| «Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone. They were afraid for – – – « The Greek word translated «for» is the conjunction «gar» and Metzger says that in all of Greek literature «no instance has been found where «gar» stands at the end of a book» as it does in this case. Metzger suggests that Mark was interrupted while writing and prevented (perhaps by death) from finishing, or that the last leaf was lost before other copies were made. All that is known is that toward the end of the second century some Christian added a summary of Jesus» resurrection appearances which he made from the other Gospel accounts. Eventually this got included in the text as discussed above concerning other marginal notes in the Qur " an and the Gospel. Accuracy of the Scribeas However, just as we saw with the Qur " an, the very fact that difficult passages were left intact until today shows that the scribes were usually very careful in their work. If they had not been careful and afraid to change God " s word, they would have removed everything that they considered a problem. Even in incidental details one observes their faithfulness. For example, in the Codex Vaticanus from 350 AD, there are section numbers which run in a series throughout the body of Paul " s letters. They were placed there when the book of Hebrews was between Galatians and Ephesians. The scribe carefully copied these section numbers just as they had been, even though they were no longer correct because the order of the books had been changed. Interestingly enough this is the very copy of the Gospel-New Testament which is singled out by Dr. Bucaille to be challenged. He writes, « The authenticity of a text, and of even the most venerable manuscript, is always open to debate. The Codex Vaticanus is a good example of this. (See Photograph No. 3) The facsimile reproductions edited by the Vatican City, 1965, contains an accompanying note from its editors informing us that centuries after it was copied a scribe inked over all the letters except those he thought were a mistaké. There are passages in the text where the original letters in light brown still show through, contrasting visibly with the rest of the text which is in dark brown. There is no indication that it was a faithful restoration. » (boldfacing mine) |
| Tweet Нравится On Sharing Undeserved Mercy: Homily for the Third Sunday of Luke in the Orthodox Church Fr. Philip LeMasters Photo: www.pravmir.com 2 Corinthians 6:1-10; Luke 7:11-16 I have known people who have been troubled by the question of whether God is primarily characterized by human standards of love or justice . Some of them have worried that a God of love would simply overlook evil and hold no one accountable for their actions. Others have reacted against the view that God is primarily a harsh judge Who is out to get us and to make sure that we pay our pound of flesh for our sins . Those with time to spare can have a debate about such abstract matters, as though God where a math problem that needed solving. But as Orthodox Christians, our focus must be different, for we humbly embrace God’s truth not as a speculative idea, but in the Person of Jesus Christ. He is not a bundle of competing definitions according to the standards of our limited minds, but the Son of God Who became fully human in order save us out of a divine compassion beyond our understanding. He lowered Himself, taking on the form of a servant to the point of death on the Cross, burial in a tomb, and descent into Hades in order to rise triumphantly over them in His glorious resurrection on the third day. And He did not do so for His own sake, but for ours. In Him, we encounter not merely the best human aspirations, but truly the Lord Himself Who alone is Holy, Holy, Holy. What does it look like when the Alpha and the Omega of the universe becomes one of us, living in our corrupt world of sin, death, and personal brokenness? In today’s gospel text, we have a clear picture of what it means for the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. It means that He gives life to the dead and joy and comfort to those who mourn. Christ had compassion on the widow who had lost her only son. He consoled her, saying “Do not weep,” and then touched the coffin, bringing the young man back from death itself. |
| We can never convince people by proofs or arguments, science or history or anything else, because in fact that’s not what the first Christians did either. That’s exactly what St. Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians. Look in chapter 1 and 2. He said, “We preach Christ crucified.” “I did not come to you with words of eloquence. I came to you with an unbelievable concept: a crucified Messiah.” So we cannot convince people. So the early Christians simply preached the message, and whoever believed, believed. And they faced great persecution. And the second factor was the fact that when they saw these Christians being persecuted—very often in the arena facing wild animals and gladiators and all kinds of torture—they saw the Christians going to their deaths bravely and cheerfully. And this amazed the Romans. It absolutely amazed them to see these people, and sometimes they were women, sometimes they were children going to their deaths with great bravery and with cheerfulness. And this really caused them to think: what is it about these people? What do they have? So, it was not convincing proofs, or any type of proof, that led people to Christianity. It was the life of the Christians. And this is what we need, dear brothers and sisters, not words, to convince people of the truth of our message. And the fact is, according to the Fathers—and reading Chrysostom, you’ll see this all of the time—if people don’t believe in Christianity it’s our fault—not because we haven’t come up with better proof, but because we’re not living the lives that we have been