| In order to gain full understanding of the entirety of the concept realized in ia, the contents of its treasury is the key element. Research has shown that relics of this rang, tied to the most prominent members of celestial hierarchy and gathered in such a manner at a place of locus regalis status, constitute a highly conceptualized entity of complex meaning and function. Firstly, the most significant relics related to Christ, the Virgin and the Prodromos were used to present the entire program of the oikonomia of salvation through its main dogmatic and “historical” stages: incarnation and baptism, passion and triumph over death. Relics of the apostles, on the other hand, served the idea of apostolic tradition and thus had a pronounced ecclesiological meaning 432 . In view of the fact that Zica was a royal endowment and the crowning church of Serbian rulers, there is strong reason to believe that the mentioned relics belonged to the domain of state symbolism. Most probably they represented prototypes of the insignia regalia ofthe first Nemanides. Nemanja’s lance and pectoral with its particle of the True Cross, for example, definitely had insigniological meaning just like the “holy wreath”, that is the crown used in the coronation ceremony of the first Serbian king, Stefan. The context in which the particle of the True Cross is mentioned in Serbian written source is also very telling. In those passages, the Serbian ruler is compared to Old Testament king David and Constantine the Great, thus giving this relic a pronounced ideological meaning, that is a political purpose 433 . An analysis of inventories of medieval royal treasuries shows that, like the one at ia, they too possessed the most precious relics related to Christ, the Virgin, John the Prodromos and the apostles. It is well known that these relics, among others, also had the function of royal insignia, above all particles of the True Cross and the holy lance – regalis lancea. Such was the inventory of the treasury of Charlemagne and his heirs, as well as of royal treasuries of Hungary, Poland and Bohemia 434 . In an extraordinary Gothic setting they were displayed in the Sainte Chapelle of Saint Louis 435 . There are numerous and very convincing testimonies indicating that the precious collections of relics which had over the centuries been gathered in Russia had undeniable ideological meaning and political function 436 . A similar practice has also been recorded in the immediate vicinity of Serbia, in Bulgaria. Thus, relics played an important role in the formation of state centers – at first that of Samuilo, on Lake Prespa, and later that at Tirnovo, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire 437 . No need to stress, the common prototype of all these royal collections was the treasury of the imperial palace at Constantinople, located in the church of the Virgin of Pharos 438 . |
| 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 Are You a True Christian? Navigation Thousands queue in Russia to see religious relic admin 15 July 2013 July 15, 2013 An Orthodox believer kisses the cross of St. Andrew the Apostle in the Kazan Cathedral in the Russia’s second city of St. Petersburg, on July 11, 2013. (AFP PHOTO/OLGA MALTSEVA) SAINT PETERSBURG: Around 65,000 people have queued for hours in Saint Petersburg to see a religious relic brought from Greece, officials said Saturday, in the latest sign of the Russian Orthodox Church’s influence in post-Soviet Russia. The cross of Saint Andrew, which is said to be a relic of the X-shaped cross on which Andrew the Apostle was crucified, was placed in Saint Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral Thursday after arriving from its historic home in Patras in Greece. In just the first days of its display, there were some 65,000 visitors and the numbers are increasing all the time, a representative of the fund which helped bring the cross to Russia told the RIA Novosti news agency. The cross has come from Greece as part of commemorations of the 1,025th anniversary of the Christianization of the medieval Slavic state of Rus. The queue to see the relic snaked all around the Petersburg cathedral with the faithful having to wait for several hours to be allowed to briefly touch the object. Local officials said that the atmosphere in the queue was cheerful. “It is a great event for all Orthodox. I came especially to Saint Petersburg from my house in the country which is 200 kilometers away,” Tatyana Koroliova, 60, told AFP. The excitement recalls the frenzy that surrounded the appearance of the Belt of the Virgin Mary in Russia in 2011 – also on loan from Greece – which attracted gigantic queues when it was put on display in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church was suppressed under Communism but has staged an astonishing recovery in post-Soviet Russia to become one of the country’s most powerful institutions. |
