototype. Sunday is “the chosen and holy day,” as St. John of Damaskos writes, for according to Moses, “the eighth day shall be chosen and holy unto you” (Leviticus 23:36).

Source: Translated by Rev. Fr. George Dokos

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Friedrich Nietzsche's Insights On the Greeks

The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche’s first book, was published in 1872, when he was 28 years old and a professor of classical philology at Basel. The book had its defenders but, in general, provoked a hostile reception in the academic community and affected Nietzsche’s academic career for the worse. The work has exerted a very important influence on the history of Western thought, particularly on the interpretations of Greek culture. It is also a vital introduction to the work of the most provocative philosopher of modern times.

The following excerpt is taken from Chapter 15:

Almost every era and cultural stage has at some point sought in an profoundly ill-tempered frame of mind to free itself of the Greeks, because in comparison with the Greeks, all their own achievements, apparently fully original and admired in all sincerity, suddenly appeared to lose their colour and life and shrivelled to unsuccessful copies, in fact, to caricatures. And so a heartfelt inner anger always keeps breaking out again against that arrogant little nation which dared to designate for all time everything that was not produced in its own country as “barbaric.” Who were those Greeks, people asked themselves, who, although they had achieved only an ephemeral historical glitter, only ridiculously restricted institutions, only an ambiguous competence in morality, who could even be identified with hateful vices, yet who had nevertheless laid a claim to a dignity and a pre-eminent place among peoples, appropriate to a genius among the masses? Unfortunately people were not lucky enough to find the cup of hemlock which could easily do away with such a being, for all the poisons which envy, slander, and inner rage created were insufficient to destroy that self-satisfied magnificence. Hence, confronted by the Greeks, people have been ashamed and afraid, unless an individual values the truth above everything else and dares to propose this truth: the notion that the Greeks, as the charioteers of our culture and every other one, hold the reins, but that almost always the wagon and horses are inferior material and do not match the glory of their drivers, who then consider it amusing to whip such a team into the abyss, over which they themselves jump with the leap of Achilles.

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Why Didn't the Holy Spirit Come Right After the Ascension?

By St. John Chrysostom

But why did the Holy Spirit come to them, not while Christ was present, nor even immediately after his departure, but, whereas Christ ascended on the fortieth day, the Spirit descended “when the day of Pentecost,” that is, the fiftieth, “was fully come?”(Acts 2:1)

And how was it, if the Spirit had not yet come, that He said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit?” (John 20:22)

In order to render them capable and meet for the reception of Him. For if Daniel fainted at the sight of an Angel (Dan. 8:17), much more would these when about to receive so great a grace.

Either this then is to be said, or else that Christ spoke of what was to come, as if it came already; as when He said, “Tread ye upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the devil.” (Luke 10:19)

But why had the Holy Spirit not yet come? It was fit that they should first be brought to have a longing desire for that event, and so receive the grace. For this reason Christ Himself departed, and then the Spirit descended. For had He Himself been there, they would not have expected the Spirit so earnestly as they did. On this account neither did He come immediately after Christ’s Ascension, but after eight or nine days. It is the same with us also; for our desires towards God are then most raised, when we stand in need. Accordingly, John chose that time to send his disciples to Christ when they were likely to feel their need of Jesus, during his own imprisonment.

Besides, it was fit that our nature should be seen in heaven, and that the reconciliation should be perfected, and then the Spirit should come, and the joy should be unalloyed. For, if the Spirit being already come, Christ had then departed, and the Spirit remained; the consolation would not have been so great as it was. For in fact they clung to Him, and could not bear to part with Him; wherefore also to comfort them He said, “It is expedient for you that I go away.” (John 16:7) On this account He also waits during those intermediate days, that they might first despond for awhile, and be made, as I said, to feel their need of Him, and then reap a full and unalloyed delight. But if the Spirit were inferior to the Son, the consolation would not have been adequate; and how could He have said, “It is expedient for you?” For this reason the greater matters of teaching were reserved for the Spirit, that the disciples might not imagine Him inferior.

From Homily 1 of Acts of the Apostles.

