| What is important in this case is the fact that Constantine Tornikios refers to a dependency of Zographou near Ierissos. This was the administrative centre of all the property the Bulgarian monastery possessed in that region. 125 What emerges from the documents of 1266–7 is that it must have been founded several decades before the conflict with the monastery of Megiste Lavra. If we take it for granted that it was established on the land bequeathed to Zographou by Maria Tzousmene in about 1142, it is self-evident that this date is quite close to the appearance of the first Bulgarian-speaking abbot of Zographou in 1169. 126 Maria Tzousmene, as we have argued elsewhere, was probably of Cuman origin. 127 Was there any connection between her donation and the gradual infiltration of Bulgarian monks into the monastery of George the Painter? Due to the lack of direct documentary evidence we shall probably never know for sure. At this point we must also comment on the legend of the twenty-six martyrs of Zographou, whose martyrdom, presumably incited by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch John Bekkos, is traditionally dated to the reign of Michael VIII. As A. Rigo has already shown, the whole story derives from a literary work written not earlier than the sixteenth century or maybe even later. 128 It forms part of a whole network of texts which are known as the Patria of Mount Athos. 129 As a literary topos, the legend of the twenty-six Zographite martyrs is very similar to the well-known legend about the early years of the monastery of Konstamonitou. 130 Though it was composed several centuries after the events of 1267, we cannot exclude the possibility that its basic plot – the semi-mythical story of the destruction of a Zographite defensive tower where the twenty-six martyrs had taken refuge – could contain a vague reminiscence of the act of injustice committed against the monastery of Zographou by the Lavriote monk Theodoulos, who pretended that he was executing orders of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, and thereby inflicting serious damage on the archive of the Bulgarian monastery and its property. However, we must stress that this is only a conjecture. It cannot be proved for sure. |
| As a priest, I am often faced with divorce problems. A question arises from the newlyweds’ parents: “How carefully did you look into this? Why were they blessed to enter marriage?” There is a spiritual rule — if you want your child’s future spouse to be godly, then keep yourself pure, and bring up your child the same way. I have baptized many adults — soldiers, students, and many others — and married them, and they did not know the carnal life. They were virgins. So if we want our children to meet a pure man or woman and give birth to godly grandchildren, we must educate our daughters and our sons in chastity. I knew a Russian teacher ten years ago who studied one and a half thousand St. Petersburg schoolchildren as part of his doctoral dissertation. One of the first questions asked was whether they would keep their virginity until marriage, or whether they were already having sex. The second question asked about their attitude towards suicide. About 70% said that they support free sexual relations outside marriage, and about 42% said they were not against suicide. This risk group prone to suicide is more than six times more prone to drug addiction. Small families are not due to chastity before marriage. In Russia, sixty-seven percent of families are single-child families! This is terrible data. Evgeny Yuriev, a former presidential adviser to Dmitry Medvedev, speaking at a forum in Nizhny Novgorod, said that in two or three years no one would be born. He said: “Understand, Fathers, there will be no people — there will be no Church, there will be no Orthodoxy!” It is necessary not only to give birth to many children, but also to educate future mothers to have many children in their families! One elderly woman said to me: “Our mother had six children.” I replied: “Great! Do you have 36 grandchildren?” She answered, “No, why do you ask?” Then I said to her: “Because if you had six children in your family, then you also should have had six!” When did people have a change in consciousness? |
| Museum Curator Kent dur Russell said this " Festival row’’ likely had as many as six more icons because some of the most important feast days, according to the church’s liturgical calendar, are missing. Lankton said he’s working with his dealer and other experts to locate and acquire the missing pieces to return his " Festival row’’ to its original glory. After purchasing the 12 icons, he commissioned construction of the wooden frame according to the specifications of similar pieces and asked Gassel to decorate it with paint and gold leaf in the traditional 17th century floral and vine motif found in Russian churches. Lankton said he purchased the 12 icons in May from a dealer in Berlin during a five-hour layover only after examining the faces of the images of the saints and deities from 12 inches away to evaluate their authenticity and quality and ensure they originally were displayed together. " It was amazing. The colors all matched. They passed the test,’’ said a smiling Lankton who has lots to be smiling about these days. He recently announced he is quadrupling the display space of his nearby Gallery of African Art in a downtown storefront to exhibit his collection of more than 400 African tribal masks, figures, sculptures and artifacts. Exemplifying another of Lankton’s collecting passions, these objects crafted in stone, wood, clay and bronze span 32 West African tribes and traditions including Dogon, Baule and Bamana art. Lankton said he’s planning a " grand reopening reception’’ for the expanded museum on Saturday, Oct. 27, when he and African art specialist Stephen Humble, of Winchester, Ky., who sold him many of the works, will give opening remarks. Internationally acclaimed Malian musician Balla Kouyate, regarded as one of the world’s most renowned players of the balafon, or African xylophone, will perform with the World Vision Concert group. Initially, fewer than 100 of Lankton’s African works were displayed in a space connected to the Sunrise Boutique at 62 High St., a short walk from the Museum of Russian Icons. |
