| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Erdoan: Agia Sophia Will Never Be a Church as Long as There is Turkish People Source: OrthoChristian Pravmir.com team 19 March 2019 Photo: spzh.news Agia Sophia, the ancient Christian cathedral in Istanbul, will never become a church again, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan said recently in an angry commentary on the deadly New Zealand mosque shootings, reports Romfea . The shooter’s manifesto targets Turks and Erdoan specifically, reports Egypt Today . “We are coming for Constantinople and we will destroy every mosque and minaret in the city. The Hagia Sophia will be free of minarets and Constantinople will be rightfully christian [sic] owned once more,” the text reads. The Turkish President reacted to this statement, calling the murder a “scumbag, who dared to call the city by its former name.” Agia Sophia will not be turned into a church again “as long as there is a Turkish people and soul,” Erdoan continued. Romfea also noted that according to some Turkish media, the President “inadvertently called Agia Sophia” a mosque. It is currently officially considered a museum. Although the former church is officially a non-denominational museum, Turkey has repeatedly allowed Islamic prayers to be read inside, angering the Greek and broader Orthodox community. In April , Erdoan read out a prayer in Agia Sophia that he dedicated to “Istanbul’s conqueror”—Mehmed the Conqueror. In 2017, the Turkish president announced that he would read prayers in Agia Sophia on Orthodox Holy Friday . Although in the end he did not read the prayers that day, the announcement could serve no purpose other than to anger Christians. A Muslim cleric read from the Koran inside the Agia Sophia for the first time in 85 years in 2015, and the following year the Turkish government began airing religious readings during the Islamic month of fasting, Ramadan , and the call to prayer was read out and broadcasted on television to mark the supposed revelation of the Koran to the “Prophet” Mohammed. |
| St. Ignatius Brianchaninov exhorts us in a similar fashion, saying, “Read the books of the Holy Fathers that are relevant to your own way of life, so that you will be able not only to admire and enjoy reading the writings of the Fathers, but to put them into practice as well. A Christian living in the world should read the works of the great prelates who wrote for laypeople, teaching Christian virtues appropriate to those who spend their lives amid material concerns. Monks in monasteries should read other works, and still other works should be read by recluses and those keeping a vow of silence! Studying the virtues without taking into account one’s own way of life can lead to daydreaming and delusion.” And St. Basil the Great: “The Holy Scriptures lead us into eternal life, but as long as our immaturity forbids our understanding their depth, we exercise our spiritual perceptions upon poets, historians, orators, indeed on all works that may further our soul’s salvation; for we first accustom ourselves to the sun’s reflection in the water, and then become able to turn our eyes upon the very sun itself.” Set aside time this summer to read privately and out loud to your children, if you have them (or to your spouse!), especially those who are not naturally inclined to read. Good reading will illumine your mind and relieve it from vain worries, lift your heart, and inspire your love for God and neighbor. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Summer Reading Archpriest Thaddaeus Hardenbrook Along with daily reading of the Scriptures, we should be reading books that motivate us spiritually in a way that is practical and applicable ... 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. |
| And so the solemn rite of prayer approached its conclusion. Protodeacon Rozov ascended to an analogion set upon a specially-installed dais at the front left column. Everyone’s attention turned to Rozov. “What God is as great as our God? Thou alone art God, Who workest wonders,” — Rozov quietly begins to sing, in a low register and according to an ancient melody. And after a short pause, he repeated the same, but more loudly, and at a bit higher pitch. And a third time, he sang the same words, the same melody, but already at full voice and in a higher register. And then he began to read loudly and expressively, in an ordinary conversational declarative tone, the history of the Rite of Orthodoxy: “Celebrating the Day of Orthodoxy, faithful people…,” and then read the Symbol of Faith. Great Archdeacon Konstantin Rozov (+1923) But how he read it! Although he did not sing it, he imparted to every single word particular power and expressiveness. I was amazed at how he accomplished such expressiveness, without relying on some kind of “declaiming,” “oratorical,” or “theatrical” effects. He spoke so simply, as if in persuasive conversation with someone, and so triumphantly, but without the slightest hint of dramatic effects, something so dangerous to fall into when engaging in “declamatory recitation.” No wonder that Rozov was famous in Russia as an artist-protodeacon, not only thanks to his unique voice, but thanks to his ability to use it. “This is the true Faith.This is the Faith of the Apostles.This is the Orthodox Faith.This Faith established the universe.” Thus sang Rozov to the melody of the ancient chant, after he had read the Symbol of Faith. Then he read how the Church maintained the Faith and Tradition of the Holy Fathers, and how those who believe otherwise it separates from itself … (and there, changing to a somewhat lower pitch, Rozov said slowly and deliberately) “…and a-na-the-ma-ti-zes!” Then, in a yet deeper voice, he begins the «recitation» of the anathema: |
