| Marriage and Possible Alternativees: The Pursuit of Wholeness and Holiness A few decades ago the term " open marriage " entered our vocabulary. We also learned about " prenups, " i.e., marriage qualified in various ways by formal prenuptial agreements. These days we barely blink when we hear about couples living together or when we encounter marital breakdown ending divorce – divorce often followed by remarriage and (then even more frequently) by another divorce. (A frightening statistic: At this point the average length of a marriage in the United States is five years.) If TV ratings and star salaries offer any indication, we as a society see nothing amiss in sex and marriage as these are presented on Friends, where sex has become a recreational activity and marriage a running joke. No apology is needed for the theme of this year’s Institute: “Does Christian Marriage Have a Future?” Practically daily we hear in the media how “traditional” concepts and definitions of marriage are being challenged. In the first few months of 2004 the focus has been on same-sex marriage – now legal in Massachusetts, among other places, and gaining vocal support in many quarters, Christian churches included. But the challenge to “traditional” concepts and definitions of marriage is not limited to this latest headline getter. A few decades ago the term “open marriage” entered our vocabulary. We also learned about “prenups,” i.e., marriage qualified in various ways by formal prenuptial agreements. These days we barely blink when we hear about couples living together or when we encounter marital breakdown ending divorce – divorce often followed by remarriage and (then even more frequently) by another divorce. (A frightening statistic: At this point the average length of a marriage in the United States is five years.) If TV ratings and star salaries offer any indication, we as a society see nothing amiss in sex and marriage as these are presented on Friends , where sex has become a recreational activity and marriage a running joke. |
| One third of Russians give up drinking Moscow, April 9, 2013 According to research carried out by the World Health Organization, Russians are in reality far from being the greatest lovers of alcohol in the world, in spite of existing stereotypes about them, reports the Sdelano u nas website. Thus, in the 2012 report devoted to health care issues in Europe, it was stated that Moldova was recognized as the heaviest drinking country. On average, each Moldovan drinks over 20 litres of alcohol per year. Luxembourg comes second and Estonia closes the top three. But it is noteworthy that Russia is in the middle of this list—in the twentieth place. It appears that Russian citizens, on average, consume just over 10 liters per year. Approximately the same amount is consumed annually by citizens of Denmark, Great Britain and Croatia. Turkey and Tajikistan were mentioned among the countries that drank the least. Also, little alcohol is consumed in Scandinavian countries—Sweden, Norway and Iceland. And the Russian president Vladimir Putin is himself an example for imitation. The head of state allegedly hardly drinks at all. The Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is indifferent to alcohol as well. On State visits he is usually seen with a glass of mineral water or, very seldom, with a glass of white wine. At present the Russian authorities are engaged in a serious campaign against the excessive consumption of alcohol. Thus, the sale of alcoholic drinks has been banned at night while a ‘ " zero per thousand " standard has been introduced for motorists. Now the deputies of the State Duma are discussing introducing a ban on the consumption of strong drinks on airplanes. These measures are already beginning to bear fruit. According to World Health Organization " s information, the number of Russians who drink several times a week has declined to 5%. Also, the number who drink several times a month has declined to 33%. It may now boldly be said that for Russians sobriety has become the norm. Pravoslavie.ru 10 апреля 2013 г. ... Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| JERUSALEM (Ma " an) -- Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna condemned Israeli authorities on Thursday for imposing obstacles on Christians wishing to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to celebrate the upcoming Christian holiday of Easter. “It is the right of every Christian to reach the Church of the Holy Sepulchre without facing any obstacles, or impediments,” Hanna said in a statement. “The Israeli security pretexts are unacceptable in every way,” he added, calling on Orthodox and Christian institutions to facilitate the entrance of Christians to the holy sites. “We call on our sons, churches and followers to head to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and hold on to this religious and national right and refuse the status quo imposed by the occupation authorities,” the archbishop said. Hanna’s statements come days after Palestinian Christian groups in Jerusalem denounced Israeli restrictions on their right to worship in the city, calling for an end to discrimination against both Christians and Muslims in the holy city. “The restrictive measures constitute grave violation on the freedom of worship, and amount to discrimination against Christians because the occupation authorities want to negate Christian presence and create the impression of a Jewish-only city,” the statement signed “Palestinian Christian Organizations in Occupied East Jerusalem” read. Both Christians and Muslims are often “unable to worship freely and to be with their families and friends” during religious holidays because of Israel’s actions, the statement added. Jerusalem was the scene of violence last Easter, as Israeli forces erected checkpoints around the Holy City and assaulted pilgrims as they crowded in the area. A statement signed by signed by the heads of all recognized churches in the Holy Land later denounced the “awful scenes of the brutal treatment to clerics, average people and pilgrims in Jerusalem during Holy Saturday,” lamenting that clergymen and average people “get beaten brutally and indiscriminately and be denied access to their churches under the pretext of keeping order.” |