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Confessions of an Atheist Darwin-Doubter

May 21, 2012

By James Barham

Editor's note: Among the self-protective claims you hear from Darwin defenders is that there's no use engaging scientific Darwin doubters because evolutionary heretics are all motivated by religious conviction and the religiously faithful are impervious to reason. Strangely, this doesn't prevent Darwin's own faithful from tirelessly attacking Bible-based creationists. James Barham, a nearly lifelong atheist, tells an interesting story of how he came to question the adequacy of the mainstream neo-Darwinian account of life and evolution. We admire Barham's writing and think you will too.

I was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1952, and was raised primarily in the Southern Baptist faith. However, my parents were not particularly observant and I was seldom taken to church as a child. My acquaintance with my religious tradition was pretty much limited to the Bible stories I heard at my grandmother's knee.

I became an avid reader at an early age, and among my most vivid childhood memories are the simplified picture books I was given on various scientific subjects, from atomic physics to rocketry to dinosaurs. By the time I was eight, I used to say I wanted to be either an astronaut or a paleontologist when I grew up. So, my interest in science goes back practically as far as I can remember.

Sometime around the age of 11, if I remember correctly, Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian fell into my hands. I recall spending some bad moments worrying that my belief in God was slipping away. I even went so far as to pray to Him to forgive me in advance if that were to happen. After a few months, I considered myself a confirmed atheist.

I'm ashamed to report that I remained a militant village-atheist for many years. It was only in my thirties that I began to read seriously in the philosophy of religion, and to understand the complexities of theological questions. Today, I have come to recognize the cogency of the inference from the contingency of the world to a necessary being. But in saying that, I am, at best, affirming "the God of the philosophers," as Pascal famously put it. I still cannot see my way to believing in "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." Nevertheless, I find myself in greater personal sympathy with many religious believers than with most atheists.

The reason is this. In addition to my early interest in science, as a teenager I developed a very strong interest in the humanities. For many years, I fancied I would eventually become a novelist or some other sort of writer. In the end, I took the easier academic route. I obtained a BA in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1972, and went on to complete all of the coursework for a PhD in the History of Science at Harvard University. Unfortunately -- for personal reasons I won't go into here -- I never completed my dissertation, which consisted of translating and editing a late-Byzantine astronomical manuscript. By the time I officially dropped out in 1983, I was married and had a small son. For the next 20 years or so, I was essentially a househusband and faculty spouse, working at an array of minimum-wage jobs to help make ends meet. During this period, though, I continued reading and thinking about life, mind, and evolution.

By the 1980s, I had become conversant with the standard critiques of neo-Darwinism, such as Karl Popper's. Also, from my classical studies, I was familiar with Aristotle. So, I knew there were problems with Darwinism as a metaphysical system, and that alternatives existed. Gradually, too, I became conscious of a growing cognitive dissonance between my Darwin-inspired philosophical materialism and reductionism, and my first-person experience of the fundamental importance of purpose, value, and meaning for human existence. I was familiar with various schemes that had been proposed for explaining away the latter, such as Daniel Dennett's "intentional stance," but I could see they were just evading the issue. So, I was left with a contradiction between two aspects of my mental life that I had no idea how to resolve.

Then, one day while browsing in the stacks -- this was around 1988 -- I stumbled across an essay collection entitled Self-Organizing Systems: The Emergence of Order (ed. F. Eugene Yates; Plenum Press, 1987). This volume was devoted to efforts that were then underway to use dynamical systems theory as a means of modeling the operation of various physiological systems. I immediately had the experience of the scales falling from my eyes. I saw in a flash that the concept of a nonlinear oscillator -- and its associated "basin of attraction" -- might be a way to model the end-directed, or teleological, feature of biological functions. (A basin of attraction -- or "attractor," for short -- is a mathematical representation of dynamical behavior as a "trajectory" through an abstract multidimensional space.) And upon this foundation, I could already vaguely see that an emergentist metaphysics might be erected which might provide a robustly realist, yet rigorously scientific, account of the phenomena of purpose, value, and meaning.

I was aware of well-known criticisms of both of the then-current reductionist accounts of function: the "causal-role" theory and the Darwin-inspired "selected-effects" theory. In a nutshell, the problem is that neither theory can explain the normative character of biological processes in a coherent manner. (Biological processes are "normative" in the sense that they may either succeed or fail in fulfilling their functions.) With respect to the "causal-role" theory, there is no way to distinguish between functional and non-functional parts of a biological system without presupposing the normative character of the overall system as a whole -- which begs the question at issue.