| Febrary, 2010. London. The House of Lords prepared to review a bill on sex education which would require secular and religious schools to give children information on homosexual relations, contraception, and abortions. If the bill is accepted, priests and nuns will have to explain to schoolchildren that “civil partnership” and homosexuality are “harmless and normal,” and tell them where they can have an abortion and how to use condoms. February, 2010. The Netherlands. A scandal in the town of Reusel. During the traditional carnival, a group of gays broke into a church where Sunday services were being celebrated and demanded Holy Communion. The priest told them that according to religious rules he cannot give them Communion. Sodomy is a serious sin in Christianity. The gay activists made a complaint to the police, and the priest was quickly summoned to testify. December, 2009. Germany. Eight Christian families from the town of Salzkotten were sentenced by a local court to serious fines for not allowing their young children to go to sex education lessons at school, citing their religious convictions; they also forbade them to participate in the theatrical production of “My body belongs to me.” Because they refused to pay the fine (paying the fine would mean acknowledging the guilt), eight respected fathers of families went to prison (one of them was there for a week). But what calls forth the greatest fury in these preservers of “political correctness” is the cross—the sign of love and forgiveness. In September of last year the administration of a public hospital in the English town of Exeter forced a fifty-four year old nurse, Shirley Chaplin, to remove her cross, threatening to fire her, although Miss Chaplin had been working in the hospital for thirty years. They told her that “the cross violates the dress code, and jewelry is not allowed at work.” In spring of 2009, another nurse, Helen Slatter from Gloucester had to take off her cross because “the cross can bring infection into the hospital.” But the true triumph of antichrist could be considered the Strasbourg trial of November, 2009, which forbade crucifixes in Italian schools. One of those who supported this decision was a famous Italian journalist and former member of the European Parliament, Giulietto Chiesa. |
| The words in the Creed «suffered and was buried» were directed against some heretics who falsely taught that the Lord did not suffer torment on the Cross, but that His suffering only appeared to be suffering and death. The words «under Pontius Pilate» point out the true historical event of the suffering of Christ, which occurred at this specific time. During the hours of Christ’s suffering on the Cross, there was darkness over all the earth (Luke 23:44), states the Evangelist. Early historical writings of the Roman astronomer Phlegontus, Thaddeus, and Julius Africanus note this darkness. One of these exclaimed, «One of the gods has died!» A well-known philosopher from Athens, Dionysius the Areopagite, was at that time in the city of Heliopolis, in Egypt. Observing the sudden darkness, he said,..».either the Creator is suffering, or the world is coming to an end.» Afterwards, after the preaching of the Apostle Paul, Dionysius accepted Christianity and became the first bishop of Athens. Glory to Thy long-suffering, O Lord! Before Thy Cross we bow down, O Master, and Thy holy Resurrection we glorify. The Resurrection of Christ is discussed in the following, fifth article of the Creed Discussion of the Cross of Christ. Christ revealed the name of God. The name is Love. From his first deep breath, man began to sense God’s everlasting love toward him. Here, too, originated the divine tragedy between God and His first-created, intelligent creature. This creature was not able to comprehend the complete perfection of the love that was offered. Man had to experience the agony of severed relations with God, and having tasted of and learned the horror of this estrangement, was then able to experience His love once again. Adam had no fear. It is true that perfect love casts out fear. However, as attested to by the Fathers of the Church, fear always precedes love. This fear does not consist of apprehension of violence, but is born from a feeling of the loftiness of God. By fear, man measures the distance between himself and God. |
| Even in Antiquity Jerusalem was never a large church with a significant sphere of political influence, but it always had a different kind of symbolic influence, and importance, for the universal Christian imagination, chiefly as the site of the holy places where the Lord taught, suffered, and rose again. In its most important patristic phase it was the center of an internationally influential liturgical revival, which followed after Constantine’s building of the Church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) which in the West is more commonly called by its medieval name: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The story of St. Helena’s discovery of the true cross in Jerusalem was added to by several other major discoveries (by aristocrats, founders, and archbishops) of the relics of New Testament saints such as John the Forerunner or Stephen the Protomartyr; these were stories of visions and findings that electrified not only Jerusalem itself but Christian cities from Constantinople to Rome and Syria, and which led to a massive movement of the building of pilgrimage churches in the Holy Land (many of which are still being excavated – the finding of an octagonal site being the give-away evidence of it as a Byzantine place of pilgrimage). From the late 4th to the 6th centuries, Roman Palestine, with Jerusalem at its center, was renowned throughout the Christian world as a thriving church based around such pilgrim traffic. Its liturgical traditions thus spread because of this to influence many of the rites celebrated in Orthodoxy today. The influence can