BLOGUL PROIECTULUI 'THEODIALOGIA'

2012-02-09T19:44:00.005+02:00

Astăzi, 9 februarie 2012, a trecut la Domnul ilustrul teolog si parinte al neamului romanesc, Preotul Prof.Dr.Ilie Moldovan. Fiind ultimul său doctorand, dar mai ales pentru că de acest mare preot și profesor mă leagă o profundă recunoștință,
redau textul unui editorial publicat de mine în ”Dreapta Credință”, nr.1, 2011.

REGENERAREA NEAMULUI NU SE POATE FACE DECÂT EUHARISTIC

Aceasta este antiteza pe care o oferă Părintele Profesor Ilie Moldovan (conducător de doctorat la Secţia Teologie Morală de la Universitatea din Sibiu și Doctor Honoris Causa al Universităților din Alba Iulia și Baia Mare) față de obsesia materialistă, imoralitatea, delăsarea și dezorientarea generalizată a unui neam ce purta odinioară cu cinste numele de creștin.
Intenţionat lent în exprimare, simplu în gesturi, dar de o inconfundabilă prospeţime a ideilor, acest om"din vecinătatea" lui Blaga, dar mai ales "din familia" unui Stăniloae, cu care a fost prieten, sau a unui Arsenie Boca, al cărui fiu duhovnicesc a fost, Părintele Profesor dă duh din duhul său ucenicilor din întreaga ţară, ascunzând în spatele zâmbetului o cercetare atentă a interlocutorului, o privire neîncovoiată, copiată poate de la vulturii de deasupra Făgăraşilor. Nu credeam ca un astfel de om să existe decât în imaginaţie, ba încă într- una uşor exaltată. Blândeţea generică a acestui nobil creştin mă transpune în lumea pe care eu nu am de unde să o ştiu dar care există real în el. Când vorbeşte doctoranzilor despre credință, neam, patrie, se încălzeşte ceva în auditori, acel ceva care depăşeşte orice filetism, orice patriotism ieftin, sau exaltare denaturată.
"Domnilor (niciodată nu ne tutuia), neamul este realitatea vieţii veşnice. În Creştinism, naţiunea dobândeşte noi dimensiuni; Ortodoxia surclasează cu mult orientarea organicistă a naziştilor, care au identificat naţiunea cu rasa, sau naţionalismul fals al comuniştilor. În Creştinism, naţiunea este înţeleasă ca natură rezidită în Hristos. Hristos, prin Înviere, a schimbat condiţiile ontologice ale lumii. Astfel, pentru creştini, neamul este comoara cea mai de preţ care poartă în sine două începuturi: crearea omului şi naşterea din nou prin Botez. Neamul este o realitate a vieţii veşnice, iar el se fundamentează pe trei forţe: îngerii, sfinţii neamului şi drepţii...Drepţii sunt strămoşii noştri, toţi care s-au mântuit. De aceea, ce-i leagă pe fiii unui neam nu e instinctul şi adaptarea la mediu,ci spiritul...(privind în jos, oarecum mâhnit). Neamul poate fi pierdut pe pământ dar nu şi în cer. Ca să descriem starea actuală a neamului nostru ar trebui să-l citez pe Shakespeare:"E atât de întunecat cerul încât numai o furtună l-ar mai putea limpezi." Această furtună despre care vă vorbesc, nu poate fi altceva decât asumarea la modul maxim a trăirii creştine. Furtuna este spărtura conştiinţei. Trăirea creştină autentică, gravitează în jurul Miracolului Euharistic. Îndumnezeirea omului prin Euharistie (Împărtăşanie) este arma supremă în lupta pentru regenerarea neamului. Am fost întrebat: Ce este mai corect, să ne împărtăşim des sau rar?Eu am răspuns: Nici des, nici rar, ci continuu! Bineînţeles, dacă omul este pregătit prin Spovedanie şi canon de primirea continuă a Sfintei Euharistii. Noi suntem chemaţi să ne împărtăşim, adică să ne îndumnezeim MEREU, dar CU PREGĂTIRE. Voi, ca preoţi şi viitori preoţi, la asta trebuie să-i aduceţi, cu timpul, pe credincioşi: La Euharistia continuă. Numai aşa vă veţi împlini datoria. Altfel nu se poate,domnilor! V-am spus-o, ca să nu vă înşelaţi singuri. ŞTIŢI UNDE E DUMNEZEU? (Părintele zâmbea. La această întrebare, ne uitam miraţi, neştiind dacă să încercăm vreo definiţie din şcoală sau să tăcem. Am ales varianta a doua.) DUMNEZEU E ÎN CER....ȘI CERUL E ÎN NOI."
Pr.Ic.Dr. Mircea Cristian Pricop

Sts. Symeon and Anna the prophets from the Temple

2012-02-02T20:54:00.003+02:00

The Eastern praxis in the Liturgical year has some particularities, about celebrating the saints. In the case of some big feasts, the very first day after the celebrating is dedicated to the persons implied in the event itself. As an example, the second day after Christmas is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the ones who came in the stable from Bethlehem. The name of this secondary feast, on the 26^th of December is The Group (Sobor) of the God’s Mother. Only the next day, 27th, is dedicated to St. Stephen. The other case I mention here is the one after the Feast of the Theophany, when the next day is dedicated to the Sobor (group) of St. John the Baptist.

In the same manner, the Saints Symeon and Anna, the Prophets, are celebrated in in the day after the Presentation of the Lord at the Temple, which practically closes the Christmas-periods in the Calendar.

The history of St. Symeon and St. Anna, the old prophets from the temple is in the Christian thought a mixture between Scripture and tradition. According to the Holy Gospel of Luke, the earthly Parents of Our Lord went to the Temple, about 40 days after the birth, in order to accomplish a traditional Jewish ritual, consisting in “re-buying” the first male offspring through a sacrifice, consisting in a holocaust of a pair of turtle-doves, or two young pigeons.

Outer of the Bible itself, the historian Joseph Flavius is the main author who also describes the activity at the temple in Jerusalem, speaking about the auxiliary personal near the temple, including the prophets and prophetesses, the virgins etc., who supposed to help the priests and the levites not to the prescribed rituals, but with the administrative things. Of course, the prophets have totally another mission, which cannot be clearly designed.

In the moment that the Holy Parents came to the temple in order to make the ritual sacrifice, St. Symeon was nearby. The Gospel says that he was a just and devout man waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him (Luke 2,25). God promised him that he would not die until the promised Messiah, Christ the Lord, came into the world.

Saint Symeon

The mention of Luke let the tradition to make some special remarks about this saint. The eastern stories, following the Letter of Aristeas (about 130 B.C.), mention that St. Symeon was one of the 72 scholars, who were supposed to complete the first translation of the Scripture from old Hebrew to ancient Greek. The Hebrew community in Alexandria, from which belongs also Philo, built after the Babylonian exile their own temple on the Elephantine Island, in Egypt, and tried to establish its own cult. There was a problem: almost all the Jews here knew only Greek, so that they couldn’t understand the Torah. From this reason, with the participation of the Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.), who wanted to include the Law of the Jews into his big Library of Alexandria, they tried to translate the text of the Torah into Greek. The legend mentions that there were invited scholars from Jerusalem, and from now on the story doesn’t follow Aristeas anymore. The number of 72 was modified into 70, in order to coincide with the 70 holy men who helped Moses by the implementing of the Law (Num. 11,24 sq.). With this it has been strongly underlined the theory of the verbal inspiration of the Bible, a still very spread idea in the Eastern Church.

St. Symeon is supposed to be one of the 70/72 scholars to translate the text. According to the Prologue from Ochrid (containing the lives of the saints, written in the Middle Ages) St. Symeon had to translate the book of Jesaias and it seems that he has been stocked at the text from 7,14: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son”. Being thinking that “virgin” was inaccurate, he wanted to correct the text to read “a young woman”. At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, “you shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin”. From this day, St Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, he received a revelation from the Holy Spirit to come to the Temple, and from here on the tradition meets again the Scripture (Luke 2,27). It was on the very day when the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by the Jewish Law.