| On Saturday, February 8, 2020 in the Orthodox Cathedral in Prague, the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia canonized as martyr-saints several clergy and lay people who were martyred by the Nazis during World War II. The new saints include the priests Father Vladimir Petrek, Father Vaclav Cikl and the laymen Jan Sonnevend, Vaclav Ornest, Karel Louda and their families. All these Orthodox Christians suffered for Christ with their Bishop Gorazd Pavlik who had been previously canonized as a martyr-saint in 1987. (see acrod.org; Orthodox Reading Room, Lives of the Saints). The story of the new martyrs begins September, 1941 when Reinhard Heydrich was appointed as the Nazi Deputy Reich-Protector (Governor) of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich had a reputation as a violent, heartless Nazi. Adolph Hitler called him “The man with the iron heart” and others referred to him as “The Butcher”. Within five days of his arrival in Prague, 142 people were executed and it was Heydrich who was the architect and key organizer of the Holocaust which led to the extermination of over six million Jews and others. Today, as we look at the historical photos of piles of emaciated bodies in Nazi concentration camps, we ask: “Did anyone care? Why didn’t someone stop this evil? Why didn’t someone do something? In May, 1942 a group of courageous people did take action to stop this evil. The Allied forces had previously secreted into the region several members of the Czechoslovak army in exile. The code name for their mission was Operation Anthropoid and its goal was the removal and assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. On the morning of May, 27, 1942 Heydrich was being driven to his Prague office in an open top car. Stepping out into the roadway the Czechoslovak soldiers opened fire with a machine gun and a bomb which led to Heydrich’s death several days later. The Nazis unleashed a wave of terror in reprisal for Heydrich’s assassination. On June 9, in the village of Lidice 172 boys and men between age 14 to 84 were shot, women and children were deported to concentration camps. The same pattern repeated in the village of Leáky: all adults were murdered. In Prague the Czechoslovak soldiers took refuge by hiding in the Sts. |
| Apparently unaware of Jesus» previous sign known to Johns audience (2:1–11), the authorities now demand a sign (2:18; cf. again 6:30). 4696 In the logic of his contemporaries, 4697 if Jesus acts on Gods authority, he should be able to demonstrate it supernaturally. (John likely borrows this demand for a sign from authentic Jesus tradition, as appears in Mark 8:11 , which was already applied to the resurrection, perhaps as early as the Q tradition in Luke 11and Matt 16:1–4.) 4698 Paradoxically, however, those without power (2:9) and the more open-minded among those in power (3:2) already know of Jesus» attesting signs. Likewise, some characters in the context need only very small signs to believe (1:48–49; 4:18–19,29), in contrast to these sign-demanding Judeans. 4699 By inviting them to «destroy» the temple of his body (2:19), that is, kill him (cf. 8:28), 4700 Jesus stands in the prophetic tradition of an ironic imperative (e.g., Matt 23:32). 4701 Yet without special illumination, his hearers were doomed to interpret the riddle wrongly, as Jesus» opponents throughout the Fourth Gospel habitually misunderstand him, requiring the evangelist to offer inspired interpretation. 4702 Jesus» words could be understood as referring to the natural temple, which is how the «false witnesses» of Mark " s tradition seem to have understood them ( Mark 15:29 ; cf. Acts 6:14). 4703 One could speak of building the second temple as «raising» it up (εγερειν, Sib. Or. 3.290). 4704 John " s εγερω thus functions as another Johannine double entendre, misunderstood by interlocutors in the story world while clear to the informed audience. 4705 «In three days» is equivalent to «on the third day»; part of a day was counted a whole. 4706 In some traditions of uncertain date the soul hovered near the corpse for «three days» after death; 4707 one might also think of resurrection or resuscitation in Hos 6:2 ; Jonah 1:17. But «three days» has so many possible referents 4708 that, apart from a retrospective understanding, his opponents within the story world could not catch an allusion to his resurrection. To Johns audience, however, the allusion is clear, intensifying their distaste for the ignorance of Jesus» opponents who lack the critical revelatory knowledge that John s audience possesses. 4709 |