called to live as Christians. And Chrysostom says that we are answerable to God for the fact that others do not believe. When we do not live the life, we will be judged for that. This is something very sobering that we need to be thinking about. So people who wear their crosses everywhere, sometimes like jewelry—I don’t know what they’re doing wearing crosses. Sometimes you see this now and it’s very chic; you see rock stars wearing crosses, and the lives that they live are complete debauchery, yet we see them wearing crosses. It’s obscene to me. We have rap stars wearing big gold crosses but what they’re promoting in their music is immorality. They get awards for this and then thank the Lord Jesus Christ for their awards—as if He has something to do with the immorality in their videos. And then people look at this and say, “ This is a Christian?” But in the early Church, the first Christians led lives of great virtue, and this attracted people to the Church despite the message. Or they might have said, “Maybe there is something to this crucified Messiah concept, because look at the way these people live their lives.” It was very admirable, and we have lost that. So what we need, dear brothers and sisters, are not better words but better deeds. That’s enough sermonizing for today. I did not intend to sermonize the way I did last time. |
| When someone dies, however old or young they are, whatever they did in life, and under whatever circumstance they die, the church reacts first with prayer. Every funeral in the Orthodox Church is the same – regardless if the person is a priest or a king, a peasant or a proprietor, the greatest sinner or the greatest saint. And that’s because the common denominators among all people are two: We are all created in God’s image and likeness, and we have all defiled that image and likeness through sin. And because of that, we need God’s mercies and God’s pity, all of us. To quote from the service we just completed: “Let us ask for the mercies of God, the kingdom of heaven and the remission of her sins.” “For there is no one who lives and does not sin. You, Lord, alone are without sin.” “Look upon me, and have mercy on me, as You do with those who love your name.” “In return for Your mercies, my heart is set on following Your commandments to the ages of ages. Have mercy on me O Lord.” The colors worn at Orthodox funeral services are gold or white – these are colors of hope and joy, not sorrow – they represent our everlasting hope in the mercies of our everlasting God. The icon displayed at funeral services is the icon of the Resurrection, which does not show Christ rocketing forth from the tomb like Superman. Rather, it shows Him reaching down into Hades and grasping the hands of Adam and Eve, the first people who defiled themselves through sin. This icon shows not only an act of triumph, but an act of mercy. In the Orthodox Church, we do not have celebrations of life when a person dies. Rather, we bring the person who has passed away into the church, into the presence of God, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints, the same way we envision they are when they pass away. Standing in the presence of God and all His saints would not make me feel like celebrating, it would rather make me feel inadequate. It would make me want to plead for mercy and compassion and pity. That’s why the funeral service in the Orthodox Church is done mostly in the first person, “Hear my voice, O Lord, according to Your great mercy, and in Your justice give me life.” “I am Your own, save me.” “Blessed are You, O Lord, teach me Your commandments. I am the sheep that is lost, O Savior, call me back and save me.” |
| The vision of the men that produced these documents was not directed backwards, to the “good old days” when Jesus was with them on earth. (25) The reason for this lack of historicity is not a misunderstanding of what Christ has done, but a unique understanding of our role in what He continues to do: “For Christian life, according to the several New Testament metaphors for it, is a process of conversion into Christ” (Taft 26). And this process is understood as a Sacrament, indeed, the Sacrament. The anamnesis of the Christian liturgy then is “a continual sign for us not of past history, but of the present reality of our lives in him [Christ]” (Taft 27). Thus, for Taft, Pascha “is not about the empty tomb in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago, but about the reawakening here and now of my baptismal death and resurrection in Christ” (28). Sunrise Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. —Ecclesiastes 11:7 It must be noted, however, that Taft’s understanding of the Eucharist is probably not the original one. From the earliest days of Christianity, a special emphasis in the liturgy was placed on the Passion of Christ rather than His Resurrection. In time, the Paschal theme became more prominently connected with the resurrection, not only the crucifixion—a trend that developed into liturgical expressions. We are forgiven through the cross of Christ, but we are saved through His Resurrection. The difference between forgiveness and salvation became more pronounced in Eastern theology, while the West put more emphasis on the interconnectedness between the two terms. Thus, in the fourteenth century Nicholas Cabasilas already speaks of the Romans’ “older and rather different view of the Eucharist” (Wybrew 35). Hugh Wybrew notes that “this older view was not lost from the Byzantine Liturgy: it continued to be expressed in the litany after the eucharistic prayer and elsewhere” (35). If we accept the notion that the earliest Christian Eucharist was rooted in an attempt to repeat the actions of Christ during the Last Supper exactly, including the use of unleavened bread (for which there appears to be little evidence), then the original use of leavened bread may have been an expression of the emerging resurrectional focus of the liturgy. |