If we follow the legend, there’s clear that Symeon was, in the day he met Jesus, more than 300 years old (according to the legend, about 360), a quite unbelievable age. But if we put that together with the describing of the lives of the first ancestors off the humanity, Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912, Jared 962, Matusalem 969, Lamech, the father of Noah, 953 - venerable ages. Many churchfathers understand that literally, so I don’t know I should doubt, only because in our century it would be laughable. I would rather incline to believe the text of the Bible.

After seeing the Holy Child, Symeon took him into his arms and said a prayer to the Lord, which is read in all the Vesperal services of the Byzantine rite: “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2,29-32). This prayer, read into the context described, it passes very well. The time for waiting would have been very long and difficult to him. Even a text from the Psalms says that the age of a man is 70 or 80, but what is more than that, is only sorrow and pain (Psalm 90, 10).That Symeon lived long beyond the normal life expectancy is mentioned by George Kedrinos in his Synopsis and by Euthymios Zygabenos in the Commentary on Luke 2, who means that the Elder Symeon was at least two hundred and seventy years old when he received the Christ Child in his arms.

But there’s not all about him. Symeon is the first one to prophesize to the Holy Mary her “way” of feeling the pain. A marianic Golgotha means to prophesize to a mother the passion of her son. The mother’s pain reporting to the crucifixion is “sword through the heart” (Luke 2,23-24), which appears mostly in the western iconography. (add image).

Saint Symeon has been connected with different other legends, according to whom he was a rabbi, the son of Hillel and the father of Gamaliel mentioned in Acts 5,34, but that contrasts with the simple reference of Luke to Simeon as “a man in Jerusalem”. The apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus (17,1-3) mentions about two sons of Simeon, Charinus, and Leucius, who were resurrected, when Our Lord descended into the Hell (according to Mat. 27,52). The eastern tradition states that Symeon would have been a priest, that’s why he was at the temple. The Churchfathers who mention that are Athanasius the Great, in About the same nature of the Father and of the Son, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in Homily at the Presentation of the Lord, and St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in Teaching about the Parents of the Old Law. Also saint Joseph the Hymnographer, the composer of the Canon for the celebration of St. Symeon, identifies him as a ministering priest: “O blessed priest, thou didst offer up the sacrifices of the law, the lamb, for ineffable mercy, showing forth beforehand the blood of the Savior; and receiving Him incarnate, O Symeon, thou wast shown to be more glorious than Moses and all the prophets”.

Saint Anna

The Evangelist Luke speaks in the further 3 verses of his story about the Presentation about a mysterious prophetess named Anna, who also prophesized the Messiah. “And there was Anna, a prophetess, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, she was much advanced in days, having lived with an husband seven years from her virginity, and she is a widow of about eighty-four years, who did depart not from the temple, with fasts and supplications serving, night and day, and she, at that hour, having come in, was confessing, likewise, to the Lord, and was speaking concerning him, to all those looking for redemption in Jerusalem”. (Luke 2,36-38)

A Jesuit scholar from the 17^th century, Cornelius Lapide pointed out that the name of Phanuel means “the face of God”, while Anna means “Grace”, an interesting combination of names, which symbolically may be connected with a text from Genesis 32,30: “For grace proceeds from the face and from the mouth of God, and is breathed into the faithful”. Also the place where Jacob saw God face to face, was called by him Peniel or “Phanuel”. The mystery about Anna is bigger, because she came from the tribe of Asher, one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel.

Luke describes that Anna was very old, and many Bibles and older commentaries state that she was 84 years old. Anyway, the passage from Luke’s Gospel is ambiguous: it could mean that she was 84 years old, or that she had been a widow for 84 years. Some scholars, abd between them also Ambrosius of Milan, consider the latter to be the more likely option. On this option, she could not have married younger than about age 14, and so she would have been at least 14 + 7 + 84 = 105 years old. The intention of St. Luke is probably to state that she practically was like a virgin, so that the purity of the prophecy seems to be connected with the carnal purity, which is also seen in the eastern Christianity and specially in the monasticism as a “must be”.

Saint Anna, who’s name means symbolically “Grace”, is the Western tradition the protector saint of the widows, virgins and ascete women. The Catholic Church celebrates her on September 1, but in the Eastern Church she is celebrated together with St. Symeon, on February 3.

The Relics of Saint Symeon the God-Receiver

There are two different traditions about the “trip” of the relics of St. Symeon the Prophet. In the West there is the tradition that Charles the Great might have obtained, after an incredible journey in Constantinople, the arm of the saint which had carried the Christ. This relic might have been deposited at Aachen, and from there it was moved to Saint Denis, near Paris, by Charles the Bald. Some other places who are hosting traditionally parts of the Relics are Perigueux, Palermo, and Brussels.

Another tradition, which may not necessary contradict the first, states that the body of Saint Simeon was moved from Syria to Constantinople sometimes between 565 and 578, during the reign of Justin II, who settled them in the Church of Saint James the Brother of the Lord, which was raised by Emperor Justin, near Hagia Sophia, in the sixth century. His grave was seen by the Russian pilgrim St Anthony, the future Archbishop of Novgorod (October 8) in 1200. Maybe from here a part of them were offered to Charles the Great, but there are no mentions in the Byzantine documents. The Relics of the Saint remained here until the Crusaders captured Constantinople in 1203 with the help of the Venetian fleet. The crusaders took the Relics of St. Symeon only in 1203 and let them in Zara (now, Zadar, in Croatia) on the Dalmatian Coast, controlled by the Venetians, in the Church of the Virgin, the pilgrim’s hospice at that time, apparently because of a big storm on the sea, who prevented a further sailing to Venice.

There is a church called San Simeone Grande in Venice, dedicated to the saint, where there is a beautiful monument (cenotaph), in which is kept an old shrine from Zadar, dated in 1317. On it there is mentioned that “here was the body of Symeon for 114 years” (hic stetit corpus Beati Symeonis annis centum et XIIII), but now this monument is empty.

On 17 October 2010, at the insistence of the Abbot Theodoret of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, the Archbishop Želimir Puljić of Zadar offered a part of these relics to the Church of the Katamon Monastery of St. Simeon, being received by the Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem. In this monastery there was an old grave, traditionally the very grave of St. Symeon

About the relics of St. Anna I couldn’t find any information. So how much her life is a mystery, as much also her earthly remains are unknown.

Troparion (Hymn) of the Saints

“In the Temple thou didst embrace as an infant God the Word Who became flesh. O glorious Elder Symeon, who didst hold God in thine arms. And also as a prophetess the august Anna ascribed praise to Him. We acclaim you as divine servants of Christ!”

St. Maximus the Confessor

2012-01-21T12:13:00.005+02:00

St. Maximus the Confessor (ca. 580-662) is one of the most important Churchfathers of the East, best known for its mystical and ascetical writings, and a defender of the Orthodoxy against the heresy of monothelitism. His title of Confessor (in Greek also martyros) means that he suffered for the Christian faith, but he was not directly martyred.

His early Life

St. Maximus (580-662) was born in Constantinople, in a noble family and had a good education. The maronite source, who share the monothelite teaching, ascertain that he was from Palestine.

About 610 Maximus he became the personal secretary of the Emperor Heraclius (610-641), but from unknown reasons, after three years has left that position and entered in the monastery of Chrysopolis, situated on the other shore of the Bosphorus Straight, taking the monastical vows. Shortly after he became the abbot of the monastery, and from this position he used to say that the theology without practice is a theology of demons, so his theoretical approach to the theology was doubled to a practical one.

At the Persian invasion from 632, he was obliged to flee together with his entire community, so that he arrived in the Province of Africa, at that time under the Byzantine rule, together with his friend the monk Sophronius, the future patriarch of Jerusalem. Here he remained in a monastery near Carthago, where he studied the christological writings of Gregory of Nazianzus and Dionysius the Areopagite.