| —Fortunately, in the ROCOR Diocese in the British Isles, which has existed for 85 years, we all have our own churches, but in most of the smaller, newly-established communities and parishes of the newer Sourozh Diocese of the Church inside Russia they have to use and rent Anglican and Catholic premises on Sunday mornings. Many of these communities are tiny—sometimes only ten people attend. Iconostasis of the Church of St. John of Shanghai. —Father Andrew, do you see any noticeable increase in the number of practising Orthodox Christians in England? Have many native English people become Orthodox lately? According to the statistics, Orthodoxy is one of the fastest-growing religions in Western Europe. Yes, we are growing—but by immigration, especially from Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltics, which are all in the EU. If all the local Orthodox came to church, then we would have thousands of parishioners. Unfortunately, fewer than 10 percent of Orthodox actually come to church. As regards Western people who come to Orthodoxy, regardless of nationality, their numbers have always been very small ever since English people began joining the Orthodox Church, basically in the 1950s. On average in our parish we receive one English person a year into the Church. I would say that over the last fifty years on average 50-100 English people a year have joined the different dioceses of the Orthodox Church throughout the country. This is very small numbers. Over 50 years this makes only 2,500 - 5,000 people in all. The situation is very similar in other Western countries—only small numbers come to Orthodoxy. Western people find it very difficult to put our Orthodoxy above Western culture with its rationalism and humanism. In any case, the most important question that we have to ask is not how many Western people join the Orthodox Church, but how many remain in the Church and do not fall away. Some jurisdictions receive many English people, but they nearly all fall away. In ROCOR we are careful about whom we receive and prepare them cautiously. Quality, not quantity. |
| The lengths of the canonical gospels suggest not only intention to publish but also the nature of their genre. 68 All four gospels fit the medium-range length (10,000–25,000 words) found in ancient biographies as distinct from many other kinds of works. 69 A «book» was approximately what one could listen to in a setting. The average length of a book of Herodotus or Thucydides is about 20,000 words, which would take around two hours to read. After the Alexandrian library reforms, an average 30–35 feet scroll would contain 10,000 to 25,000 words–exactly the range into which both the Gospels and many ancient bioi fal1. 70 Also seeking popular analogies, Moses Hadas and Morton Smith compared the Gospels with aretalogies. 71 Aretalogies do have some features in common with some Gospel narratives, but they are normally brief narrations or lists of divine acts, hence do not provide the best analogies for the Gospels as whole works. 72 These narratives may support the hypothesis of early circulated miracle-collections (such as Johns proposed signs source), and indicate the degree to which narratives could be employed in the service of religious propaganda. They do not, however, explain our current gospels and their length; aretalogy was not even a clearly defined genre. 73 2. Novels and Drama Not all literary works concerning specific characters were biographies. Yet all four canonical gospels are a far cry from the fanciful metamorphosis stories, divine rapes, and so forth in a compilation like Ovid " s Metamorphoses. The Gospels plainly have more historical intention and fewer literary pretensions than such works. The primary literary alternative to viewing the Gospels as biography, however, is not entertaining mythological anthologies but to view them as intentional fiction, 74 a suggestion that has little to commend it. First-century readers recognized the genre of novel (the Hellenistic «romance»), 75 including novels about historical characters, 76 but ancient writers normally distinguished between fictitious and historical narratives. 77 As some literary critics have noted, even when historical works have incorrect facts they do not become fiction, and a novel that depends on historical information does not become history. 78 Talbert argues that not all biographies were basically reliable like Suetonius and Plutarch; but his examples of unreliable biographies, Pseudo Callisthenes» Alexander Romance and Lucian " s Passing of Peregrinus, do not make his case. 79 The former is more like a historical novel, and the latter resembles satire. This is not to deny some degree of overlap among categories in historical content, but to affirm that what distinguishes the two genres is the nature of their truth claims. 80 |
