| ES: That’s, that’s true, yes. Unfortunately it’s true that there is currently a... so to speak... a war-like quarrel going on at the level of the media. It’s a [...] new media war. This could spill over at any time into some other, more dangerous playing field, and that should not be underestimated, the danger is very, very high. And the argument has taken a new format that has wiped out the old format from the Cold War. It’s really deplorable that we’ve ended up at this level at the beginning of the 21st century, it’s absolutely deplorable. SS: On a different note – Venice wants to separate from Italy, Catalonia from Spain, Scotland from the UK. In your opinion, what’s the reason for the separatist sentiment inside the bloc? ES: Yes, it will be very interesting. It is doubtful that someone will be able to forbid Scotland from leaving the UK. It will be difficult to forbid the Catalans to leave. I am sure that it will be difficult to forbid the Venetians to leave. Certain states within the EU are obviously afraid of their citizens, they are afraid of the citizens which want to use their right to self-determination, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. However, I would like to point out the main points of the attitude of European ruling circles towards the citizens of their countries. Nothing can make the nomenclature elite feel uneasy better than the word " referendum " . The European Union has not passed a single referendum successfully on the first try, which means that the European Union avoids referendums like plague. The European Union plays democracy but does not follow its principles. It is also related to the situation which is unfolding at the present moment. If one conducts a population survey, the opinion of the people will not coincide with the opinion of the government. Sometimes the opinion of the people is drastically different from the opinion of the European governments. It means that the word " referendum " is a dangerous word for the ruling elite of the European Union. |
| 21 . Who, then, is so unused to human matters as to be astonished at the differences of years? And yet even last year we know that many provinces abounded with produce. What shall I say of the Gauls which were more productive than usual? The Pannonias sold corn which they had not sown, and Phætia Secunda experienced harm of her own fertility, for she who was wont to be safe in her scarcity, stirred up an enemy against herself by her fertility. The fruits of the autumn fed Liguria and the Venetias. So, then, the former year did not wither because of sacrilege, and the latter flourished with the fruits of faith. Let them too deny if they can that the vineyards abounded with an immense produce. And so we have both received a harvest with interest and possess the benefit of a more abundant vintage. 22 . The last and most important point remains, whether, O Emperors, you ought to restore those helps which have profited you; for he says: ‘Let them defend you, and be worshipped by us.’ This it is, most faithful princes, which we cannot endure, that they should taunt us that they supplicate their gods in your names, and without your commands, commit an immense sacrilege, interpreting your shutting your eyes as consent. Let them have their guardians to themselves, let these, if they can, protect their worshippers. For, if they are not able to help those by whom they are worshipped, how can they protect you by whom they are not worshipped? 23 . But, he says, the rites of our ancestors ought to be retained. But what, seeing that all things have made progress towards what is better? The world itself, which at first was compacted of the germs of the elements throughout the void, in a yielding sphere, or was dark with the shapeless confusion of the work as yet without order, did it not afterwards receive (the distinction between sky, sea, and earth being established), the forms of things whereby it appears beautiful? The lands freed from the misty darkness wondered at the new sun. The day does not shine in the beginning, but as time proceeds, it is bright with increase of light, and grows warm with increase of heat. |
| The two manuscripts were sent to Sinai by the Serbian metropolitan of Serres Jacob in 1360, so they must have been translated and copied before this date. 187 However, in 1355 or 1359 the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Kallistos I recommended that the monks of Megiste Lavra expel from their monastery several persons, whose theological orientation was considered erroneous and rather harmful. One of them was Gennadios the Bulgarian. The motives for Gennadios’s expulsion were unrelated to his nationality, since one Albanian and a monk of ‘Isaurian’ origin (whatever this might mean!) had to be expelled together with him. 188 St Kosmas the Zographite St Kosmas is the only Bulgarian saint of the Byzantine period who is known to have been a monk in the monastery of Zographou. His activity in the Bulgarian Athonite foundation is traditionally dated to the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. According to his Life, the date of his death was 22 September 1422. The Greek and Slavic texts of his Life were published by I. Dujev in 1971. 189 He used an earlier Venetian edition of St Kosmas’s Greek Life published in 1803 by St Nikodimos the Athonite, 190 the text referring to St Kosmas included in the Megas Synaxaristes of Κ. Doukakis, 191 and Codex Suppl. Gr. 1182 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (sixteenth century, ff. 5–15v). 192 For the Slavic text of the saint’s Life Dujev also resorted to a little-known Bulgarian variant of St Kosmas’s Life published by the monastery of Zographou for liturgical purposes in 1911. 193 According to Dujev, the Zographite monks had compiled their Bulgarian version of St Kosmas’s Life by translating and enriching his Greek Life as it was published by St Nikodimos the Athonite in 1803. 194 From a literary point of view the content of St Kosmas’s Life is rather trivial. 195 Its Greek version contains no references at all to miracles performed by the saint. Undoubtedly, the most important section of the Life is that which discusses how the saint had received from God the gift to foresee the future. |
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