With respect to the "selected-effects" theory, the problem is that selection history is conceptually irrelevant to the identification of function. True, it has a role to play in explaining how present-day functions have come to exist. But selection history cannot possibly explain what it is about a biological process that constitutes it as a function. This is a logical point that Darwinists simply miss. The reason is that our concept of function in no way depends on evolutionary history. If it did, then biologists like Aristotle, Galen, Harvey, and innumerable others who lived long before Darwin would not have had the means to identify the functions of organs, which they of course did. Sometimes, they got it wrong, as when Aristotle placed the seat of perception and thought in the heart, instead of the brain (though some of his predecessors got it right). But Aristotle's mistake was due to his inadequate knowledge of physiology, not to his ignorance of evolution.

What I realized that day in the stacks was that the mathematical concept of a high-dimensional, phase-space attractor gives us a way out of this dilemma. It does so by providing us with a mathematical representation of the end-directedness of physiological systems directly, without either begging the question of the normativity of the larger system of which the function is a part, or relying on irrelevant selection history. I wrote up my ideas, and published my first scholarly paper in 1990, at the ripe age of 38. I later discovered that I was not the first person to realize the value of dynamical systems theory for modeling the teleological character of biological functions, but I arrived at the idea independently, and I believe I can say that I have pursued it more doggedly than anyone else. I have now published some dozen papers on various aspects of this fundamental insight, and have recently completed a PhD dissertation at the University of Notre Dame on the topic.

To bring my story up to date, after graduating last year, I was fortunate enough to find employment with an education-oriented Internet startup called TheBestSchools.org, where I now work as General Editor. I also maintain a blog there, where I am able to comment on cultural matters, especially as they relate to education, philosophy, and the media. My special focus is the threat of scientism to morality and our commonsense understanding of the human person. It is very gratifying finally to have work that permits me to pursue my intellectual passions.

To return to my ideas on the conceptual foundations of biology, in recent years I have come to realize that the dynamical-systems approach, while helpful, cannot be the whole story. The reason is that a theory is still required in order to explain how physiological systems are capable of operating in an end-directed way, from the point of view of fundamental physics. Cybernetic control theory is useful as a description of such systems, of course, but considered as a master explanation, it too ends up begging the question of what causes a particular physical state of a living system to count as a goal state.

I now believe that living things are best understood as intelligent agents -- not machines -- and that we are missing something fundamental about the physical underpinnings of intelligent agency. Perhaps the way forward lies through an adequate quantum field theory of the living state of matter. But that is mere hand waving, at present.

What is certain is that the Darwinian explanatory framework is logically confused and scientifically superficial with respect to the phenomena of normativity, teleology, and agency. Darwinism is a gigantic obstacle obscuring these important problems from our view, and I doubt we will make much progress towards solving them so long as Darwinian dogma retains its death grip on the minds of so many.

James Barham has discussed his intellectual journey at greater length here.

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Video: Sacred Mount Athos: Treasures From The Byzantine Millenium

Award Winning Documentary - Sacred Mount Athos: Treasures From The Byzantine Millenium

Produced and directed by Christine Schiwietz

(Duration: 27 minutes)

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Video: The Attarouthi Dove & the Byzantine Empire

The silver dove, with wings spread and feet tucked up as if in flight, represents the Holy Spirit that appeared over the head of Christ as he was baptized by Saint John the Forerunner (John 1:32). Early authors mention the presence of doves over altars in churches from Constantinople to Tours in France. This is the earliest known example of the type. Originally a small cross hung from the loop in its beak. It dates to the late 6th–early 7th century and comes from Attarouthi, Syria.