The monothelite dispute

In Africa, Maximus and Sophronius began their fight against the official position of the emperor, who found the monothelite solution as the one to re-unite the schismatic miaphysites (or monophysites) from Egypt and Syria with the orthodox believers from Constantinople. The miaphysites (the ancestors of the today Coptic believers from Egypt) believed that in Christ there is only one nature - the divine one - , because the human nature disappeared into the divine, such as a drop of water disappears into the ocean.

In order to reestablish not only the religious union, but especially the political one, in danger of Persian and Arabic invasion, Emperor Heraclius in agreement with the Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (610-638) imposed through an official decree the doctrine of monothelism as the official position of the Church. The new doctrine stated that in Christ there are two natures, divine and human, but only one will (mono-thelos) and one work (mono-erga), which in fact was a hidden form monophysitism. The official declaration became as a formal pact between the Orthodox and Monophysite parts in 633.

The first to see the danger of this “compromise” and to fight against it was in fact the monk Sophronius, even before this compromise to be signed. Shortly after, he became Patriarch of Jerusalem, and from this position he published a synodal letter (643), in which he makes a clear distinction between the two works in Christ. In the next four years nothing special happened, but the troubles began in 638, when the Emperor Heraclius published the so-called Ekthesis, the official imperial “Confession of faith”. Shortly St. Maximus became the leader of the struggle against the heresy. Between 642-645 he carried out an extensive work to strengthen the African bishops against the imperial heresy there.

In July 645 Maximus carried in Carthage a great public dispute with Pyrrhus, in the presence of many bishops. Pyrrhus was the former patriarch of Constantinople (638-641 and later in 654), and a monothelite, but in the same time an old friend of Maximus. After these debates Pyrrhus agreed that the monothelite position is false and heretic. Several councils in Africa condemned shortly after the Monothelism as heresy.

The martyrical Death of St. Maximus

At the end of 646 St. Maximus went to Rome, where he remained up to 649. Here the pope Martin (649-653) convened the Council of Lateran (649) in presence of 105 bishops, who also condemned the Monothelitism. But a terrible situation happened in that time, because the central Italy fell into the Byzantine control and in 648 the Emperor Constantine II (641-668), successor of Heraclius gave a new decree, which stopped under heavy penalty any discussion about the fact that in Christ there are one or two works and willings.

In 653, St. Maximus and St. Martin of Rome were arrested and brought to Constantinople. St. Martin, condemned without trial, died on the way, but Maximus came in front of the tribunal, where he was sentenced in 655 with the exile in Bizya, a town in Thrace. A new hearing in the same year sent him in Perberis, at the Black Sea’s shore. Later in 662, St. Maximus was brought to Constantinople for another hearing, in order to be forced to accept the monothelite teaching. Here in front of the crowd, the soldiers have cut his right hand and the tongue, in order to make him unable to communicate his position neither through speech nor in writing.

After this barbaric mutilation, which happened when St. Maximus the Confessor was already about 80 years old, he was sent into exile in Lazika, situated on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, being cast in the fortress of Schemarum, probably near the modern Georgian town of Tsageri where he remained until the end of his life, which happened in the same year, on August 13, after a great sufferance, at the venerable age of 82 years.

The events of the trials of Maximus were recorded by Anastasius Bibliothecarius (Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 128 (Historiae de vitis Romanorum pontificum, 130, col. 737-763).

Along with Pope Martin, Maximus was rehabilitated by the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681), which declared that Christ possessed both a human and a divine will. With this declaration, the Monothelism became heresy, and Maximus was posthumously declared innocent of all charges against him.

His feast day is in the Eastern Church on August 13 (the moving of his relics) and on 21 January. In the Western Church he is celebrated on August 13.

Relics

The orthodox Synaxarion from the Menologion attests that after Saint Maximus’s death, on his tomb occured healing miracles, and that three bright lights like candlesticks could have been seen burning (a symbol of the Holy Trinity).

In the Greek Prologue, August 13 commemorates the Transfer of the Relics of St Maximos from Lazika on the southeast shore of the Black Sea to Constantinople, to the Monastery of the Theotokos at Chrysopolis (where he had been the Abbott), across the Bosphoros which probably took place after the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

August 13 is considered by many scholars als the saint’s death. It is possible that his main commemoration was moved to January 21, because August 13 is the Leavetaking (the End) of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Today a part of his Relics is to be found in Mount Athos, at the St. Paul’s Monastery (a reliquary with the right hand of the Saint, the one to be cut after the trial from 662). This relic was brought here from Constantinople in the 12^th century by the Abbot Paul from Xiropotamou. This is the only relic known of the saint.

Anyway, some international journals stated that the rest of the Relics of St. Maximus (matter fact his tomb) were discovered in Georgia, near Tsangeri, in October 2011. The arguments of the discoverers can be believed, because in fact there are no historical informations about the real moving of the relics, but only liturgical sources. His tomb was found under the altar of a church in Tsangeri, who’s patron saint is even St. Maximus, together with the remains of the 3 apprentices of the saint.

(More informations about this theory, here: http://byztex.blogspot.com/2010/10/relics-of-st-maximus-found-in-georgia.html

Brighter, but in Romanian, here: http://www.crestinortodox.ro/biserica-lume/mormantul-sfantului-maxim-marturisitorul-georgia-128168.html)

His Writings

From St. Maximus have remained numerous writings, some of which were included in the Greek Philokalia, an important collection of mystical writings for the Eastern Christianity. Some of these writings are dogmatic, but curiously St. Maximus is known not because of his dogmatic writings about the Person and Nature of Christ, but because of the ones in which he described the contemplative life, providing an ample guidance to the ascetics. Some other works were written on the liturgical and hermeneutical themes.

As a follower of the Areopagite, Maximus preserved and interpreted the earlier neo-Platonic philosophy in a Christian way. His work on the Areopagite was continued in the West by John Scotus Erigena.

The Platonic influence on Maximus' thought can be seen most clearly in his anthropology. Maximus adopted the idea that the humanity was made in the image of God, and the purpose of the salvation is to restore us to unity with God. In soteriology, Maximus insisted that the humanity is intended to be fully united with God, because God was first fully united with the humanity in the incarnation (such also St. Athanasius of Alexandria told before). If Christ did not become fully human, then salvation was no longer possible, as humanity could not become fully divine. That’s why he condemned so strongly the monothelism, the heresy who denied the human will in Christ. The accent on the idea of the human divinization or theosis made Maximus one of the most important Eastern theologians.

Ignored for centuries by the Western scholars, the writings of St. Maximus had always a special place in the Eastern theology. He is considered to be the “spiritual father” of some mystics as St. Symeon the New Theologian and Gregory Palamas.

His most important works are:

- The Replies to Thalasius - A series of 65 questions and answers about some difficult passages from the Scriptures;

- Ambigua - An exploration of the difficult passages found in the writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite and of Gregory of Nazianzus, focused on Christological issues;

- Scholiae - Commentaries and meditation on the early writings of Dionysius the Areopagite;

- The Mystagogy – A Commentary and meditation on the Divine Liturgy and the connection between the Macrocosm and the mycrocosm;

- Chapters about love – some essays about the spiritual life, grouped into collections of hundreds of such meditations;

- Ascetic Words - Dialogue on monastic life;

- The Life of the Holy Virgin - the earliest complete biography of the Virgin Mary, with interesting connections to the apocryphal gospels.

Hymn (Troparion) of the Saint:

“You are a guide of Orthodoxy, a teacher of piety and modesty, a luminary of the world, the God inspired pride of monastics. O wise Maximos, you have enlightened everyone by your teachings. You are the harp of the Spirit. Intercede to Christ our God for the salvation of our souls!”

Saint Peter Movilă, Metropolitan of Kiev

2011-12-21T10:55:00.001+02:00

St. Peter Movilă was the Metropolitan of Kiev (Ukraine) from 1632 until his death in 1646. He is known as a leading Orthodox theologian of the e18th century and as a reformer of the orthodox theological education. His feast day is the Romanian Orthodox Church on December 22.