| The presence of ‘Synoptic-sounding materials’ or ‘Johannine-sounding materials’ in an ancient writer does not necessarily denote that writer’s knowledge of the Synoptic or Johannine Gospels. Ancient Mediterranean culture was an oral culture, very much given to storytelling, memorization, and oral performances of every kind. People were more apt to reproduce words, sayings, and narratives from memory (accurately or not) than we are today, who are trained not to trust to our memories but to go to our books to check for accurate and contextual use. But recognizing ancient culture as an ‘oral culture’ cuts both ways. On the one hand, people might be more prone to reproduce from memory what they had heard and not read in a book. On the other hand, people used to the oral retelling of stories, each time with certain nuances of change, would feel less inhibited about ‘retelling’ or ‘rewriting’ with minor modifications even what they had read, or heard someone else read, in a book. This is well noted by John Barton: The often inaccurate quotations in the Fathers, it is argued, show that they were drawing on ‘synoptic tradition’ but not actually on the Synoptic Gospels. Such a theory cannot be ruled out absolutely, but it is not the only or, probably, the best explanation for loose quotation. We should remember instead how loose are quotations from the Old Testament in many patristic texts, even though the Old Testament was unquestionably already fixed in writing. The explanation is to be found not in oral transmission in the strict sense, but in the oral use of texts which were already available in written form. 251 Even quite literate and literary persons might readily reproduce from memory rather than look something up. Not only this, but recent studies have shown that ancient authors, when quoting or alluding, were also more likely to change intentionally the wording 252 of a source than we are, who fear being caught misquoting. Quotation standards, or better, methods of borrowing pre-existing material, in the early second century were not so strict as they are today, even when borrowing sacred materials (as Barton noted above). Unless there was a particular reason for quoting verbatim, as when you expected an opponent to check your citation, or when you were expounding particular words in a sermon or commentary, the rather more cumbersome practice of quoting precisely from open books was often deemed unnecessary. It was sometimes even seen as more sophisticated and less boorish to one’s informed reader to adapt the words of one’s source rather than repeat them verbatim. The typical style of Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and others mentioned in this chapter, for instance, very often was not to quote, in our sense of the word, but to work the words or phrases of their sources (which their readers were assumed to know) into their own statements, or to mix sources together. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation On Reading Religious Literature Source: Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist Washington, DC Elder Arseny the Hesychast (+1983) 29 April 2017 Photo: Andrada Radu All Sacred Scripture is God-inspired, and we should read it all. In the Old Testament, we should devote particular attention to the Psalter. It is extremely powerful prayer. We receive a dual benefit from reading lives of Saints. The first benefit is that the example of their podvig, their spiritual struggles, wakes us from the somnolence of sloth. The second is that, when we reverently read the lives of Saints, those Saints pray to Christ for us. However, before beginning to read, we should always pray. After praying, reading of Saints lives brings us to such feelings of tenderness, that it is already impossible to hold back our tears. This happens because prayer enlightens the mind. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog On Reading Religious Literature Elder Arseny the Hesychast (+1983) All Sacred Scripture is God-inspired, and we should read it all. In the Old Testament, we should devote particular attention to the Psalter. It is extremely powerful prayer. We receive a dual benefit from reading lives of Saints. The first benefit is that the example of their podvig, their ... 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. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk takes part in ‘Religion Against Terrorism’ conference Source: DECR Natalya Mihailova 10 October 2016 On 6 October 2016, the ‘Religion against Terrorism’ international conference took place at the People’s Friendship University of Russia with participation of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Moscow. Photo: http://mospat.ru Those attending the conference were greeted by its co-chairmen: Rector of the University V. Filippov and Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Moscow M. Tazhin. The deputy head of the Presidential Administration, M. Magomedov, read out the message from Russian President V. Putin, while the deputy head of the Kazakhstan Presidential Administration, B. Mailybayev, read out the message of President of Kazakhstan N. Nazarbayev. