| Flight of Christians from Mid-East Reaches Syria A mass exodus of Christians, including a group evacuated from the besieged city of Homs, have been fleeing Syrian cities for safety. Caught in the middle of a showdown between opposition forces and the Syrian army, many Christians fear the prospect of an Islamist-led government if President Bashar al-Assad is deposed. On July 11, Maximos al-Jamal, a Greek Orthodox priest, negotiated a deal between armed rebels and the army to evacuate 63 Christians caught in the crossfire in the bombed-out city of Homs, the Associated Press reports. Al-Jamal feared that as army attacks intensified, rebels were keeping Christians in the city as bargaining chips As al-Jamal told the Associated Press, “Gunmen have told the besieged people that if you go out of these areas, we will die.” Before Syria’s uprising began early last year, thousands of Christians lived in Homs. Today, however, according to al-Jamal, only 100 Christian civilians remain, a loss that probably contributed more to rebel attacks against Christians than the army’s bombardment of the city. “The armed [rebels] in Syria [have] murdered more than 200 Christians in the city of Homs, including entire families with young children,” a priest in Homs told Barnabas Aid magazine. “These gangs kidnapped Christians and demanded high ransoms. In two cases, after the ransoms were paid, the men’s bodies were found.” The evacuation of Christians from Homs is only the latest occurrence in a mass exodus of Christians from Syrian cities. In June, nearly 10,000 Christians fled Qusayr after being given an ultimatum to leave the city by a rebel commander, Barnabas Aid reported. The threat was apparently echoed in the city mosques: “Christians must leave Qusayr within six days, ending Friday (June 8).” Rebels, however, denied the accusations; they claimed that Christians began fleeing months earlier, when the army shelled the city. Many Syrian Christians, considered loyal to President Assad, are afraid that rebel groups—widely led by Islamists—will persecute non-Muslims and stifle religious freedoms. Historically, Christians have been granted a higher degree of freedom in Syria than in most other Middle Eastern countries. Despite reports of massive violence initiated by the regime, many Syrian Christians still believe that Assad is their final hope for a peaceful existence. |
| Christmas in Tacloban: Filipinos Celebrate Amid the Wreckage Philippines, December 24, 2013 Girlyn Antillon’s savings have run out. She can no longer afford the rent on the temporary housing that her family moved into after Supertyphoon Haiyan cut a deadly and destructive swath through the central Philippines on Nov. 8. The Antillon family has nowhere to go but back home, to Tacloban, a city leveled by sea surges and still in the early stages of recovery. “Even though the bodies are cleared out, it stinks, and there are a lot of flies,” says Antillon. Nonetheless, she insists that she had a good reason to celebrate Christmas this year. Four days after Haiyan (named Yolanda in the Philippines) destroyed her hometown, she discovered her parents and all six of her siblings alive amid the wreckage. “It will be a very special Christmas after everything that happened,” says Antillon. The Philippines is the third biggest Catholic country in the world (after Brazil and Mexico), and Christmas is not just a holiday but also a religious occasion. As Filipinos struggle to recover from Haiyan, however, a stripped-down and subdued Christmas celebration has taken hold in the hardest-hit areas. “You can never take Christmas out of the Filipino,” says Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross. “Normally at this time of month you hear children singing Christmas carols outside of the houses and asking for coins,” says Aaron Aspi, a relief worker for World Vision, but he says this year the carolers have gone silent. “I wake up to the sound of chain saws on the trees that have fallen.” Housing remains a work in progress, and the cost of building supplies, like planks of wood, has strained household budgets to the breaking point. Few families in the disaster-struck areas can afford to spend money on extravagances such as decorations and gifts. But they can improvise. They have, for example, hung homemade ornaments from saplings alongside the road, stringing plastic bags filled with dyed water to the branches. They have lashed bamboo stalks together in a cone-shaped semblance of a pine tree, with CDs decorating it. Each disc bears a handwritten message: “Merry Christmas everyone,” “A simple gift is a complete family,” “Everything happens for a reason.” |
| Календарь Материалы 8 января 2013 г. [Поместные Православные Церкви/Румынская/Публикации] Митрополит Молдовы и Буковины Феофан (Саву) Смирение — это единственное, что возвышает, прощение — единственное, что вызывает прощение, милостыня — единственное, что делает Бога должником, молитва — единственное, что возводит человека на небо, Божественная Литургия — единственное, что сводит на землю Христа в Теле и Крови Его, — и это также пути, на которых человеческое существо получает в дар Самого Христа и рождает Его в сердце себе подобных. [Интернет-журнал/Колонка главного редактора] Архимандрит Тихон (Шевкунов) Размышляя, что подобрать в рубрику «Колонка главного редактора» на Святочной неделе, я обнаружил в архиве совсем забытый коротенький фильм, точнее даже зарисовку, сделанную в деревеньке Боровик на приходе у отца Никиты в далеком уже 1987 году. [Поместные Православные Церкви/Константинопольская/Святые и святыни/Святые и подвижники благочестия] Святое Семейство сопровождали по дороге львы, которые сделались кроткими, как агнцы, резвились возле ног Иосифа и Марии и играли с их домашними животными. Все творение, окружавшее Святое Семейство, возвращалось в первоначальное райское состояние, прообразуя сотворение новой земли. [Встреча с Православием/Православная библиотека] Пожар Москвы просветил мою душу и суд Божий на ледяных полях наполнил мое сердце теплотой веры, какой я до сих пор не чувствовал. Тогда я познал Бога, как открывает Его Священное Писание. English Edition [Saints. Asceties of Piety. Church Holy Days ] Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky I am a novelist, and I suppose I have made up this story. I write “I suppose,” though I know for a fact that I have made it up, but yet I keep fancying that it must have happened on Christmas Eve in some great town in a time of terrible frost. I have a vision of a boy, a little boy, six years old or even younger. This boy woke up that morning in a cold damp cellar. He was dressed in a sort of little dressing-gown and was shivering with cold. Српска bepзuja |