especially be seen in festivals such as the blessing of the waters on The- ophany (formerly a pilgrimage rite peculiar to Jerusalem, when the clergy and people would make the journey from the holy city to the Jordan river) and the ritual of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), which was based around the acts of veneration celebrated in the courtyard of the Anastasis church buildings where a great cross was raised containing relics of the Lord’s own cross. The current festival commemorates the loss ofthese relics from Jerusalem to Persian raiders and their eventual reclamation by the Byzantine emperor. Jerusalem also seems to have adopted the common Orthodox liturgical practice of having the multinational congregation respond to complex prayer-petitions with a simple responsorial “Lord have mercy,” easily learned, in Greek, as Kyrie Eleison. The beautiful Liturgy of St. James is still in use in the Orthodox Church today, though rarely witnessed in the course of a year. It remains as the standard liturgical rite of Jerusalem. |
| 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 Are You a True Christian? Navigation Metropolitan Kallistos to Offer Keynote at Holy Cross Conference Source: Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America Natalya Mihailova 17 May 2014 Holy Cross Greek Orthodox of Theology, the Metropolis of Boston, and Saint Catherine " s Vision present " Divine Compassion and Women of the Church: Theological Perspectives " June 20-21, 2014 Keynote Address Given by Honored Guest His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos Ware “Divine Compassion and the Ministry of Women” This conference seeks to cultivate a deeper theological appreciation regarding ways Divine Compassion, the eleos of God, affects the participation of women and men in the life of the Church today. The conference builds upon the work of last year’s inaugural conference, “Divine Compassion: Orthodox Christians in Service of Perfect Love.” Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Metropolitan Kallistos to Offer Keynote at Holy Cross Conference Natalya Mihailova June 20-21, 2014 Keynote Address Given by Honored Guest His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos Ware " Divine Compassion and the Ministry of Women " This conference seeks to cultivate a deeper theological appreciation regarding ways Divine Compassion, the eleos of God, affects the ... 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. |
| All the events were quiet and peaceful, with about 6,000 policemen guarding law and order. The number of believers who took part in the all-Ukraine action in the name of peace, love and prayer on Kiev streets shows the true moods that Ukrainian society lives by, the Opposition Bloc party said in a statement in connection with the Cross-bearing procession. Photo: Julia Kominko/www.pravmir.ru/ “Mass participation of Ukrainians in the Cross-bearing procession for peace showed the true moods that are widespread in society today,” the party said. “The collective prayer on the St Vladimir Hill where the two columns of believers, one moving from the east and the other, from the west, met together showed that this country is united in its desire to live in peace.” Participants in the procession spent three weeks crossing vast spaces so that they could “show through prayer their will to live in peace and unity and to pray together for an end to war, as well as for a return of tranquility and stable life to Ukraine.” In order to continue a broad public dialogue, the Opposition Bloc is initiating the creation of a public platform entitled ‘National Dialogue on Peace’. It invites all the political organizations concerned, religious denominations and peacemaking public associations to join in. In connection with the all-Ukraine action of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which reports to Moscow Patriarchate, the Opposition Bloc has demanded once again that the authorities heed the voice of the rank-and-file Ukrainians and start making real practical steps to end the armed civil conflict in the east of the country. Code for blog 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. |
| 411 Kati J. Borbe i tekovine velikog upana Stefana Nemanje//Istorija srpskog naroda I. Beograd, 1981, p. 251–262. 412 On this issue, see BeltingH. Bildund Kult. Eine Geschichte des BildesvordemZeitalterder Kunst. Munchen, 1990; Brubaker L. The Sacred Image//The Sacred Image. East and West/Ed. by R. Ousterhout and L. Brubaker. Urbana – Chicago, 1995, p. 3–24; Schmidt J. C. Les reliques et les images//Les reliques. Objects, cultes, symboles... p. 145–167. 413 Frolow A. La relique de la Vraie Croix. Recherches sur le development d’un culte. Paris, 1961. 416 Marjanovi-Duani S. Vladarski znaci Stefana Nemanje//Stefan Nemanja – Sveti Simeon Mirotoivi. Istorija i predanje/Ed. J. Kali. Beograd, 2000, p. 77–87; cf. also Ead. Vladarske insignije i dravna simbolika u Srbiji od XIII do XV veka. Beograd, 1994. 417 Chichinadze N. The True Cross Reliquaires of Medieval Georgia//Studies in Iconography 20 (1999), p. 27–49; Ead. The Cult of the Holy Cross in Medieval Georgia//Relics in the Art and Culture... p. 47–48. 418 Amtiunova-Fidanjan V. Relics in the Armenian-Byzantine relationship: political and religious aspects//Relics in the Art and Culture... p. 50–52. 419 Anignon J.-P. Le rôle des reliques dans la Rus’ de Kiev//Les reliques. Objects, cultes, svmboles... p. 57–63. 420 Sterligova I. The New Testament Relics in Old Rus’//Christian Relics in the Moscow Kremlin... p. 19–39 and passim. 421 Schramm P. E., Mütherich F. Denkmale der deutschen Konige und Kaiser. Munchen, 1962, p. 25 and passim. 422 Eastmond A. Byzantine identity and relics of the True Cross//Relics in the Art and Culture... p. 46–47. See also his paper in the present collection. 423 Teodosije. itija/Ed. D. Bogdanovi. Beograd, 1988, p. 220–222; on the ablution water from the relics see Snoek G. J. C. Op. cit., p. 345–348. 424 Popovi D. udotvorenja Svetog Save Srpskog//udo u slovenskim kulturama/Ed. D. Ajdai. Novi Sad, 2000, p. 142–143. 425 Miljkovi B. Hilandarski asni krst i stara manastirska stavroteka/Zbomik radova Vizantološkog in stituta XXXVIII (1999–2000), p. 287–297. |