The first years

Peter Movilă was born on December 21, 1596 (1574 according to some other sources) in the noble Moldavian family, very important for the history of Romania in the 16th-18th centuries. From the Family Movilă became more princes of Wallachia and Moldova, and between those was also Peter’s father, Simion (Prince of Wallachia, in 1601 and of Moldova in 1606-1607) and his brother, Ieremia (Jeremy) Movilă (in Moldova, 1595-1606, with a brief interruption in 1600). His mother, Marghita, was a Polish princess.

In 1599-1600, the Wallachian prince Mihai the Brave tried a short unification of the coutries lived by Romanians (Wallachia, Moldova and Transylvania), and because of the turbulent political situation in Moldova, the family had to flee to Poland when Peter was still very young. In 1607 his father was killed by the tatar khan Kantemir Murza, and he moved together with his mother definitively in Poland, where they had important relatives, as the family of Polotski, Korezski and Wysnowiecki. Peter received the early education here, in the Lvov Orthodox school, and then continued his studies in Western Europe, including Paris and Amsterdam, so that he was the first known Romanian to attend western studies, being in contact with the study and the methods used here. Back in Poland, he became shortly officer, fighting in two battles, both in Moldova, at Zezor (1620) and Hotin (1621), but he was attracted more to the monastic life. Even living a noble’s life in Poland, he retained the Orthodox faith.

Metropolitan of Kiev

In 1625 he entered the monastery Lavra Pecerska in Kiev, being tonsured as monk in 1627. Later he was ordained priest and then received the rank of Archimandrite. Shortly he was ordained as bishop and enthroned as Metropolitan of Kiev in 1632, the highest orthodox rank in the Kingdom of Poland at that time.

As Metropolitan he was the founder of the Kievean Spiritual Academy, the first orthodox institution of theological education, organized on the principles of the theological seminaries and universities from the West. Even if until then Latin was quite unknown to the Orthodox believers, the teaching here was mainly in Latin (also an official language in Poland) and secondly in Greek and Russian, which was more spoken in the Ukrainian part of Poland. Newly for the eastern Orthodox, the students here received a double theological and scientific training, so that the only learning of the liturgical rites was doubled by a scientific knowledge of the theology. Beyond theology were studied he school offered a variety of disciplines: Ukrainian, Latin, Greek, and Polish languages; philosophy; mathematics, including geometry; astronomy; music; and history. Because of the high profile of the faculty, the collegium received the status of a higher educational establishment.

Peter governed the Church in Ukraine in a very difficult period in Poland, after the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1596), when much of the Orthodox here accepted the supremacy of the Pope of Rome and union with the Catholic Church. Very concerned about the fate of the Orthodox Church, Peter was dedicated to strengthening the Orthodox position, that had remained independent from Rome. Despite the strong political and social pressure, sometimes violent, he was able to recover for his Church a large number of temples, including the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev. As the representative of the Orthodox Clergy in the Sejm (Parliament), negotiated here, and with the king, the abolition of the repressive laws against the Orthodox Church and against the use of the Ukrainian language. Finally, the new protestant King Władysław IV Vasa (1632-1646) reinstated the status of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

His writings

After becoming metropolitan, started to print different books, about 15 titles in 5 years. Peter Movilă published in 1637 an annotated edition of the four Gospels, after the western model, and in 1646, also a revised edition of the Euhologhion or Trebnik, the book of the main special services in the Orthodox Church. Also he is the author of some commentaries about the articles from the Symbol of Faitn (Niceo-constantinopolitane), and a small Russian Catechism for the use of the Russian-speaking Church.

His most famous work is the Orthodox Confession of Faith of the Apostolic and Catholic Orthodox Church of the East, which was a response to the Jesuits and Western reformers, very active in that time, in order to attract the Eastern Orthodox on their side. Also it was a reaction to the semi-calvinistic Confession of Faith published in 1629 by the Patriarch Cyril Lucaris of Constantinople, in Geneva.

The Confession of Metropolitan Peter was written after the scholastical catholic method, quite strange for the eastern mentalities. It was the first Eastern Confession of Faith after the one written by John from Damascus in the 9th century, with a whole different language and methodology. Because of these new vision, the work was discussed in the first inter/orthodox Council after the fall of the Constantinople, in Iasi, the capital of Moldova, in 1642 and recognized as valid, after the Synod corrected two points: the position about the purgatory, which is not accepted in the Eastern Church, and the problem of when it happens the transfiguration of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord. Accordinf to Peter’s meaning, it happens at the moment of anamnesis, that is, when the priest is reciting the biblical text: “Take and eat…” and “Drink from this all…”. The synodals, keeping the position formulated by Nicholas Cabasilas in the 12th century, argued that this is happening at the moment of reciting the epiklesis, a formula immediately after.

The Orthodox Confession of Faith was published in 1645 in latin and shortly after it was then spread throughout Europe in Greek, Latin, German and Russian. With the changes made by the Synod, the Confession was recognized by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch in 1643, and in 1672, the Holy Synod of Jerusalem adopted the Confession of Faith of Peter Movilă as its official catechism. The first edition in Romanian language appeared in 1699.

Some contemporary Orthodox theologians such as George Florovski or Christos Yannaras accused Peter Movilă of being strongly influenced by the Western influence, which is perfectly true, but not at all wrong for his time. The scholastic style of exposing the faith, though foreign for the orthodox experience, was very good for the students and future priests, who had their first “manual” of theology, punctually structured. Also this style was asked in order to be an answer to the Catholic and Protestant positions.

He passed away on December 22, 1646, in Kiev, being buried at the Pecherska Lavra, the biggest Ukrainian monastery, where he rests until today.

He is venerated as a saint by the Churches of Ukraine, Romania and Poland. His feast day is December 22 Romanian Orthodox Church (since 1997) and Ukraine on 1 January independently, and on October 6, together with the other holy Metropolitans of Kiev. In 1996 it was opened a new theological Academy in Kiev, named “Mohyla-Academy”.

Troparion |(Hymn of the Saint):

“Defender and confessor of the Orthodoxy, enlightener of Gentiles, son of Moldova’s son and Ukraine’s father, Holy Hierarch Peter, virtuous man, pray to Christ the God to defend our faith and to save our souls”.

Saint Daniil the Hermit

2011-12-18T10:51:00.000+02:00

Saint Daniil the Hermit (in Romanian, Daniil Sihastrul = also, the hesychast) was a Romanian hermit and the confessor of the voivode (prince) of Moldova, St. Stephen the Great (1457-1504).

Daniil the Hermit was born at the beginning of the 15^th century, in a village near Rădăuţi, an important town in Northern Moldova, and received at baptism the name of Demetrius (Dimitrie). About his youth there’s not very much known, but it seems that he came from a simple family, having a simple education, without attending the great schools of his time. At 10 years he became an apprentice of St. Leontie, bishop of Rădăuţi. He received the tonsure as monk at the age of 16, being named David, at the Monastery of St. Nicholas in Rădăuţi.

After a while he left the citadine monastery and lived at the monastery of St. Lawrence, near the village of Vicovu de Sus, in the monutains of Bucovina. Being a solitary character, he needed always more quiet, so that he took the vowes of the so-called “great Skima”, receiving the name of Daniel. The Monastical tradition of the East provides two states for the monks, “the little Skima” being the simple form of the congregational monasticies, during the “big Skima” is reserved to the solitaries, “spiritually high levelled” monks, who live after that alone in the forests, caves or deserts.

As a hermit, he retired to a wooded hardly accessible area, in the valley of theViţău River, near the actual village of Putna. In that place he found a rock, in which is believed that he carved a small chapel. This place, today a seat of pilgrimage, consists in the small chapel, and below it a room, carved also in stone, which served him as a cell. The simplicity of this place was amazing since there, but especially for the visitors today.