| For Dieuchidas, in the fourth book of the Megarics, places the era of Lycurgus about the two hundred and ninetieth year after the capture of Troy. After Hezekiah, his son Manasses reigned for fifty-five years. Then his son Amos for two years. After him reigned his son Josias, distinguished for his observance of the law, for thirty-one years. He laid the carcasses of men upon the carcasses of the idols, as is written in the book of Leviticus. Leviticus 26:30 In his reign, in the eighteenth year, the passover was celebrated, not having been kept from the days of Samuel in the intervening period. 2 Kings 23:22 Then Chelkias the priest, the father of the prophet Jeremiah, having fallen in with the book of the law, that had been laid up in the temple, read it and died. 2 Kings 22:8 And in his days Olda prohesied, and Sophonias, and Jeremiah. And in the days of Jeremiah was Ananias the son of Azor, the false prophet. He having disobeyed Jeremiah the prophet, was slain by Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt at the river Euphrates, having encountered the latter, who was marching on the Assyrians. Josiah was succeeded by Jechoniah, called also Joachas, his son, who reigned three months and ten days. Necho king of Egypt bound him and led him to Egypt, after making his brother Joachim king in his stead, who continued his tributary for eleven years. After him his namesake Joakim reigned for three months. Then Zedekiah reigned for eleven years; and up to his time Jeremiah continued to prophesy. Along with him Ezekiel the son of Buzi, and Urias the son of Samæus, and Ambacum prophesied. Here end the Hebrew kings. There are then from the birth of Moses till this captivity nine hundred and seventy-two years; but according to strict chronological accuracy, one thousand and eighty-five, six months, ten days. From the reign of David to the captivity by the Chaldeans, four hundred and fifty-two years and six months; but as the accuracy we have observed in reference to dates makes out, four hundred and eighty-two and six months ten days. |
| In conclusion one must note that neither the family, nor the school, nor the Church, can independently bring up a child. This is feasible only by a combined effort of these institutions. That is why the more there is interaction and mutual assistance among them, the more successful the upbringing of the children will be in their care. Family structure The Orthodox church always regarded the family as the main source of the Christian enlightenment of children. The Apostles used to call the family the “domestic church” and taught spouses to strive conjointly for a spiritual life. To bring a Christian environment to the house, all members of the family should pray together. The best times for this are mornings and evenings. When possible, they should pray before and after meals. Combined prayer joins and strengthens the family. On Sundays all must attend church, observing the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day [day of rest], to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the day of the Lord your God” (Exod. 20:8). Giving us six days of the week, God kept one for Himself, but those Christians who devote the seventh day for themselves, “rob” the Lord of what belongs to Him and break their covenant with Him. Discussions of spiritual topics and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, as well as the lives of the Saints and other edifying books, have a beneficial effect on the whole family and create a conciliatory atmosphere in the house. One cannot disdain the fast-days, which are periods set by the Church for the development of self discipline and religious firmness. The Lord Jesus Christ, as well as His disciples and the first Christians, all fasted on certain days. For instance, from the first century of Christianity, it became the norm to fast twice a week: on Wednesdays and Fridays. At that time the Great Fast, also know as Lent, was established for the period prior to Easter. In the absence of a parish school, the job of catechismal instruction falls on the parents. It is certainly very helpful to this end that the children get used to reading a children”s Bible and other religious books on their own. Later they retell to the parents what they have read and learn how to apply what they have learned. These readings and conversations should be carried out on a regular basis because without consistency it is difficult to achieve lasting results. |