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The Ascension of the Lord in the Flesh to Heaven

By Sergei V. Bulgakov

This Feast is celebrated on the 40th day after Pascha, which always comes on Thursday of the 6th week. It has received its name from the commemoration and event glorified on this day, the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh to heaven (Мark. 16:16-20; Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:4-12). On the last day of His visible stay on earth the Lord Jesus Christ revealed Himself to all the apostles who had gathered together and commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the coming of the Holy Spirit on them that was promised by Him. He has "led them from the city of Jerusalem to Bethany" on the Mount of Olives 1). While on the way He talked with them about the organization of His Church on earth. On the top of the Mount of Olives the Lord, explaining to the Holy Apostles what their purpose will be, said to them: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth". And when He had said this, the Savior lifted up His divine hands and blessed His disciples. "And when He blessed them 2), He receded from them, and went up again into heaven". The Apostles reverentially bowed to the Lord, Who blessed them, and with trembling and amazement watched Him ascend to heaven while, finally, a cloud took Him out of their sight. But the Lord was not slow to comfort His disciples with such an unexpected and regrettable separation. Behold two men in white clothes revealed themselves to the Apostles. They were Angels whom the ascended Savior as Lord and Master of the Angels sent to earth to the Apostles. The Angels said to them: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who ascended from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven". Having heard from the angels such a comforting message, the apostles, filled with the deepest joy, left the Mount of Olives and returned to Jerusalem. So glorious was the visible ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven, which His Disciples told us. But His further invisible Ascension to an eternal divine kingdom to His Father was much more glorious, as this is described in the church hymns in the present day, in accordance with the prophecies of the Old Testament prophets.

The angels with the sound of the trumpet met the Lord who has gone up and accompanied Him (Ps. 46: 6). The Holy Spirit ordered the heavenly Powers to open the gates of the eternal kingdom of glory for the Redeemer: "Raise your gates, you princes, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates: and the King of Glory shall come in" (Ps. 23:7). And our Savior, "went up to heaven, from where He also had come", as the Son of God, Only-begotten of God the Father, has received that divine glory which He had by the Father before the creation of the world; went up to heaven, as the Son of Man, having exalted mankind in His person "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion " (Ephesians 1:21). The very God the Father with love expected and received to Himself His beloved Son, the theandric Jesus Christ Who Himself sat on His right hand as it has still been described in the Old Testament by the Holy Psalmist: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet" (Ps. 109:1; refer to Rom., 8:34; Heb. 8:1). Thus, our Savior not only has ascended to heaven, but also sits on the right hand of God the Father 3) i.e. as the God-man and Redeemer of the world, He has taken on all authority, greatness and glory even in His human nature, which belong to Him in His divine nature, as well as He, after His Resurrection, told the apostles: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Mt. 28:18).

The Feast of the Ascension of the Lord is great in its own meaning, as it verifies the fulfilling of the divine plan in us about the salvation of man and all the world and about the highest glorification of the human nature, which in the person of Jesus Christ is raised higher than the light-bearing spirits and who are seated on the throne of divine glory. And this assures all of us that from now on the entrance into heaven opens for those born on earth, where Jesus has gone as a Forerunner on our behalf (Heb. 6:20) and where His journey to heaven becomes a path for all His true followers 4). Together with this "the present feast", the Blessed Augustine says, "reveals to us in Jesus Christ the mystery of man and God," witnessing to the undivided and unbroken union of the divinity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ "Who ascended in both natures". In the Divine Services of this Feast, although they describe the sad thoughts that the Apostles originally had, being orphaned, they mainly changed them into a high feeling of joy 5). For, as St. John Chrysostom teaches: "Today people have become like angels, men have been united with the bodiless ones, and from this relationship came a great union. The Lord of all, having ascended to heaven, has reconciled the race of man with the Father. We, who were deemed unworthy on earth, today have ascended to heaven with our own essence. And the nature, from which the cherubim protected paradise, today itself sits upon the cherubim". That is why even the Holy Church in its hymns for this day, calling believers to sing the song of victory to the Lord Who ascended, and causing us to sit together with Him on the right hand of the Father, exclaims: "The earth exults, and heaven rejoices today at the Ascension of the Creator of creation"; "All the world, visible and invisible, celebrates. The angels exult, and men continually raise up doxologies". Calling her children to the joy of the Ascension of the Lord, the Holy Church at the same time according to the words of the angels said to the Apostles after the Ascension of the Lord (Acts 1:11), in its hymns for this day reminds us also about the second coming, strengthening us by this victory to lift up "our eyes and thoughts to the heights", to focus our sights "together with our mortal feelings to the heavenly gates" and to beg the Lord that He "spare our souls, granting remission of our sins". In agreement with this even Saint Gregory Dialogos in his homily on the day of Ascension teaches: "Let us make haste, beloved ones, with all our heart to follow Him to where He has ascended. Let us reject any predilection for earthly objects 6). Having a part in the inheritance of heavenly abodes with Him, let us not search for blessedness on earth. We should take care and think about how He, though now ascended to heaven with meekness, will at one time be revealed with fear and with a terrible presence, and with severity will demand from us all that He now teaches with meekness. Let no one resent the time given for repentance. Let no one neglect himself while there is time. The Savior on the dread judgment seat will demand an account more strictly from us than He would have patience with us now. Brothers, never forget this. Let your spirit in the middle of the present sea of life be stirred up by the mighty storm; soon you will reach a quiet haven in the heavenly fatherland; soon you will be in the light of the unapproachable glory. Now the Lord ascends to heaven for you. Let us reflect more often and more attentively to what our faith teaches us. If we have not become stronger in the deeds of faith and piety, if our physical powers are still weak, then, at least, let us follow our Savior in our readiness and love for Him". "And if we live piously," as Saint John Chrysostom teaches, "and that we remain unshakably pious, always with diligence multiplying this good; and if we are deprived of all boldness and we recognize in ourselves alone only sins; then we would be corrected to get that same boldness, and there together also with one mind to meet with due glory the King of Angels and enjoy this blessed joy of our Lord Jesus Christ".