| These trends are obvious, but there are some less noticeable developments that are just as significant. Along with the continued decline of the Christian population in Europe and North America, there is an explosive expansion of the Catholic and Protestant population of South America, Africa and Asia. In the generations to come the average citizen of Christendom will be darker-skinned, poor or of the lower middle-class. And what is more important, this average Christian will have little historic allegiance to European or Russian culture.. As a result, Europe and the West will become mostly non-Christian, while the Christian population will largely be made up of Hispanics, Africans and Asians. Western society continues to become more reliant upon technology for daily life. The modern culture, in its addiction to false images and entertainment, has become " disengaged " from the original design for human life. As a result, our young person will becoming " less-connected " with other people and with their natural world. He is becoming, in the terminology of the Holy Fathers, increasingly " insensitive " to the beauties and truth of God " s Creation. Society continues to push religion - especially the Holy Orthodoxy - out of the public square and into the backstreet alleys. Religious belief has been demoted to the status of " private opinion " . Ethics and morality have become matters of personal taste, instead of reflecting the eternal constants of truth and goodness. Society continues to ignore the moral witness of the Church, and has adopted only one simple value: the materialistic satisfaction of people who can speak for themselves. This means that society will increase in moral permissiveness. It will be liberation for those who have power and wealth. But those who are poor, or who cannot speak for themselves - they will be the ones who will have lows heaped upon them, and will lose their right even to live. You may be asking yourself what these trends have to do with the Holy Orthodox Church, this Diocese or our families. We are even now seeing the effects of these trends in our parishes. By the time our young people reach adulthood, there will be no doubt about the reality of these developments: |
| Out of two hundred and eighty letters by Archimandrite John (Krestiankin, +2006) collected in a volume published during the author’s life by the monastery where he lived and worked, 182 are replies to women correspondents, compared with 82 addressed to men and 16 that either cannot be positively identified or are addressed to married couples. That is more than double the number! Similarly, in a truly fundamental research work on Fr. John of Kronstadt (+1908), Nadieszda Kizenko writes that “women twice as often as men wrote him long letters asking for spiritual counsel, describing their lives in great detail” (127). A collection of letters written by Hegumen Nikov (Vorobiev, +1963) contains 334 letters, 237 of which are replies to female correspondents, only 72—to men, and 25 could not be identified or are addressed to couples. Lest anyone think that the publishing establishment harbors an anti-male bias, a collection of letters of Saint John Chrysostom contains only 32 letters to women compared to 82 to men. Of those 82 letters, however, many can be classified as “business” rather than “letters to spiritual children”: 28 are to bishops, 21—to presbyters, and of the remaining 33 many are to government officials, and are of a character strikingly different from that of the 17 letters to Deaconess Olympiada (or Olympias), for example, which average more than nine pages per letter. We can also recall the letters of Archpriest Avvakum Petrov (+1682) to his spiritual daughters Theodosia Morozova, Evdokia Urusova, and Maria Danilova; the letters of Elder Paisios (Eznepidis, +1994) to the sisters of Saint John the Evangelist Convent; and the special spiritual bond that Saint Seraphim of Sarov shared with the sisters of the Diveyevo convent. However, leaving the intricacies of monastic relationships to those who possess a personal first-hand experience with the angelic life, we shall return to the discussion of matters parish life. In a rather unscientific and unreliable way based mostly on almost eight years of personal experience as a parish priest, I shall propose that women typically have a richer spiritual life than men, at least, if we gauge this on the length and content of their confession. This may draw the attentions of some parish priests who are usually also—at least based on the vocational choice they have made—predisposed to having a somewhat richer than average spiritual life. Noting another intriguing connection between parish priests and women (nuns, in particular), Kizenko asserts that |
| Thus some scholars have even compared them with a typical «retainer» class. 1520 With the demise of the leading priests in Jerusalem during the Jewish revolt, the Pharisees were well-positioned to have their interests represented in a new coalition of power. The increasing power of some Pharisees after 70 would thus not be surprising. Yavneh was one of the Judean cities controlled by the Herodian family with Romés approval, 1521 and there Vespasian settled Judeans willing to submit to Rome, who would have included many aristocrats with vested interests. 1522 Some argue that the leading citizens among those settled there were especially Pharisees; 1523 others suggest that the leaders were scribes in general, including but not limited to Pharisees. 1524 In any case, many of the leaders (such as Gamaliel and Eliezer ben Hyrcanus) were Pharisees–which fits the otherwise probably inexplicable portrait of their role in a hostile Judean leadership in the Fourth Gospe1. The Pharisees and Jewish Christians probably had a more amicable relationship in the sixties, 1525 but some factors surrounding the Judean revolt–perhaps the need to consolidate influence afterwards, perhaps the social class or just idiosyncrasies of Yavnehs surviving elite–seem to have changed the relationship to what appears presupposed in Matthew and John. 1526 That the rabbis spoke and wrote with authority does not indicate that everyone observed or even understood their legal rulings, even where they were accepted as experts; 1527 they achieved only gradually the status they held by medieval times. 