| Who is this King? He is the hidden King who left His throne to find his Bride, us. He is the Universal King, the hero of all the cosmic yet He became a specific man, Jesus, born of a specific woman, Mary, in a specific place, Palestine, at a specific time, the first century. He did this because we can only know and love specific persons, not-ideas, and only a specific person can love and die. He is " touched with the feeling of our weakness, for He was in every way tempted as we are, yet did not sin. " He is the Wounded Healer, the lost King who returns, because when He dies it is our flawed selves that He takes to death with Him, and our true selves that He raises resplendent from the Tomb. How can one find this Kingdom? It is found wherever its King is obeyed, because He forces Himself on no one. He says wherever two or three are gathered in His name He is in their midst, and His Church gathers then to manifest His presence, beginning by pledging allegiance to His Kingdom: Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Everything in the Church services is different from what is found in this world: the music, the smell, the images, the robes, the words lift our minds to the Kingdom, where we eat and drink with Him at His Table. The Kingdom is not limited to the visible Church, and we shall know it more perfectly later, but the most reliable and trustworthy place to find the real King is among His designated witnesses whom He has promised that His Spirit will guide into all truth, the Orthodox Church which has existed continuously and without change in the East, the place of His earthly life. But the door, the ladder to this Kingdom, the Church Fathers insist, is in your heart, because it is in your heart that the King must reign. You must turn away from this world with its cares and pride and emptiness, from your own flawed self with its pretenses and excuses and dishonesty and confusion, and go into your " inner room " which is your heart. There you will find the King who has been waiting to meet you, to whom you can say with the thief who hung beside Him, " Remember me Lord in Thy Kingdom. " |
| Who is this King? He is the hidden King who left His throne to find his Bride, us. He is the Universal King, the hero of all the cosmic yet He became a specific man, Jesus, born of a specific woman, Mary, in a specific place, Palestine, at a specific time, the first century. He did this because we can only know and love specific persons, not-ideas, and only a specific person can love and die. He is “touched with the feeling of our weakness, for He was in every way tempted as we are, yet did not sin.” He is the Wounded Healer, the lost King who returns, because when He dies it is our flawed selves that He takes to death with Him, and our true selves that He raises resplendent from the Tomb. How can one find this Kingdom? It is found wherever its King is obeyed, because He forces Himself on no one. He says wherever two or three are gathered in His name He is in their midst, and His Church gathers then to manifest His presence, beginning by pledging allegiance to His Kingdom: Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Everything in the Church services is different from what is found in this world: the music, the smell, the images, the robes, the words lift our minds to the Kingdom, where we eat and drink with Him at His Table. The Kingdom is not limited to the visible Church, and we shall know it more perfectly later, but the most reliable and trustworthy place to find the real King is among His designated witnesses whom He has promised that His Spirit will guide into all truth, the Orthodox Church which has existed continuously and without change in the East, the place of His earthly life. But the door, the ladder to this Kingdom, the Church Fathers insist, is in your heart, because it is in your heart that the King must reign. You must turn away from this world with its cares and pride and emptiness, from your own flawed self with its pretenses and excuses and dishonesty and confusion, and go into your “inner room” which is your heart. There you will find the King who has been waiting to meet you, to whom you can say with the thief who hung beside Him, “Remember me Lord in Thy Kingdom.” |
| Разделы портала «Азбука веры» From the times of the Apostles, Christians of all ages, when entering upon a task, began it with prayer, and the end of it they also hallowed with prayerful thanksgiving to the Lord, in Whom we live and move and have our being. And let us do the same, beloved reader. But not having the gift of effectual prayer, let us recall and commit to memory what once was offered to the Lord by the grace of the Holy Spirit out of the inspired heart of the great Russian man of prayer, our father among the Saints, Dimitri, Metropolitan of Rostov and Yaroslav. I am sure that for you, as for me, in offering to your attention “The Tale of The Five Prayers” the work of the great Bishop, it will be both welcome and useful, especially in the view of the wonderful promises which it contains. So hear this tale, my beloved reader. You will not blame me for offering you in this Tale something new – it is not mine, and not new, but only fundamentally and completely forgotten, forgive me that I have disturbed the dust of ages: but this dust is holy… One of the holy fathers, standing in prayer and being in ecstasy, heard the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ speaking to the Immaculate and Holy Mother of God, His Mother, saying to her: “Tell me, My Mother, which were the greatest of your sufferings, when you lived in the world, which you suffered for My sake?” The Immaculate One replied: “My Son and God, five times I have endured my greatest suffering for you: First, when I heard from the Prophet Simeon that you were to be killed; Second, when I looked for you in Jerusalem, and did not see you for three days; Third, when I heard that you were seized and bound by the Jews; Fourth, when I saw you on the Cross crucified between the robbers; Fifth, when I saw you placed in the Tomb.” And the Lord said to her: “I tell you. My Mother, whoever reads every day each of your sufferings with My prayer, i.e. “Our Father”, for the first suffering I will give the knowledge of his sins and sorrow for them; for the second, I will give the forgiveness of all his sins; for the third, I will restore to him the virtues lost through sin; for the fourth, I will refresh him at death with my Divine Body and Blood; for the fifth, I will appear to him Myself at his death, and receive his soul into eternal life. Amen.” |