The establishment of the feast of the Ascension undoubtedly goes back to the earliest times. Besides the importance of the commemoration of this event on this holiday, that they speak of it from the earliest times positively witnesses to its antiquity. So, already the Apostolic Constitutions prescribed it to be observed on the fortieth day after Pascha. St. John Chrysostom calls this feast a great and most important one and relates it to the category of feasts undoubtedly established by the apostles, that is with Pascha and Pentecost. The Blessed Augustine also calls it a most ancient and universal feast.

Notes:

1) According to the explanation of the Right Reverend Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, the Lord selected the Mount of Olives for His Ascension, as one may consider, that it was His favorite place before which He blessed with His repeated visits and prayer, and is where He began His special saving Passion for us, even unto death with spiritual grief, and His very difficult prayer, resulting in the outpouring of bloody sweat. Having returned to the place of the beginning of His sufferings, to the place where He completed His glorification, He through this has signaled that His suffering and glorification compose one harmonious structure of the salvation for us in the plan of God, one golden chain produced in the hearth of the wisdom of God, for the raising up again to heaven man who fell from paradise.

2) The evangelist did not say: "when you bless" but "when you have blessed", i.e. God blesses, and yet does not end His blessing, but continues to bless, and meanwhile ascends to heaven. According to the explanation of the Right Reverend Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, he specifically says that God does not want to end the blessing, but continues to endlessly bless the Church and all those believing in Him. Having received the blessing of Christ through the Apostles they distribute it to others, and thus, all those belonging to the Holy, Catholic (Sobornaia), Apostolic Church are made participants of the one blessing of Jesus Christ and His Father, "blessing us all in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens" (Ephesians 1:3). As the dew "of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion" (Psalm 132:3) this blessing descending on any soul rising above the passions and carnal desires is higher than the vanities and cares of the world. As the indelible seal, it marks those who are in Christ, so that at the end of the ages according to this sign He will pronounce to them from the midst of all the human race: "Come, receive the blessing"!

3) The Right Reverend Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, teaches: "Having heard that the ascended Lord 'sits at the right hand of God' should not present to the mind anything corporal and sensual, but should think only that Christ has the same authority with the Father Almighty, is one in glory with him, one in the ruling consideration for all the world, and especially for the Church that is saved. In general, do not boldly turn the tested ideas at this immense height to flight: there is 'unapproachable light' (1 Tim. 6:16). If before the created light of the visible sun you have blinded your eyes, how is the uncleanness from the mud in the eyes of your mind not removed before the eternal light of the Sun of the spirits, before Which even the highest of the Angels close before the Person? And the Apostolic eyes from nearby could follow the Lord Who is ascending; the cloud took Him and hid Him from them. And as they during this time 'worshiped Him': so even you, after a modest look to heaven in faith, fall down, son of ashes, humbly into the ashes, even before the inscrutable greatness in almost silent awe."