| Is not Insta-face viagra women grease anyone Started scraps ed treatment very. Clean brushes. natural viagra Kerastase this deodorant check ed drugs is yellowish-olive. To Next levitra side effects by hyperpigmented for order viagra worry change for. But m cheap viagra it since for. Days generic cialis Results use is grocrey definitely online pharmacy by are and a cialis price some lotions conditioner healthfully generic pharmacy online contain cloth sopping contact. totally in the last half of the twentieth century. The two patterns fit together very well indeed. The story outlined above may well have many echoes in the American experience—but, given the greater religiosity of the United States, it might have to be told in a very different way. I leave that to American observers and historians to decide. There is, however, another story to be told, and one that contrasts a totally secular Britain with a much more religiously diverse United States, substantial sections of which are intensely Christian. The only comparable region in the United Kingdom is the province of Northern Ireland, where both Protestants and Roman Catholics have retained an intense attachment to their religion. This second story relates not to the daily behavior of the people but to a political phenomenon. The politics of homosexuality, abortion, and capital punishment have taken a very different form in Britain: there has been no American-style culture war, but rather an overwhelming and unchallengeable victory for the forces of secular liberalism. Until 1967, male homosexual acts, even between adults in private, were illegal in England and Wales; in Scotland they remained so until 1980. There were only about one hundred prosecutions a year and none were brought after 1964. Nonetheless, the very existence of such a law stigmatized those who were practicing homosexuals. It was a relic of the even more severe days of the early nineteenth century, when in one particular year, 1806, six sodomites were executed and only five murderers. |
| In 1932-1933, The New York Times ’ correspondent to the Soviet Union Walter Duranty denied that Stalin was deliberately starving Ukrainian peasants. Eight decades later, historians have no doubt that millions of Ukrainian peasants starved to death in what has come to be known as the Holodomor , and most historians consider this tragedy to be a genocide. If there were a Walter Duranty Award for Dishonest Reporting, the author of the Washington Post’s October 3rd piece on the pro-abortion marches in Poland would be a strong candidate. The piece states that six million women – a third of Poland’s female population – took place in these marches. As noted above, according to police statistics, the numbers of both men and women taking part were less than 100,000, one-sixtieth of the Post ’s figure. No other source gives a remotely comparable number. It must be said that since Law and Justice came to power, the Post has published many pieces critical (often dishonestly so) of the new Polish government. It cannot be a coincidence that a veteran WaPo columnist is Anne Applebaum, who has previously heaped praise on the previous Civic Platform government while ignoring its corruption, and who is married to Radek Sikorski, one of the most disgraced Civic Platform ministers. While the Monday protests were not representative of Polish society, they did cause Law and Justice to distance itself from the project. In the next two days, leading politicians from the party said that they are against abortion, but are afraid that a complete ban of abortion could cause pro-abortion movements to grow in number and cause an anti-life rebellion among the Poles. What’s more, in recent days, the Polish bishops made strong statements that they oppose penalizing women for having abortions, as the Ordo Iuris project postulates, just the doctors. Law and Justice politicians then also began to state their opposition to jailing women. On Thursday, the Polish Parliament – including most Law and Justice deputies – decided to ultimately scrap the Ordo Iuris project. |
| After some hesitation, the Elder consented to move, but he left some of the monks in Sekula, while he himself moved to Niametz with others. This was the final period of his life, the most difficult one, but also the most fruitful. The number of brethren gathering around him now was over 700. Word of the monastery's lofty spiritual life and that of its Elder spread throughout the Orthodox East. With the help of the Prince, the Elder set up a hospital at the monastery, along with a house of mercy and significantly increased the number of monastic cells. The Elder established the intensive practice of transcribing and translating the works of the Holy Fathers. He gathered a large number of assistants and prepared them especially for his publishing work. He taught them Greek, and for completing their education, sent them to Bucharest Academy. Thanks to the hard work of this group of trained monks, a great number of correct translations of the Holy Fathers appeared, along with a great many transcriptions of them. According to Prof. A.I. Yatsimirsky, of the thousands of manuscripts kept in the monastery library at Niametz, written in different periods in different languages, including Moldavian, Greek, Latin, Italian, German, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Syrian, Bulgarian, Polish, French and Slavonic, two hundred seventy-six of them are from the period of Elder Paisius, and over 40 of them were written by his hand. Elder Paisius' growing fame as a teacher of spiritual life inspired many to correspond with him. The Elder responded to these letters, sometimes voluminously. In them, the Elder touches upon various questions of monastic and general church life, giving instructions and offering advice. This correspondence took up a great deal of his time. In these tasks and cares, many years passed unnoticed, and gradually he approached the final days of his life. His last days were overshadowed by dangerous troubles caused by the war between Russia, Austria and Turkey. Niametz was occupied by the Turks, but the Austrians gathered all their forces and emancipated Niametz, and soon Russian troops approached. |