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, read out the message of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and delivered an address. The conference, attending which are representatives of the state authorities of Russia and Kazakhstan, religious, public and academic figures, and educationists, continued its work in four sections. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk takes part in ‘Religion Against Terrorism’ conference Natalya Mihailova Those attending the conference were greeted by its co-chairmen: Rector of the University V. Filippov and Ambassador of Kazakhstan in Moscow M. Tazhin. The deputy head of the Presidential Administration, M. Magomedov, read out the message from Russian President V. Putin, while the deputy head of ... 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. |
| About Pages Проекты «Правмира» Raising Orthodox Children to Orthodox Adulthood The Daily Website on How to be an Orthodox Christian Today Twitter Telegram Parler RSS Donate Navigation Liturgical Dysfunction? More problematic is the fact that Orthodox Christians do so little reading of the Bible at home (there are exceptions, just enough to prove the rule). They have no idea of the context of a prescribed passage from the Epistles, to the point that the reading is little more than liturgical trappings, devoid of meaning other than as a long and cumbersome way into the Gospel. Archpriest John Breck 08 April 2011 March 2010 Reading of the Epistles People will persist in dysfunctional patterns of behavior simply because they’re familiar. A woman who divorces an abusive alcoholic husband will be very likely later on to marry someone with a similar addiction. The “good ol’ boys” will continue to tie one on Saturday nights, even though the Sunday morning hangover is inevitably excruciating. A parishioner (only the Orthodox are guilty of this, it seems) who habitually arrives at the Sunday Liturgy after the Lesser Entrance and still wants to receive communion will respond to the priest’s protests, “But we’ve always done it that way, Father!” Examples like this are not too far removed from a form of “liturgical dysfunction” that many of us complain about and yet do nothing to change. (“Change?”) I’m referring particularly to the way we read the Epistle at the Divine Liturgy. From a technical point of view there’s a very real problem posed by Readers who insist on displaying their vocal talents over a range of one or more octaves, with a muffled delivery that makes understanding what is being read almost impossible. More troubling, though, is the fact that the lectionary was produced under monastic influence, which presupposed continuous daily readings. Those who devoted themselves to this discipline were familiar with the context of any given passage, and many of them, especially monks, knew the reading by heart. This is hardly ever the case today. In the first place, we have lost the habit of memorizing lengthy passages, whether of Scripture or of secular writings (a century ago school children committed to memory large numbers of poems and passages of classical literature; today most of those texts go entirely unread). More problematic is the fact that Orthodox Christians do so little reading of the Bible at home (there are exceptions, just enough to prove the rule). They have no idea of the context of a prescribed passage from the Epistles, to the point that the reading is little more than liturgical trappings, devoid of meaning other than as a long and cumbersome way into the Gospel. |
| This one was like that.” In the end, the whole story of The Betrothed, the promessi sposi, hinges on a promise. The promise is sacred and must not be violated; it has consequences that condition all other considerations. The very sacredness of the promise stands as a rebuke to our age of insincerity, instability and deceit. I don’t want to give away more details of the story, because I hope that some of you will want to read it for yourselves. Like anything worthwhile, it requires some effort, since the subject and the style are far removed from those of contemporary writing. Manzoni once wrote, “Religion is so beautiful, that almost necessarily it decorates the works where it is introduced, however weakly; its grandeur, wisdom, sweetness and usefulness have, I should say, a literary attraction.” Having read his masterpiece, I can say that his work shows the truth of his words. Hieromonk German Ciuba Source: Ortodox America website Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Forming the Soul – Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed Hieromonk German (Ciuba) On the recommendation of an acquaintance, I had some time ago put on my mental list of books to read, The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni. Although my old Catholic Encyclopedia referred to it as a great work by the greatest Italian novelist, I had a difficult time tracking down a copy ... 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. |