| Ruins of St. Botolph " s Priory in Colchester, Essex. Photo by Irina Lapa Monastic life flourished in Iken till the mid-9th century, when the monks had to leave it due to the frequent raids of the Vikings. But the monastery church continued to exist. Late in the 10th century St. Ethelwold of Winchester divided and translated the relics of St. Botolph: various portions of his relics were translated to Ely, Bury St Edmunds, Thorney (where the local church is dedicated to St. Mary and St Botolph to this day) and London. On the way to London the procession with relics made stops, and at each stop a church was later erected in memory of the saint. One of these stops was in Colchester in Essex, where in medieval times an Augustinian Catholic Priory of St. Botolph was founded, the ruins of which have survived. Inside St. Botolph " s Church without Bishopsgate, London. Photo by Ilona Sevcova In London St. Botolph’s relics were kept at Westminster Abbey, and churches at all four gates of London were dedicated to him. 1 In the 10th century, a cross was erected in Iken in commemoration of St. Botolph’s works, and by a true miracle of God this cross shaft was discovered again in 1977 on the same site. Now this cross is kept at Iken church as a relic. Though his holy relics were lost or hidden during the Reformation, St. Botolph is greatly venerated by English Christians to this day. Dozens of churches are dedicated to him in most regions of England (Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Kent, Sussex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, in addition to several churches in London) and even Scotland. Over 10 towns and villages are named after St. Botolph. Orthodox and Catholic believers make pilgrimages to sites associated with him. St. Botolph " s Church in Burgh, Suffolk St. Botolph has been venerated in many countries outside Britain—in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, where many churches are dedicated to him. In the 11th century, his veneration reached Kievan Rus’ and more recently it reached North America. In England and the whole of Western Europe St. Botolph is mainly venerated as patron-saint of travellers, as the saint travelled much himself. Among those who especially prayed to St. Botolph were also merchants, peasants, farmers and he was considered as a patron of markets, fairs, fields, crops, cattle, border regions and trade. |
| According to tradition, the holy Apostle Andrew the First-called preached the Gospel in Scythia, in the land which later became Russia. Having climbed the Kievan Mountains, he placed a wooden cross there and prophesied that in this land the true faith of Christ would shine. The holy Apostle Andrew missioned the future land of Russia from the south to the north, from the Kievan Mountains to Novgorod, and was even on the island of Valaam. The latest historical evidence testifies to this. Local northern Russian tradition shows that the Apostle Andrew the First-called, enlightener of the Scythians and the Slavs, came from Kiev to Novgorod. From there, he travelled along the Volga River to Lake Ladoga and then – to Valaam where he blessed the mountain with a stone cross. He destroyed the temples of Veles and Perun and converted to the Christian faith the priests of the idols and the pagan inhabitants of the island laying at Valaam the foundation for confession of faith in Christ. Several of his disciples who had accompanied him remained as pastors for the newly gathered flock of Christ. In the ancient manuscript «Opoved» kept in the library of the Valaam monastery, mention of this is made: «St. Andrew of Jerusalem came to Goliad, Kosoch, Roden, Scythe, Scythia, and Slavonia via contiguous meadows (steppes), reached Smolensk and the home guard at Scothe of the Great Slaviansky. Leaving Ladoga, he went by boat over the stormy, turbulent lake to Valaam placing stone crosses and blessing everywhere with the sign of the Cross. His disciples, Silus, Phirsus, Elisha, Lukoslav, Joseph, and Cosmas, set missions everywhere and all the rulers came from Slovensk and Smolensk. Many pagan priests were baptized, and the temples of Perun and Veles were destroyed and obliterated.» Another ancient document, «Vseletnik» (All the Years) of the Kievan Metropolitan Hilarion, 1051 A.D., affirms the travels of St. Andrew the Apostle on Valaam. In the «Vseletnik,» it is written, «November 30th. St. Andrew the All-praised, First-called Apostle and Standard-bearer of the Church we extol; and for of old, he came to Kiev, Smolensk, Novgorod, Dpyzino and Valaam.» |
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