1528 As late as the fourth century, archaeological evidence shows that observant Palestinian Judaism did not abide by rabbinic norms, 1529 although the same evidence shows that popular legal practice and rabbinic opinion often coincided, perhaps because rabbinic opinion often reflected existing legal traditions. 1530 Because they became the «winners» in subsequent Jewish history, however, their perspective has often been read as normative. 1531 Of course, the average Jewish Palestinian peasant, while influenced by more educated classes, was probably influenced more by the popular trends of the culture than by rabbinic rulings. This need not mean that the rabbis were disrespected, but that untrained people then, like most people today, were eclectic and synergistic; sharing a common basis of morality, popular ideology, and popular stories in folk religion, they may have been no more skilled in the intricacies of rabbinic disputes than the average U.S. citizen is in the details of U.S. case law. Roman legal scholars were likewise heeded at times–and usually ignored. 1532 Especially before the abortive Bar Kokhba revolt, apocalyptic ideas must have flourished on the popular level as in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Such ideas probably influenced revolutionaries like the Zealots, though Josephus " s Hellenistic apologetic excludes such ideas from mention. |
| Anti-Christian Violence, Attacks on Churches in Europe at All-Time High in 2019: Report Source: The Christian Post Desecrated altar of St. Alain Church in France. Photo: Francebleu.fr Attacks against Christians in Europe reached record highs in 2019, as hostility and vandalism against churches, Christian schools and monuments sweep the continent. Earlier this month, the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council published its research of anti-Christian violence after having reviewed hundreds news reports, parliamentary inquiries, and police blotters, and found that approximately 3,000 acts of vandalism, looting and defacement occurred last year, incidents routinely obscured by the media. “Violence against Christian sites is most widespread in France, where churches, schools, cemeteries and monuments are being vandalized, desecrated and burned at an average rate of three per day, according to government statistics. In Germany, attacks against Christian churches are occurring at an average rate of two per day, according to police blotters,” the group documented in a Jan. 1 report. Those committing the crimes are rarely apprehended and the information about their identities are covered up by police and journalists, the group asserts. Because many suspects are said to have mental disorders, the acts of vandalism, though demonstrably anti-Christian, are not formally classified as “hate crimes.” The hostile acts that have been documented include instances of arson, defecation, desecration, looting, mockery, profanation, satanism, theft, urination and vandalism, and often the perpetrators are never caught. Code for blog Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. For example, 5 euros a month is it a lot or little? A cup of coffee? It is not that much for a family budget, but it is a significant amount for Pravmir. If everyone reading Pravmir could donate 5 euros a month, they would contribute greatly to our ability to spread the word of Christ, Orthodoxy, life " s purpose, family and society. Also by this author Today " s Articles Most viewed articles Functionality is temporarily unavailable. Most popular authors Functionality is temporarily unavailable. © 2008-2024 Pravmir.com |
| — I had an assumption that the further the regions are from the center, the less they are provided with vaccines. But the vaccine is not more available in the Central Federal District, and less available in the Far East. That is, vaccination is equally difficult to receive in all federal districts. At the same time, there are regions that are well provided with the vaccine both in the center and in the outskirts of the country, – explains Dragan. According to the report, everyone can get vaccinated in the Sakhalin region since December 2020. “According to my data, this region is in the TOP-3 in terms of the percentage of the vaccinated people”, – the expert notes. In the neighboring Amur region, only doctors, pedagogues, and employees of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) are vaccinated, and mass vaccination is going to start before the end of winter. “There are no objective reasons why the situation in the Sakhalin region is much better than in the Amur region”, – says Dragan. The vaccination availability is also not related to the population size. — Both in the Tatarstan and Khabarovsk regions, 3 thousand people were vaccinated. Yet, 4 million people live in the first region, and three times less that number live in the second region, – the Pravmir source gives an example. The number of vaccine doses is also not related to the number of coronavirus cases. Although, the analyst had such theory as well. — The Kemerovo and Volgograd regions are two regions with a comparable population. According to official statistics, 1% of the population (slightly less than 28 thousand people) had COVID-19 in the Kemerovo region, and the Volgograd region had one a half times more cases, which is 1.6% of the population (more than 40 thousand people). However, the vaccination availability in the Kemerovo region is average: anyone can get a vaccine. The vaccination availability in the Volgograd region is limited, only priority groups are vaccinated. Here is another illustrative example: the Belgorod and Tyumen regions have 1.5 million people living in each region, 1.6-1.7% of the population had COVID-19 according to the official statistics. However, the availability in the Belgorod region is average, but in the Tyumen region, the vaccine is not available at all. |
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