| 3. The Purpose of John " s Baptism (1:25–26, 31) The Baptist is significant not only in directly introducing Jesus, but also in functioning as the first foil against Jesus in a water symbolism employed throughout the Gospel narrative; he introduces a baptismal (3:22, 23, 26; 4:1, 2; 10:40) and more general water motif (2:7,9; 3:5,23; 4:7,10,11,13,14,46; 5:2; 7:38; 13:5; 19:34). 3891 John " s questioners ask why he would baptize if he is not the Messiah, Elijah, or the prophet (1:25), which might presuppose broader knowledge of a messianic baptism. It is possible that they had already heard of John " s message of a coming Spirit-baptizer. Though the Gospel " s audience has not yet heard this promise in the course of the Gospel " s narration, 1may suggest that John already had this revelation, and it is likely that the Gospel " s audience had heard of it (cf. Acts 1:5; 11:16; 19:2; 1Cor 12:13 ). 3A. The Function of Baptism in This Gospel Given Josephus " s testimony, scholars scarcely ever doubt that John baptized in water; 3892 the significance of this record for the Fourth Gospel, however, is more open to question. As an indispensable substance, appreciation for which was heightened in ancient agrarian societies by the effects of drought, 3893 water had lent itself to frequent figurative usages, for example, as a symbol for life, 3894 or perhaps as an image for oracular speech. 3895 Philo read the four rivers in Genesis as the four virtues flowing from του θβου λγου, 3896 and both he 3897 and Ben Sira 3898 depict divine Wisdom as water. Later rabbis likewise spoke of Wisdom, 3899 Torah, and teaching as water 3900 or a well, 3901 and heresy as bad water 3902 (although they also compared Torah with honey and other sustaining materials). 3903 Rabbinic texts occasionally also compare the Spirit with water, 3904 as does John (7:37–39; see comments on 3:5). Some have taken water to represent baptism in John and have read it as indicating a sacramental element in Johannine theology; 3905 others read the Gospel in an antisacramental light. 3906 Kysar thinks that sacramental interpreters presuppose a more widespread emphasis on sacraments in the late-first-century church than has been substantiated. 3907 Commentators who support an antisacramental view vary in their proposed object of antisacramental polemic: MacGregor feels that John is polemicizing against the sacramentalism of the Mysteries, which he feels retained a strong hold on early Christian converts. 3908 It should be noted, however, that the allegedly « " sacramental» cults» could involve ecstasy, 3909 and thus that an opposition of sacrament and πνεμα (if the Johannine Christians could associate the latter with ecstatic inspiration) might not be as useful in opposing such sacramentalism as MacGregor hopes. Bultmann suggests a polemic against John " s baptism, due to continuing rivalry with the Baptist sect. 3910 |
| The Exodus, like the Exile into Babylon, is grounded in historical occurrence; some such liberation from Egypt actually happened. If it became the founding myth—the powerful, saving metaphor—of Israel’s identity and spiritual destiny, it is because God was at work through that occurrence, but also through its interpretation in Israel’s sacred literature. The same may be said for the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ, which we affirm without qualification to be historical events. Yet for those events to have meaning for us —to work their saving power in our life—they must first be interpreted for us by the biblical authors, then received by us in faith. Our world-view must be marked by a profound “plausibility,” a bedrock conviction that the material universe is indeed interpenetrated by another reality, a reality that is God—transcendent divine Life—who is present and active in every aspect of material reality, in order to lead us through this world and into His eternal embrace. Why read the writings of the Holy Fathers? Because those venerable elders perceived what each of us needs and longs to perceive. Firmly anchored in “historical reality,” their spiritual vision enabled them to open the eyes of mind and soul to the beauty and glory of divine Reality, as it reveals itself and makes itself accessible in and through Scripture and Tradition, as well as in and through the most mundane aspects of our daily existence. The Fathers were not more objective than biblical scholars and theologians are today. They, too, gave subjective interpretations to events in the writings they have passed on to us. What makes their witness so unique and so valuable is their capacity to see , precisely in and through “historical reality,” the actual—the utterly real—presence of the living, loving and life-giving God. They beheld, encountered, worshiped and served God in the fallen material world, in the very midst of everyday life. And they invite us to do the same. Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Why Read the Church Fathers? Archpriest John Breck Why read the writings of the Holy Fathers? Because those venerable elders perceived what each of us needs and longs to perceive. |
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