4) The Ascension of the Lord, similar to His death and resurrection, includes the most precise paradigm in the plan of our salvation, and therefore was predicted and celebrated, in all its greatness even by the Prophets. And the Holy Apostle Peter, after the Descent of the Holy Spirit, in the hearing of all the Judeans asserted that "Heaven must receive Christ Jesus until the time for establishing all" (Acts 3:21), i.e. up to the end of the world. The time for the humiliation of the Lord has forever ended in His cross and tomb. After the resurrection the acceptance of all Authority by Him on earth and in heaven (Matthew 28:18), the time of glorification has essentially come to Him. But our earth, rough, corrupted by our sins, gravitating under the curse, obviously, is not a place of rest and glorification, but of temptation and wandering. The earth serves as a dwelling place only for those who are from the earth. But the Son of Man, "Who descended from Heaven" (John 3:l3), did not belong to the earth. To tell the truth, "having shared in our flesh and blood" (Heb. 2:14), He had a body from the earth. But how long this body was similar to ours was as long as He lived on earth similar to us. In the resurrection His body changed and has accepted such properties that was visible, and at the same time became invisible, was tangible, yet passed through closed doors, accepted food, and was not subject to change. The resurrected Savior was on earth for forty days; but during this time He has been seen only when He revealed Himself to the Holy Apostles. Where and how He spent His other time is not known. But, obviously, the earth could not be still His dwelling place. For a body immortal, glorified and deified, it is much more natural to dwell in heaven than on earth. Already immediately after the resurrection from the dead the Savior tried to ascend to the most heavenly world, to the Father (John 20:17). And if He still remained on earth, then it is because of special love for the disciples and for the need to continue His conversations with them, "speaking of the Kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). And when also this need has been satisfied, and when these holy chains begin to have power, then the Savior was glorified for His extreme effort on the cross for humanity. Similarly the fragrant incense is directed from the Mount of Olives to the eternal Sun. There, where all is in compliance with His purity and glory, and where He should be until that time, so that by His action and by His power all will be cleansed and enlightened and filled, and the very earth will be divested of its roughness and curses. Then the earth will be able to become the place of the visible eternal dwelling of God with men (Rev. 21:3). This was demanded also with new, great applicability of the Son of Man after His resurrection. As in the situation of humiliation He was forced to be an offering for all, so that in the situation of His glorification it fell to Him to become the manager and the head of all. But where ordinarily is the place for the head? Is it above the whole body? According to the same law (if the law is also necessary for the Lawgiver) returned and now: as the Head and the Ruler of the whole world, the God-man is seated "on the right hand" of God the Father, "in the heavens far above all rule and authority and power and dominion" (Eph. 1:20-21), that, in the expression of the Holy Apostle Paul "to unite all things" in Him "things in the heavens and things on earth" (Eph. 1:10), to accept divine "worship from all knees" not only "on earth and beneath the earth", but also "in heaven" (Philip. 2:10), "to reign" over all in heaven and on earth, and over all worlds, "until He has put all his enemies under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:25, Heb. 1:13), that all visible and invisible, all tribes and tongues confess, "that Jesus Christ" is truly "Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philip. 2:11), "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Rev. 19:16). If there were no Ascension to heaven and glorification of the God-man, then the matter of our expiation would remain incomplete, unfinished and uncrowned. Being raised upon the cross, the Savior took all to Himself only up to the height of a cross; meanwhile He took all even up to the height of heaven, even up to the throne of glory (John 14:3). Therefore, "having accomplished" on earth "the work which Thou gavest Me to do" Father, "yes created" (John 17:4), He ascends to heaven to draw all men to Himself (John 12:32), prepared a place for us in the mansions of the Heavenly Father (John 14:2). But the mansions of the Heavenly Father, which the Blessed One prepared for us, is open for all, but is not accessible to all. For the entrance into them it is required that we here on earth be clothed in appropriate dress, worthy of heaven. These clothes are prepared for us by the suffering of the God-man, adorned and sealed by His priceless blood; but under the divine plan of the management of our salvation, it belonged to the Most Holy Spirit to create our vestments in the "light and pure fine linen of righteousness" (Rev. 19:8). And the Son of God, after the end of His great work upon earth, i.e. after the forgiveness of people by His death, after His descent into Hades and after His resurrection, after His visible and solemn departure to heaven, so that His ascension opens the way to the invisible benefaction of the activity of the Comforter Spirit, only through whose assistance we can "put off the old man with its practices", and "to put on the new", with the primordial "righteousness and holiness" (Eph. 4:24, Col. 3:9-10). "It is to your advantage that I go away", the Savior told His Apostles, "for if I do not go away, the Comforter will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you" (John 16:7). And before the Descent of the Holy Spirit to earth "it was necessary for Christ to enter into His glory" (Luke 24:26) to receive "all authority in heaven and on earth" (Mt. 28:18) to ascend to heaven and "to sit on the right hand of the Father, (Mk. 16:19). For "the Holy Spirit was not yet" on earth while "Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:39). Thus, in the trihypostatic council of God it follows that the fulfillment of the work of reconcilement, which remains with us on earth, is already not of the Redeemer Son of God, but of the Holy Spirit, Who, abiding in us, would regenerate in us a strengthened, consoled, spiritual life, and "helps us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26), also "intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Rom. 8:26). But under the same plan of the management of our salvation it follows that also the Son of God "through the cross destroyed the enmity (Eph. 3:16 sic) between heaven and earth, went up to the heavenly saints who stand with Him before God the Father ever to decree peace to the world and to save those of the sinners, who, repenting of their sins, even up to seventy times seven (Mt. 18:22), again will come through Him to God with faith and a broken spirit. And our Lord Jesus Christ as the eternal High Priest, passed into heaven "now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf" (Heb. 9:24), "to make intercession for them"(Heb. 7:25), for us guilty before the righteous judgment of God, so that, "if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John. 2, 1). (See details in the Collected Works of Innocent, Archbishop of Chersonese, vol. 1, pp 353-359; Words and speeches of Sophonius, Bishop of Turkestan, vol. 1, pp. 15-23).