St. Daniil remained here for a while, and after the tradition, the prince Stephen the Great came here in 1451, after the assasinate of his father Bogdan II. The hermit Daniil prophesied that soon he will become ruler of Moldavia, which happened in 1457. The visits of Stephen continued for the rest of the earthly years of the saint, who became not only the confessor, but also the counselor of the prince.

At the advice of Daniil, Stephen built the greatest Monastery from Moldova, at Putna, 2 km away from the cell. The monastery was important in the next century, being the burial place of the prince and in the meantime, the symbol of the Romanian resistance during the 2-century Austrian occupation. After the building of the monastery (1470) the hermit Daniil moved away, in order to find his bothered silence, at Voroneţ, about 30 kilometers to the south, under the Falcon’s Rock (Stânca Şoimului).

In 1477 the Metropolitan Teoctist of Moldova died, and the prince together with the council of the coutry elected him as Moldova’s pastor. He refused, because he wanted to remain solitary at his Falcon’s Rock.

The Prince Stephen visited further the hermit, after his defeat at Războieni against the Turks in 1476, asking for advice.

After letting him to wait at his door, because “he was in the middle of a prayer”, Daniil “ordered” to the prince not to leave or give the country to the Turks, something that seemed impossible, foreseeing that he will finally prevail, what it really happened. In memory of this victory, Stephen built in 1488 the monastery of Voroneţ, dedicated to St. George, which was painted during the reign of his son, Petru Rareş. The beauty of the painting here and the famous image of the Final Judgement on the western external wall, made the monastery famous, being called today “the Sixtine Chapel” of the East.

After the consecration of the monastery, Daniel moved from his cell in the monastery, being named abbot. Here he spent the last years of his life.

He died in 1496 and was buried in the church of the Voroneţ monastery. On the tombstone, made at the command of Stephen, it is written: “This is the tomb of our father David, hermit Daniil”. His relics were worshipped openly until 1775, when they were placed in the grave, where they were from the beginning. Today it is kept separately the index finger, which the Abbot Gideon from the Monastery of Putna locked in a silver box, in 1749.

The importance of the Saint

Daniil the Hermit was one of the founders of the Hesychast movement in northern Moldova, having many disciples in the forests around Voronet and in the hermitages and monasteries in the area. Also he is important, because he encouraged Stephen the Great to fight against the Turks and to defend the Christianity, and also to build places of worship after every battle, in the memory of the ones dead on the fighting field.

Such as Prince Stephen is not holy because he raised 44 churches and monasteries, but because he resisted against the Turks, avoiding the danger of extinction of an entire Christian nation, similarly, Daniil is not a holy man only for his asceticism and for the guidance he gave to the monastic communities of the time. Especially Daniil’s holiness is respected because he “trained” a ruler to be faithful. Through him, prince Stephen was named as “athleta Christi” (“athlete of Christ”) by the Pope Sixtus IV. Daniel is the holy coach, the “shadow man” beyond the athlete.

St. Daniil was considered holy already during life, healing the sick, casting out demons and giving advices suffering. He was already depicted with the golden Aura (nimbus) of the saints, on the wall of the church at Voroneţ, only about 20 years of his death (in 1547 the church was painted), together with the one who ascended the metropolitan seat, Gregory Roşca.

Being always considered a saint, he was though officially canonized by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1992 under the name “The Pious St. Daniil the Hermit”. His day of celebration is 18 December, after some other saints with the same name, the prophet Daniel (17 December) and St. Daniel the Stylite (11 December).

Troparion

“Pious Father, God-bearer, Saint Daniil, you left the world and lived in a stone cell at Putna. The arrogant mind you humbled by temperance, the temptations you overcame with the true poverty, and through these you were an example to the monks, you searcher of the angelic life and lover of the desert lands. Ask Christ the God to save our souls!”

St. Hierarch Dosoftei, Metropolitan of Moldova

2011-12-12T23:40:00.002+02:00

The St. Hierarch Dosoftei (born October 26, 1624, Suceava - d. December 13, 1693, at Żółkiew, Poland, today Jovkva, Ukraine) was a 17th century scholar monk and bishop, Metropolitan of Moldova (1671 -1673, 1675-1686), a very fine poet and good translator and witness to the Orthodox faith. For his missionary work, in 2005 the Romanian Orthodox Church proclaimed him as saint. His feast is on 13 December.

The Youth Life

Saint Dosoftei was born in 1624 in Suceava in a faithful family named Barilă. His parents Leontie and Misira, where Romanians refugees, came from Transylvania, and they had relatives in the neighbor country, Poland. The little baby was baptized as Demetrius, because he was born around the 26th of October, when in the Eastern Church is celebrated St. Demetrius.

The young Demetrius went to the best schools of his time in Moldova and after that, at the school of the Orthodox Brotherhood from the Monastery of the Dormition of Theotokos, from Lviv, at that time in Poland. In this times he proved to be a talented child in translating the Holy Text of the Scriptures and the writings of the Churchfathers, and that happened because he knew many languages, as Greek, Latin, Church Slavonic, Polish and Ukrainian.

In addition to the teachings, he learned at Probota monastery, near Suceava (the Capital of Moldova), also the spiritual teaching, being from his youth very familiar with the exercise of prayer, obedience and ascetic labors. In 1649, he was tonsured as monk, being named Dosoftei (the slavonic form of the Greek name Dositheos).

Metropolitan and Scholar

Because of his prestige as a scholar and of his virtues, Dosoftei was named bishop of Huşi in 1658, and after an year, he went to the seat of Roman. In 1671 he was elected as metropolitan of Moldova. As the highest Hierarch of the Principate, he remained gentle and humble with everyone, and amazed all by the wisdom he had: the historian Ion Neculce, in his Chronicle of Moldova describes him as: “This metropolitan Dosoftei was not a simple man by his nature. And he was from a “mazâl” (refugee) ancestry. Very learned, he knew several languages: Hellenic, Slavonic, and other deep-books (=wisdom) and teachings. He was full and devout monk and gentle as a lamb. In our country, in that time was no man alike. And the people say about him that he was a saint”.

His hierarchical mission happened to meet a difficult social and political time in Moldova, with many changes of the Princes, because of the Polish and Turk interference in the country’s business. But even like that, he accomplished his mission in a special way, through translating the liturgical service books into the Romanian language, known by the people. His first published books were the Psalms versified in Romanian and the Akathistos of the God’s Mother (a prayer similar to the Rosarium, both in 1673). He proved to understand very deeply the sense of the Psalms and he succeeded to put them in verse in Romanian, which is something special, because nobody did it before in this land. His language is very beautiful, being used until today. Also he was a theological authority, and revided the Romanian translation of the Old Testament, made by Nicolae Milescu, this text being included into the first Romanian Bible, in 1688.

The First Exile and the scholar activity

Because of the political situation and of his anti-Turk convictions, he was pushed up to leave the country, and to find a refuge in Poland. In 1674 he was replaced in the Metropolitan Seat from Iaşi (the new capital city) with St. Theodosius, the bishop of Roman. In the following year he came back as Metropolitan, and Theodosius withdrawn to the monastery of Bogdana, receiving after a little while a martyr’s death.

After the recovery of the printing machine in Iaşi, Dosoftei printed new books in Romanian: The Holy Liturgy (1679 and 1683), The Explained Book of Psalms (1680) with parallel text in Romanian and Slavonic, the Moliltfelnic (Book of the Sacred Services, 1681). Between 1682-1686 he translated from different Greek and Slavic sources and printed in Romanian The life and the passing over of the Saints, in four volumes. The work remained unfinished, due to the forced departure to Poland. This book is particularly necessary for the Church’s mission, being another great gift of Metropolitan Dosoftei to the Romanian believers. He speaks for the first time about the local saints, such as Daniel of Voroneţ (his article will appear on this website on 18 December), Rafail form Agapia, Chiriac from Bisericani Chiriac from Tazlău, Epifanie from Voroneţ, Partenie from Agapia, Ioan from Râşca, and Inochentie from Pobrata, all this saints being officially canonized only in the 20th century.