| Cave presumably containing tomb of queen Tamar found Magas (the Ingush Republic), May 22, 2014 Workers of a road brigade in Ingushetia have discovered an ancient cave after a landslide, which may contain either treasures of the capital of Alania or tomb of the Georgian queen Tamar, reported deputy director of E.I. Krupnov’s Archaeological Centre UmalatGadiev to RIA-Novosti . According to preliminary information, during construction of the road to the international “Mountain tournament” venue an earth slide occurred. During the clean-up entrance to a rock cave was exposed, faced with dressed masonry. Such caves in the mountainous Ingushetia were discovered before as well. They date back to the 9th-14th centuries,” he said. According to Gadiev, it can be supposed that the discovered cave, or, in other words, the burial vault, became the resting-place of the Georgian queen Tamar. It can also be suggested that in the same cave the treasures of Magas—capital of the ancient state of Alania—were hidden. “It is still difficult to confirm anything since it is just a famous tradition, and serious research work has not been carried out yet. After excavations and a number of examinations we will be able to speak with confidence,” stressed the archaeologist. Alania was a medieval state on the territory of North Caucasus which was inhabited by nomadic Persian-speaking tribes of Scythian-Sarmatian origin. It lost its independence after the Mongol-Tatar invasion in 1238-1239. Holy queen Tamar of Georgia, whose reign (1184 - 209/1213) was known as “The golden age” of Georgian culture, devoted much attention to foreign policy, expansion of boundaries of the state, which stretched from Pontus to Gurgan (the Caspian sea), from Sper to Derbent, Khazaria and Scythia. She secured in that time a dominant position for Georgia in all Asia Minor. Tamar took care for the spiritual life of the people, built churches, gave alms, and helped the poor. She was considered one of the most venerated woman-rulers of Georgia. The Georgian Orthodox Church canonized her and Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia declared the year 2013 “the year of queen Tamar”. Pravoslavie.ru 23 мая 2014 г. Подпишитесь на рассылку Православие.Ru Рассылка выходит два раза в неделю: Смотри также Комментарии Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
| Orthodox activists sabotage play in Russia/Православие.Ru Orthodox activists sabotage play in Russia Moscow, November 29, 2013 A group of ultraconservative activists sabotaged a theater performance in Moscow by yelling at the audience to fear God. The incident happened during a performance of Konstantin Bogomolov " s " An Ideal Husband " at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater Thursday night, RIA Novosti reported. Activist Dmitry Enteo, 24, and a woman got on stage and began preaching before they were pulled off by guards. Police said they detained two people on hooliganism charges after the incident, but did not elaborate. Enteo told RIA Novosti that " An Ideal Husband " violates a recently enacted Russian law that punishes those who offend the feelings of religious people. The Russian Orthodox Church has criticized Enteo and his radical Orthodox Christian supporters, who have also targeted erotica exhibits, Pastafarians -- practitioners of an ironic, light-hearted religion -- and supporters of feminist punk group Pussy Riot. United Press International 2 декабря 2013 г. ... Предыдущий Следующий Смотри также Complaints of believers about " The ideal husband " performance submitted to the Russian Committee of Inquiries Complaints of believers about " The ideal husband " performance submitted to the Russian Committee of Inquiries As it was reported, the Russian Orthodox Church found " The ideal husband " performance in the Moscow Art Theatre blasphemous. Riot - Secret History Riot - Secret History Universally admired, Pussy Riot (or PR for short) have been promoted as superstars. But what are they? A rock or punk group they are not. A British journalist marvelled: they produce no music, no song, no painting, nada, rien, nothing. How can they be described as “artists”? Pastors Talk About the Struggle With Blasphemy Anna Erakhtina Pastors Talk About the Struggle With Blasphemy Anna Erakhtina Every day the godless world tests Christians for firmness of spirit and faithfulness to their convictions. The films, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “The da Vinci Code”, and “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”, Madonna’s cabbalistic concerts, the woeful punk outburst in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral, satanic rock bands, and much else provoke us. The reality is that we are forced to face things like this nearly every day.How should we react to blasphemy? Комментарии Войдите через FaceBook ВКонтакте Яндекс Mail.Ru Google или введите свои данные: © 1999-2015 Православие.Ru При перепечатке ссылка на Православие.Ru обязательна Контактная информация Мы в соцсетях Подпишитесь на нашу рассылку |
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