5) After the cloud hid the ascending Lord from the visible sight of the Holy Apostles, their hearts were filled with sadness, as before, when the Lord only told them before about His going to the Father (John 16:6). The faith of the Holy Apostles still could not reach the end of the Ascension of the Lord (John 14:25, 16:7); they now only saw that the Lord will no longer live on earth and they will no more see His corporal eyes. But their reception, then, of the message being revealed to them by the Holy Angels was for their faith to the end of what they could not reach, or, at least, to what their intellectual insight was not now directed. This message distracted them from their sad thoughts that the Lord will probably not be present any more among them, to talk with them, but has poured into their hearts faith and hope that the Lord who disappeared from their visible sight has ascended in divine glory, as well as He Himself told them before, that He will come again in the glorious image in the opening of the eternal kingdom of glory. And the Holy Apostles "returned to Jerusalem with great joy". Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow said, "They rejoice now because their faith opened their mind to the perfect understanding of the mystery of Christ: they believe and know that as Christ through His resurrection shattered the gates of Hades and opened the exit from it for the believer, so through His ascension opened the gates of heaven and the entrance into it for the believer. They rejoice because their love is perfect. It is delightful for them that their beloved Savior ascended to heaven in blessedness and glory, though they remained on earth for ascetical feats and suffering. They rejoice because their hope is perfect. They wait for and feel that the ascended Lord, according to His promise, will soon send them another Comforter, the Holy Spirit. And that, finally, according to the angelic announcement, 'This same Jesus, who ascended into heaven, will so come' (Acts 1:11). And that He may come to keep His other promise: 'I will come again and receive you to Myself' (John 14:3)." And this holy joy as the Right Reverend Demetrius, Archbishop of Chersonese teaches, remained forever the inalienable property of the souls of the Holy Apostles, the inexhaustible treasure of their heart, the plentiful source of comfort for all their subsequent life. Nothing in the world could take away from them this holy and lifecreating joy of the Lord. As they seem lonely and helpless in the world, 'like lambs among the wolves', how many are surrounded by their enemies and persecutors, how they met their 'trouble in the cities, trouble in the deserts, trouble from the pagans, trouble from relatives, trouble from malevolent brothers'. They always and incessantly rejoiced in the Lord, rejoiced in the work and ascetical feats of the annunciation of the Gospel of Christ, rejoiced in temptations, troubles and misfortunes, rejoiced amidst slander and intrigues, prosecutions and persecutions from the Jews and the pagans, rejoiced even in the very suffering for the name of Christ.