The second Exile

In 1686, the Polish King Jan Sobieski, being into an anti-Ottoman campaign, came to Moldova to attract on his side the prince Constantin Cantemir. Being forced to withdraw, the Poles robed Moldova and have taken Dosoftei as a hostage along with some spiritual treasures, as the relics of St. John the New. Metropolitan Dosoftei lived the last years of his life away from the country, but he continued his scholarly work and was in touch with the Orthodox hierarchs in Moscow and Kiev. So he helped to settle the theological conflicts about the Eucharistic prayer, by translating from greek to Church-Slavonic several works of John Chrysostom, Ephrem the Syrian, Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Simeon of Thessalonica, about this topic.

Despite the pressures made against him by the Polish authorities, he refused the uniatism and remained as Orthodox bishop until his passing-over, on 13 December 1693.

Saint Dosoftei was buried in the Nativity church in Jolkiew, today in Ukraine. Today his relics are settled in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Iaşi, Romania.

Troparion (Hymn) of the Saint

“Defender of the Orthodoxy, and Master of holiness, gentle Sheperd as a lamb and great Teacher of the Divine Liturgy, Father Hierarch Dosoftei, pray to Christ God to save our souls!”

Saint Apostle Andrew

2011-11-30T23:26:00.000+02:00

The Apostle of the Romanians

St. Andrew represents for many Christians one of the most important saints in the year. That happens, as an example in Romania, where in the last 20 years almost a half of the born children were baptized with the name of this saint. That happened, because of the popularizing of his cult: there is believed that the Apostle Andrew is the first one who preached the Gospel on the territories near the Black Sea. He is also considered the founder of the Church of Byzantium and is consequently the patron saint of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In this way, providentially, the two brothers Peter and Andrew are the patron Saints of the Western Catholic Church, respectively of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The life of St. Andrew

About the Saint Andrew is not very much to know from the Gospels. Being born in the eastern Galilee, at the shore of the Genezareth Sea, in the little fishermen-town of Betsaida, probably he raised into a cosmopolite society. His name is coming from Greek, ἀνδρεία (“andreia”) meaing the virtue of the “brevity”, “manhood”, or “valour”.

From the New Testament we may know that Andrew was the brother of Simon Peter, both sons of Jonah (Mt. 16:17, Jn. 1:42). Both he and his brother Peter were fishermen, and our Lord Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them "fishers of men" (Mt. 4, 19). The Gospel of John states some more details: Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist, who adviced him to follow Jesus.(Jn. 1:35-40). In the same text it is shown that Andrew is the one who first recognized Jesus as the Messiah, introduced Him to his brother (Jn. 1:41), that’s why in the Eastern Churches he is named “Andrew the First called to the Apostolate”. Sometimes Andrew is one of the closer companionship of Jesus, though generally the small group is formed only by Peter, John and Jacob. Other things are not known about St. Andrew until the Resurrection of Our Lord and his Ascension.

Although not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, the missionary journeys of the Apostle Andrew are known for the Christian believers from several accounts of the Church Fathers. Eusebius of Caesarea, taking a tradition from Origenes (Church History III, 1), mentioned Scythia as the main place of his mission, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus (in the 33th Homily) mentions the land of Epirus. St. Jerome in his Epistle to Marcel mentions Achaia, and Theodoret of Cyrus (in the commentary on Psalm 116) reminds generally Greece. In addition, Nikephoros (in his Ecclesiastical History II, 39), based on an earlier work (which he mentions without naming it punctually), says that the Saint preached in Cappadocia, Galatia and Bithynia, then in the wilderness of Scythians, at that time inhabited by cannibals and later in Byzantium, where he ordained Stachys as the first bishop, then continued preaching in Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly and finally in, Achaia.

According to the tradition, St. Andrew's martyrdom took place during the reign of Nero, on 30th November in the year 60, and he is celebrated on this day both in the East and the West.

The Legend Aurea, a work compiled by the Bishop James of Voragine of Genoa (XIIIth century), mentions that St. Andrew was nailed to a cross shaped in X-form (also called “Crux decussate” or “saltyra”), at the order of Aegeas, the governor of Patras, because he has refused to sacrifice to the gods. In the history, St. Andrew explains in details the meaning of the “foolish” sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

While being crucified, the saint preached the Gospel to the people who surrounded him, and after two days it came down from Heaven a great light, so nobody could see what happened with him for a half an hour. Together with this light, the soul of St. Andrew ascended to the Heaven. After his martyrical death, Maximilla, Aegeas’ wife, who was already Christian, took the Apostle’s body and buried him with honor. According to the legend, the tomb of St. Andrew emanated manna and nice smelling myrrh. When from the grave came only a few manna, the land gave less crop, and when manna came in abundance, the earth gave also more crop to the landworkers.

The History of the Relics

The Relics of the First-Called among the Apostles remained in Patras until 357, when Emperor Constantius II, son of Constantine the Great, took and placed them in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. They were kept whole until around 850, when the Byzantine Emperor Basil I the Macedonian at the prayers of the peoples from Patras sent them a holy reliquary with the head of the saint.

In 1453 Thomas Palaeologus, Ruler of Morea (Peloponesus) and brother of the last Byzantine emperor (Constantine IX), refuged to Rome because of the Turkish danger, and took the holy relics from Patras (the head, a finger, and part of the cross), giving them as gift to the Pope Pius II, in the memory of the fact that Peter and Andrew were brothers. They were kept in a reliquary at Pienza, and later, in the dome of San Pietro. Pope Pius II received them, promising to send them back to Greece, where the country will be released by the Turks.

Another Italian tradition claims that immediately after the Fourth Crusade, in 1208, the Cardinal Peter of Capua took the remnant holy relics from Constantionople and brought them in Amalfi, near Naples, some part of them being kept until today in the dome of San Andrea. From here, Pope Pius II would have been taken them, because of the Turkish danger in 1460, and gave them to the St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, leaving only a few particles in Amalfi. Today in Amalfi is stored also the sarcophagus in which were relics of the saint.

In 1964 Pope Paul VI decided, during the third session of the Second Vatican Council, to offer back as gift the head of the Saint, to the Holy Church of Patras, as a sign of brotherly love. The Head of the Saint is here since September 26, 1964. A small part of the relics remained also in the cathedral of San Pietro.

A Western tradition claims that Bishop Acca of Hexam brought in the 8th century a piece of the relics of St. Andrew in Scotland, and soon Andrew was considered the patron saint of this country. The relics were preserved in the cathedral from St. Andrews until the Reformation, when once the destruction of the cathedral, they were lost. In 1879 and 1969 it have been brought in Scotland some small relics from Amalfi, which are kept in the Cathedral St. Mary in Edinburgh.

Other relics of Saint

St. Andrew’s apostolic mission continues today through His relics, which are venerated by the Christians in various parts of the world.

The Relics from Patras were brought in Romania twice, in 1996 in Iasi and Galati, and in 2011 in Bucharest and Sibiu, and particles these relics were donated to the cathedrals of Galati and Constanta. In the East, particles of the relics are kept also in the Russian skete of St. Andrew from Mount Athos, in the Russian Cathedral in Chelyabinsk (1884), the church of Gabrovo (Bulgaria), St. Andrew Church in Mesa Geitonia (Cyprus), Tbilisi (Georgia), and in the Orthodox cathedral in Astana (Kazakhstan).

In the West, other reliquaries with the relics of the saint are found in Trier (Germany), in the Monastery of Santa Chiara in Naples, the church of Casino di Cicco Sant'Apollinare (between Rome and Naples), the churches of St. Andrew in Warsaw and Szaflary (near Krakow), the church of Saint Lupicin (in the Jura Mountains, France), the church of San Pedro de la Rua (Estella, Basque Country), in Mehrba (Malta) and, since 2006 also in the Catholic Cathedral from Hong Kong. A small particle there is found in the Romanian church in Vienna.