| Chapter 6.– That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate the Other. We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day. And first of all, indeed, light was made by the word of God, and God, we read, separated it from the darkness, and called the light Day, and the darkness Night; but what kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it. For either it was some material light, whether proceeding from the upper parts of the world, far removed from our sight, or from the spot where the sun was afterwards kindled; or under the name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits, the city of which the apostle says, Jerusalem which is above is our eternal mother in heaven; Galatians 4:26 and in another place, For you are all the children of the light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 1 Thessalonians 5:5 Yet in some respects we may appropriately speak of a morning and evening of this day also. For the knowledge of the creature is, in comparison of the knowledge of the Creator, but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into morning when the creature is drawn to the praise and love of the Creator; and night never falls when the Creator is not forsaken through love of the creature. In fine, Scripture, when it would recount those days in order, never mentions the word night. It never says, Night was, but The evening and the morning were the first day. So of the second and the rest. And, indeed, the knowledge of created things contemplated by themselves is, so to speak, more colorless than when they are seen in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which they were made. Therefore evening is a more suitable figure than night; and yet, as I said, morning returns when the creature returns to the praise and love of the Creator. When it does so in the knowledge of itself, that is the first day; when in the knowledge of the firmament, which is the name given to the sky between the waters above and those beneath, that is the second day; when in the knowledge of the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth, that is the third day; when in the knowledge of the greater and less luminaries, and all the stars, that is the fourth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that swim in the waters and that fly in the air, that is the fifth day; when in the knowledge of all animals that live on the earth, and of man himself, that is the sixth day. Chapter 8.– What We are to Understand of God " s Resting on the Seventh Day, After the Six Days» Work. |
| However, Bishop Inocentios of Rome (401-417) ratified the Saturday fast, and gradually this day became a fixed day in the West. In rebuke of this practice in the West, Bishop Ignatios of Antioch in a letter denounced this Saturday fast (ch. 13). During the seventh century, Bishop Gregory I of Rome added four days before the beginning of the six weeks of Lent, starting with Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday. The Church in the East, on the other hand, added an additional week before the seven weeks, known as Cheese Week, to complete the 40 days of fasting in Lent before Easter, excluding the seven Saturdays and eight Sundays, which are non-fast days. The reason for the number of 40 days of fasting during the Great Lent is obscure. The famous canonist of the twelfth century, Balsamon, writes, “There is but a forty day abstinence, that of the Pascha, but if one also likes to keep the weekly fast for other feasts … he is not to be disgraced” (Migne PG 138,1001). Fasting from foods is relevant to the condition of the health of the Christian, however. Fasting is not for the sake of fasting alone: “Fasting was devised in order to humble the body. If, therefore, the body is already in a state of humbleness and illness or weakness, the person ought to partake of as much as he or she may wish and be able to get along with food and drink” (Canon 8 of St. Timothy of Alexandria, 381). THE MEANING OF THE FEAST DAYS OF LENT Great Lent is a period of time when the people are more conscious of their spiritual character. The passages of the Gospels and the Epistles, the hymnology and prayers, the spirit of the Church – all endeavor to help the Christian cleanse himself spiritually through repentance. “Repent” is the first word Jesus Christ spoke in His proclamation to the people, as the epitome of His Gospel. Repentance is the main motivation of the Christian which acts to free him from sin. One’s recognition of his sin, his contrition over it and lastly his decision to make an about-face change of his attitude are the steps of repentance. For one can learn to recognize iniquities from the Bible and the teachings of the Church. During the period of Lent the Christian is called to self-examination and self-control by the radiance of the Event of the Resurrection of Christ. This is why the Church designated such a period of time be observed before this great feast day. |
| However, the establishment of feasts and related worship and sacrifice and a detailed procedure for the behaviour of the people of God on these days dates from the time of their exodus from Egypt. Thus, the commandment on the Sabbath in the Decalogue given to the chosen people in Chapter 2 of the Book of Genesis is specifies: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy (Ex. 20:8-11). Therefore, the first feast to be observed in human history was based on a divine instruction, while being natural as it was needed for labourers’ rest. The fact that the festive calendar was established by the Lord Himself speaks of the importance of feasts in our life. Indeed, celebrating a feast, the people of God not only remember a particular event in their history but also testify that they remember God’s deeds, live by this memory and actualize it in their time. But a feast is not only an appeal to people’s memory. It is also an appeal to the ‘memory’ of God, ‘reminding’ Him of His love for His people. It is a call to preserve and renew the mercies He showed to their forefathers. It is noteworthy that the commandment on the Sabbath, just as other ones on later feasts, has two aspects: service of God and withdrawal from earthly chores and tasks. The most important Old Testament feasts were Passover and Pentecost, and a common meal was the most important part of any celebration. The