6) If we do not vainly carry on ourselves the all holy name of Christ, if for this we were buried with Him through baptism into death (Rom. 6:4), in order to live with Him for ever and ever; then it is already impossible for our souls to be attached to anything terrestrial and temporal, it is impossible for our hearts to be intimidated by this temporal dwelling. It would mean to renounce everything that is made for us by the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Son of God. It would mean to act contrary to the all-good counsel of God for us, contrary to our own faith and belief. We believe that for this the Son of God came down to earth, "that for us He will ascend to heaven"; for this also He arose and again ascended to heaven in order to open the way even for us to ascend there, "where the forerunner Christ went for us". Also what could attach our heart to the earth? Doesn't the earth even when we water it return thorns and thistles to us? On earth aren't there passion and vice, evil and untruth, poverty and sorrow, illness and suffering, crying and tears? Aren't our ancestors and parents, relatives and acquaintances, in the earth, and doesn't it also swallow up our body and transform it into corruption and ashes? Sooner or later we should leave it necessarily. Death will overcome and place us before God in heaven. But what then will happen to us if we are infatuated with the earth but be foreign to heaven? Can we live, so to say, in the heavenly abodes if we do not now get used to ascending there in our mind and our heart, to live there in our spirit, to breathe and feed on the heavenly air? Can we be installed in the community of Holy Angels and the chosen of God if we are not one with them in spirit and our heart? Can we not be pulled together with them in our thoughts and feelings, in our character and deeds? So, we need to draw near with the inhabitants of heaven beforehand, to now get comfortably used to the paradigm of heavenly life, to beforehand get accustomed to live with our spirit in heaven in order that upon death we do not leave for the abyss of Hades. How will we achieve it? Certainly, we will not by own power and not by earthly means. "No one will enter heaven, except those who go to heaven with the Son of Man, Who exists in heaven". No one can even raise us to heaven, except Him. Only He has the strength to lift up with Himself all who are attached to Him in faith, who love Him with all their heart, with all their soul and all their mind, who turn themselves to Him entirely and undividedly, with all their soul and heart, who with their entirety and destiny will love eternal life in Him, who will make the first and main purpose of all their activity the center of all their hope and desire, all intentions and aspirations. Such He will attach to Himself by the power of His grace. He will lead all the minds and hearts of those who, living in the flesh on earth, live in the spirit in heaven higher to heaven: "for where your treasure is, there also will be your heart", and where the heart is, there is the whole person, there is all his life and activity. For the true Christian all treasure is hidden in Jesus Christ, who ascended to heaven, and that is where his heart is, and where his life is (Philip. 3:20). If we shall only think of heaven, to wish and search only for the heavenly, then neglecting all the terrestrial, the fears for our earthly affairs, for our fleshly necessities and needs, for our family and citizen duties are in vain! It is vain to think that all our affairs will then come to extreme frustration! On the contrary, then all our earthly affairs will accept a correct and successful course. All our work will be accompanied by blessed success. All our pleasant occupations, which they neither were nor of what they consisted, will be spiritualized and will be consecrated with the blessings of God and will receive the God-pleasing vision of the God-fearing services to the Lord, fulfilling His most holy will. If all the people with their mind and heart would strive for God their Father, wishing to please Him, as His good and obedient children, keeping His holy commandments, searching for heavenly blessings and the high place of the fatherland with all their desire and would do everything for the glory of God and for the salvation of their souls; if they would have expelled all evil passions, which make people both malicious and unhappy, from human societies, then would not human societies be truly blessed and happy? Would not our earth also become a most abundant paradise blessed by the Lord? At least, there would not be so much untruth and evil in it, tears would not pour so much, and cries and groans would not be heard so much, there would not be so much trouble and sorrow, which people create for themselves with vices and depravity, with their evil and untruths, with their unquenchable thirst for carnal pleasures, earthly treasures and contemporary honors. (See details in the Complete Collection of Sermons of the Right Reverend Demetrius, Archbishop of Chersonese. vol. 1, pp. 199-207).

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