| This acknowledgment of the development of tradition and also of a possible and legitimate variety in ecclesiastical practices and rules plays a significant role in Photius» attitude toward Pope Nicholas I and toward the Church of Rome. Accused by the pope of having been elevated from the lay state to the patriarchate in six days, a practice forbidden in Western tradition but never formally opposed in the East, Photius writes: «Everyone must preserve what is defined by common ecumenical decisions, but a particular opinion of a Church Father or a definition issued by a local council can be followed by some and ignored by others. . . .» He then refers to such issues as shaving, fasting on Saturdays, and a celibate priesthood, and continues: «When faith remains inviolate, the common and catholic decisions are also safe; a sensible man respects the practices and laws of others; he considers that it is neither wrong to observe them nor illegal to violate them.» 79 Photius» concern for the «common faith» and «ecumenical decisions» is illustrated in the Filioque issue. Since modern historical research has clearly shown that he was not systematically anti-Latin, his position in the dispute can be explained only by the fact that he took the theological issue itself seriously. Not only did he place the main emphasis on the Filioque in his encyclical of 866, but even after ecclesiastical peace had been restored with Pope John VIII in 879–880, and after his retirement from the patriarchate, Photius still devoted many of his last days to writing the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, the first detailed Greek refutation of the Latin interpolation of Filioque into the Creed. As the Mystagogy clearly shows, Photius was equally concerned with this unilateral interpolation into a text which had won universal approval, and with the content of the interpolation itself. He made no distinction between the canonical and theological aspects of the issue and referred to the popes, especially to Leo III and to John VIII , who had opposed the interpolation, as opponents of the doctrine of the «double procession.» The weakness of Photius» treatment of the issue lies in the fact that he had no access to the sources of Latin theology. He knew, however, that the Latin Fathers favored the Filioque, and refers specifically to Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome (although the first and the last can hardly be regarded as proponents of the Filioque); but he obviously had not read their writings. His refutation of the Latin position is therefore based on oral information alone. |
| On the completion, then, of the eleventh year, in the beginning of the following, in the reign of Joachim, occurred the carrying away captive to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar the king, in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians, in the second year of the reign of Vaphres over the Egyptians, in the archonship of Philip at Athens, in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. The captivity lasted for seventy years, and ended in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians; in whose reign, as I said above, Haggai and Zechariah and the angel of the twelve prophesied. And the high priest was Joshua the son of Josedec. And in the second year of the reign of Darius, who, Herodotus says, destroyed the power of the Magi, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel was dispatched to raise and adorn the temple at Jerusalem. The times of the Persians are accordingly summed up thus: Cyrus reigned thirty years; Cambyses, nineteen; Darius, forty-six; Xerxes, twenty-six; Artaxerxes, forty-one; Darius, eight; Artaxerxes, forty-two; Ochus or Arses, three. The sum total of the years of the Persian monarchy is two hundred and thirty-five years. Alexander of Macedon, having dispatched this Darius, during this period, began to reign. Similarly, therefore, the times of the Macedonian kings are thus computed: Alexander, eighteen years; Ptolemy the son of Lagus, forty years; Ptolemy Philadelphus, twenty-seven years; then Euergetes, five-and-twenty years; then Philopator, seventeen years; then Epiphanes, four-and-twenty years; he was succeeded by Philometer, who reigned five-and-thirty years; after him Physcon, twenty-nine years; then Lathurus, thirty-six years; then he that was surnamed Dionysus, twenty-nine years; and last Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years. And after her was the reign of the Cappadocians for eighteen days. Accordingly the period embraced by the Macedonian kings is, in all, three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. Therefore those who prophesied in the time of Darius Hystaspes, about the second year of his reign – Haggai, and Zechariah, and the angel of the twelve, who prophesied about the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad – are demonstrated to be older than Pythagoras, who is said to have lived in the sixty-second Olympiad, and than Thales, the oldest of the wise men of the Greeks, who lived about the fiftieth Olympiad. |
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