Patron Saint in many countries

St. Andrew is the patron of Scotland (Scottish flag is the cross of St Andrew), of Spain, Sicily, Greece, Russia, Ukraine and Romania. He is also the patron of the cities: Naples, Ravenna, Brescia, Amalfi, Mantua, Bordeaux, Bruges, Patras and Galati, my hometown.

Popular Traditions of St. Andrew

In the Eastern Europe is the Night before the Holiday of St Andrew (29/30 November), especially in the villages, one of the most important in the year. St Andrew was believed to be the protector against the evil spirits who are coming together with the winter time.. In some villages the peoples practice some rituals similar to the ones of the Western Halloween. For instance, today in Galati, a Romanian city protected by St. Andrew, there is organized a carnival which reminds of the old awful masks used, in order to scare the ghosts. Also there is still practiced the custom of hanging garlic near the doors and windows and to make pumpkin lanterns and pumpkin cakes in this day, because there is believed that, in this night, the ghosts and the wolves are haunting the streets. Also the landworkers put basil (a sacred plant) and holy water in the drinking water of the cattle, in order to protect them by the attacks of the wolves. They also sing in this evening some special carols, similar to the Christmas carols.

The Night of St. Andrew is also a “prognosis” for the whole year. Usually, in this day there are put in the attic 12 healthy onions, which are left there until the Christmas Eve, when they are checked. Each onion is assigned the name of a month, and the onions that have been damaged indicate rainy months, during those that have sprouted - the months of a favorable harvest. A similar prediction, about the fate of the harvest is done using wheat berries. Also if the night is clear and warm, it is believed that the winter won’t be cold. If it's cold and snow, it is believed that these are the beginnings of a harsh winter.

The old Romanian name for December is “Andrea”, by the belief that the Saint will protect the people until the smallest day in the year.

All those pagan customs show the importance of this Saint in the Calendar and, before being interpreted as some barbaric customs, they show that the simple believers hoped to be protected by the Saint against the bad things.

The Hymn (Troparion) of St. Andrew:

“As the first-called among the Apostles and brother of their leader, O Andrew, intercede with the Master of all to grant peace to the world, and to our souls great mercy.”

Saint Paisie Velichkovski from the Monastery of Neamţ

2011-11-11T12:28:00.003+02:00

- The Father of the Romanian "Filocalia" -

Saint Paisie from the Monastery of Neamţ (today in northwestern Romania) is a saint revendicated equally by the Slavic and the Romanian Orthodoxy, for his contribution to the “Orthodox Renaissance”, in the late 18^th century. His name is transliterated in Romanian as Paisie Velicicovschi, and in Ukrainian as Паїсій Величковський.

The revendication of a saint is not a priviledge, but an inheritance of a spirituality which both Romania and Ukraine (or maybe all the Slavic-speaking countries) have it fully until today.

The first years

Saint Paisius, as a laymen named Peter, was born in born in Poltava, Ukraine on 21 December 1722, in a priestly family, being the eleventh child of twelve. His father, John, was the dean-priester in the diocese, and his mother, Irene, was a very pious Christian woman.

His father died very early and the whole education given by his mother was crowned in 1735, when the child was sent to learn at the Theological Academy of Kiev, founded by the Bishop Peter Movilă, an important orthodox bishop in the late Middle Ages, the author of the Orthodox Confession of Faith from 1645. After four years of study, the young Peter left the school and entered in the community of the Medvedeski Monastery, being 19 years old. Here he was tonsured as rasofor (bearer of “rasa”, a monastic cloth: practically a novice), receiving the name of Platon. After a short stay in the monastery Pecerska, he came in Wallachia in 1745, at the skete Traisteni, near Ramnicu Sarat and then to Dălhăuţi Monastery (southern Moldova).

The Monastic life and the work of translation

In the summer of 1746 he went to Mount Athos, where he tried the life as a hermit, for 4 years. Only after that hewas tonsured as monk, in 1750, having as “godfather” his confessor, a Moldavian monk, St. Basil of Poiana Marului, taking then the name of Paisie (Paisius). Shortly after he was ordained as hieromonk (priester-monk), and he founded the monastic community of the Holy Prophet Elias. He wes gathering around him about 65 Romanian monks, and by summer 1763, he left Mt. Athos, because of the financial claimings of the Turks. So, Paisius and his community came back in Moldova and all established themselves at the monastery of Dragomirna, near the old capital, Suceava.

The community of Paisius at Dragmirna has grown there to 350 monks. His success consisted in the popularization of some important mystical works, by translating them in the local languages. Paisius himself and some disciples translated for the first time the “Philokalia” (“the love for beauty”), a kind of manual of spirituality of the Eastern Churches, from old Greek to Romanian and Slavonic. A manuscript of this translation is kept until today at Dragomirna, consisting in 626 pages of text.

St. Paisius gave a special attention to the group of translators. After Philokalia, some Moldavian, Wallachian and Transylvanian monks, but also Ukrainian or Russian translated many other texts of the Greek Fathers into Romanian and Slavonic, so that Neamt Monastery became practically a patristic academy and a spiritual center, unprecedented in other Orthodox countries in that time. That was the “Orthodox Renaissance”.

The community rules at the Neamt Monastery: The Orthodox “Renaissance”

In 1775, the Northern part of Moldavia (Bukovina) was occupied by the Austrian Empire, and St. Paisius moveed with 200 of his monks at Secu Monastery, which remained in Moldavia, with the consent of Metropolitan Gavriil Ghica Callimachi and Prince Gregory. At Secu, he made the same thing: combined the strong ascetic Athonite life with the work of translating texts into vernacular languages. On August 1779 the new prince of Moldova decided to give to Paisius also the statute of stareţ (abbot) of the biggest Moldavian monastery at that time, namely Neamţ, so that the saint became a very important spiritual leader on two of the biggest monastic communities here.

In the next fifteen years, St. Paisius preserved the rules of Mount Athos’s monastic life, both in terms of the order of divine services, and in the ascetical individual life of the brothers. Until his period, not all the monks were always at the services, but he imposed the participation to the church services as obligatory for all the brothers, except for the sick or those sent to very important works.

A very important “reform” in the monastical life was the implementation of the “hesychast” prayer, well-known as the “Heart’s prayer”, which was a short incantation repeated unceasantly (as much as possible). The words of this prayer were: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy of me, the sinner” and is supposed to be used for the first time at the Mount Athos in the period of St. Gregory Palamas (14^th century), but new researches demonstrated the use of it in the 5^th century in the Desert of Egypt (see Antoine Guillaumont – The origins of the monastical life).

The Sacrament of the Confession repeated frequently among the brothers, up to every three days, conducted to the flourishing of the spiritual life of the community. In order to be able to do this, St. Paisius proceeded to the ordination of 24 priests, who confessed and spiritually guided the entire community. The confessors had also the role of overseeing the administration of the two monasteries.

Another Monasteries

Near the Monasteries of Neamt and Secu, St. Paisius founded several hermitages for the nuns around the Mount Ceahlău, where he appointed as confessor St. Joseph them Hermit (1828), one of his disciples from Neamt. Another disciple or holy life was St. Irinarch Rosetti (1859), who founded the monastery of Horaita in Moldova and of the Mount Tabor church, in the Holy Land. There is to be mentioned as apprentice also St. Gheorghe from Cernica and Metropolitan St. Gregory the Teacher (Dascălul) from Wallachia, who also conducted a work of translating books and renewing the monastic life.

The holiness of his life, made Paisius well known in the whole Moldova, both in the nobiliar circles, but also for the simple Christians, up to northen Russia. A Russian Metropolitan named Ambrose, being in Moldova, made him “archimandrite” (the highest monastic distinction in the Eastern Churches). His influence was great on many monasteries and hermitages especially in Moldova (monasteries of Dragomirna, Secu, Neamt, Agapia, Văratec, Bisericani, Rasca, Vovidenia, Pocrov, Tarcău) and Wallachia (Cernica, Căldăruşani).