first Eucharist celebrated by Christ Himself was a continuation and development of the Passover’s festive repast which was sacred because it was dominated by religious emotions, and the traditional festive meals were subjected to a religious idea. Put in the frame of the Old Testament Passover supper filled with remembrances of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the New Passover was essentially centered on the crucifixion and resurrection of the Son of God. And the Saviour commanded His disciples that they should celebrate the Passover not in the remembrance of the exodus from Egypt but in remembrance of Him, His exodus from death to life. The Paschal lamb was at the same time a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the deliverance from the Egyptian captivity and a sacrifice of supplication for mercy to be shown for people’s sins and the main part of the festive repast. All these three elements – thanksgiving, supplication and repast – are present in the Eucharist. |
| Chapter 27. Why Lent is kept by very many with a different number of days. But further, as man " s carelessness dropped out of sight the reason of this, this season when, as was said, the tithes of the year are offered by fasts for thirty-six days and a half, was called Quadragesima, a name which perhaps they thought ought to be given to it for this reason; viz., that it is said that Moses and Elijah and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself fasted for forty days. To the mystery of which number are not unsuitably applied those forty years in which Israel dwelt in the wilderness, and in like manner the forty stations which they are said to have passed through with a mystic meaning. Or perhaps the tithe was properly given the name of Quadragesima from the use of the custom-house. For so that state tax is commonly called, from which the same proportion of the increment is assigned for the king " s use, as the legal tribute of Quadragesima, which is required of us by the King of all the ages for the use of our life. At any rate, although this has nothing to do with the question raised, yet I think that I ought not to omit the fact that very often our elders used to testify that especially on these days the whole body of monks was attacked according to the ancient custom of the people opposed to them, and was more vehemently urged to forsake their homes, for this reason, because in accordance with this figure, whereby the Egyptians formerly oppressed the children of Israel with grievous afflictions, so now also the spiritual Egyptians try to bow down the true Israel, i.e., the monastic folk, with hard and vile tasks, lest by means of that peace which is dear to God, we should forsake the land of Egypt, and for our good cross to the desert of virtues, so that Pharaoh rages against us and says: They are idle and therefore they cry saying: Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord our God. Let them be oppressed with labours, and be harassed in their works, and they shall not be harassed by vain words. Exodus 5:8–9 For certainly their folly imagines that the holy sacrifice of the Lord, which is only offered in the desert of a pure heart, is the height of folly, for religion is an abomination to a sinner. Sirach 50:24 Chapter 29. How those who are perfect go beyond the fixed rule of Lent. |
| When, in the last days, lawlessness will increase, love will dry up, so that faith will become depleted, then there will appear «two witnesses…the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth» (Rev. 11:4), which will testify to the Divine truth among corrupt mankind. By God’s permission, these two candlesticks will be killed by the Antichrist and will rise on the third day. The Church teaching says that these two candlesticks, these witnesses, will be Sts. Enoch and Elijah – those righteous men of the Old Testament who did not face death, precisely in order to perform the work of God at the end of ages, when the spiritual forces of mankind will be depleted. The very sermon of the righteous Enoch, as blessed Theodorite says, applies more to the last days than to those preceding the flood: «Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all.» The Problem of Chronology The problem of Biblical chronology is connected with the 5 th chapter of the book of Genesis. It is well known that in Byzantium and pre-Peter the Great Russia, they counted years «from the creation of the world,» not from the Nativity of Christ. Such chronology is found in contemporary church calendars, though it is more and more subject to criticism, for it is known that our earth appeared several billions of years ago. We can provide two answers for solving this problem. First: precisely what should we understand as the date of «the creation of the world»? According to the words of the prophet Moses, the Apostle Peter and the greatest church interpreter of the Holy Scripture, St. Basil the Great, the epoch of the days of the world’s creation should be understood as very prolonged periods of time, because the 7 th day, which ended the course of the six days of creation, the Church calls the entire present, on-going period, till the end of the world, when the infinite night-less 8 th day will take the place of the 7th. Consequently, when did the 6 th day end and the 7 th day begin? According to the sense of the corresponding narration of the book of Genesis we can say: at the time, when the creation of man in the present spirit-bearing state was completed. But precisely when this moment took part in the historical process, we do not know. And it is important to note that none of the historical testimonies about the religious life of man, such as written testimonies, step beyond the limits of what is mentioned in the Bible. |
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