Paisius as a Saint

In autumn 1794 Paisius fell ill and went to the Lord on November 15, at the age of 72 years. At the moment of his death, his congregation of two monasteries numbered more than 1,000 monks of different nationality (Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Bulgarian). He was buried in the crypt of the big church, built by the Voivod Saint Stefan the Great. Being honored as a saint yet in his life, his disciples have committed memorial service, appointed him as the annual feast day November 15. In the last decades of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century, his Romanian disciples have spread the hesychasm in the Romanian lands and the Slavic ones, in more than 100 monasteries in Russia and Ukraine.

In 1988, the Holy Synod of Russian Orthodox Church canonized St. Paisius, and the same made in 1992, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which put his commemoration, as St. Paisius from Neamt, on November 15. His tomb at the Neamt monastery is until today an important place for pilgrimage.

Hymn of the Saint (Troparion):

“Defender of the true faith and the praise the monks, o, Pious Father Paisie, you loved Christ from your childhood, and as another Abraham you forsaken your country, leaving an ascetic life at the Mount Athos. And gathering many disciples, you have you the blessed country of Moldova, and you have made from Neamt Monastery a heaven and earth. For these, you are now together with the angels, not ceasing to pray to God for our souls”.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

2011-08-29T23:23:00.002+03:00

St. Augustine of Hippo (lat. Sanctus Augustinus, b. 354, Thagaste Numidia - d. 28 August 430, Hippo Regius, the territory of today's Algeria), known also as Aurelius Augustinus, is one of the leading Christian theologians and philosophers, whose works have changed the European mind. His theology influenced not only the theological thoughts for more that a millennium, but also the political European thought.

Life

St. Augustine was born in Tagaste, in North Africa in November 13, 354. His father, Patricius, was a pagan and his mother Saint Monica, was an exemplary practitioner of Christianity. Augustine’s elementary education, received in his hometown, was Christian, but he wasn’t baptized as young. Being 16 he continued his studies at Madaura and Carthage and here came to “the way of sin”, as he says in his Confessions, having a mistress and later a son.

Between 373-383 Augustine is Professor of Rhetoric in Tagaste and later in Carthage. Prior being Christian, he passed through several religions and philosophical orientations, particularly Manichaeism and dealt with clear division between good and evil, being concerned about the origin of evil. The Christianity appeared to Augustine as too simple, and instead of it Manichaeism was soliciting his intelligence. Though in the next 9 years he became unpleased by this faith and so went to Rome to teach rhetoric. Having not the success that he was expected, in 384 went to Milan where he became acquainted with the Neoplatonism, a modified version of Plato's philosophy, developed by Plotinus in the third century. Here he met the Christian St. bishop Ambrose and heard his preaches.

Just when he thought to marry his former mistress, in order to give legitimacy to the relationship from his youth and to his son, he is involved in a new love story. But in this crisis, he retires in Cassiacus, a garden nearby, where it takes place his famous conversion, recorded in the eighth book of the Confessions. In a moment of revelation, “after a dramatic examination of the depths of his being”, under a fig tree, Augustine hears a child from the house near, saying: “Tolle, lege tolle, lege” (“take and read”) and, taking the Bible, he read the first words which fell under the eyes: “Not banquets and drunkenness, not in fornication and in deeds of shame, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and caring The body will not do for lust” (Romans 13). After this moment of conversion, he let himself baptized by Bishop Ambrose on the night of the Easter 387.

In 389 Augustine returned to Tagaste, where he was founding a monastic community, dedicated to the study of Scripture, and started the fight with the Manichaeanism and some Christian heresies. In the meantime he became priest in 391 and auxiliary bishop in Hippo Regius (395), being 42 years old. Later became the bishop of this town and remained in Hippo until the end of life.

Augustine died at Hippo in 430 AD, in the seventy-sixth year of life. Vandals, one of barbarian tribes that invaded the Roman Empire in the process of dismantling, at that time besieged the town and several months later, they conquered it and burnt it almost completely.

Augustine’s Work

Although he was a bishop of a small town, Augustine’s brilliance seemed to all so obvious, that he has quickly become one of the most respected leaders of the Church. He is famous by his very many religious writings, completed probably being helped by many scribes. There are known today about 500 of his sermons and over 2000 of letters. Among his books, the most beautiful and influential are De Civitate Dei (“City of God”) and Confessiones (“Confessions”). The last one is maybe the most famous autobiography ever written, dating back to the days when he was less than fifty years.

The free will and the predestination theory

Many letters and sermons of Augustine are dedicated for combating Manichaeism, Donatism (a schismatic Christian sect from Northern Africa) and Pelagianism. Pelagius was an English monk who came to Rome around 400 in order to expose some interesting theological doctrines. He argued that all the human beings are untouched by original sin, so we have the freedom to choose between the good and the evil. The pious life and good deeds a person can obtain salvation. Partly because of the writings of St. Augustine, the views of Pelagius and the monk himself were declared heretical, and Pelagius had been exiled from Rome and excommunicated. As Augustine says, everyone bears the stigma of Adam’s sin. Human beings alone are unable to reach the Salvation through their own efforts and good deeds. For individual saving there is needed the Grace. In this way, Augustine maybe concentrated too much to show the human sin, and he didn’t speak about the human contribution in the work of salvation. Augustine argued that God already knows who will be saved and who not, and that therefore some of us are predestined to be saved. This idea of predestination had a great influence on theologians who followed, such as Thomas Aquinas, and it was interpreted later so radically by Luther and John Calvin, that they said the human can’t do nothing for the salvation. In this way, the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is the salvation itself, without the human to accept it or not, and from here came the idea of the predestination. In this way, some people are damned from the eternity and this transforms God into an arbitrary entity, without love for his children. Of course, this doctrine is far away of Augustine’s views.

The philosophy of the history (The City of God, 413- 426)

During the life of Augustine, the Roman Empire was quickly dismantled. So, in 410, Rome itself was devastated by Alaric’s Visigoths. Naturally, the remaining pagans in Rome claimed already before this moment, that Rome had been punished for abandoning the old gods in favor of Christianity. In the most famous book of St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, “the City of God”, the bishop of Hippo was defending the Christianity. Here he wrote his philosophy of history, which had a considerable influence on what happened later in Europe.

St. Augustine puts history in a linear time axis, which starts from the creation of the world by God and ends at the time of the Final Judgement. Because of the original sin, being ejected from the paradise, all the creation splits into two entities. So arose the two cities: in one reside the evil spirits, which is Satan’s city, and the second city is governed by the divine laws. In the City of God there is only love and devotion for each other, and the inhabitants are in a permanent and total war with the devil's servants, war which will last until the end of history. The number of the warriors of Christ must increase continuously until the final defeat of Satan.

Augustine expressed the opinion that neither the Roman Empire nor the city of Rome or another earthly city have a critical importance in the world. Essential is only the “celestial city”, in other words, the spiritual progress of mankind. The vehicle of this progress is, of course, the Church (“There is no salvation outside the Church”). In conclusion, the kings, whether pagan or Christian, have not the same importance as the Church leaders or the Church itself.

The Church is, in this way, the model of the state of God on earth, and every Christian should have the belief of being part of the Christ’s Army, and from each action depends not only his own salvation but also the fate of the City of God. In every community, town or village, the priest is organizing the world after the divine model. In this way, the other mundane differences, such as linguistic culture, the political identity etc., become less important than the quality of being faithful to the Church.

While Augustine himself did not do the final step, his argument leaded in the Middle Ages to the conclusion that the secular rulers should be subordinated to the Church and to its Roman leader, the pope. This idea was therefore behind the long conflict between the Church and the State, which has marked the history of Europe for many centuries, and the actual idea of the separation between the two entities, is an Augustinian one. In contrast, the Byzantine formula was the “synergeia”, the co-work between the church and the state, the bycephal monarchy – emperor and patriarch, which led until now to a mixing policy between the church and the state.

The Confessions (397-398)

His most important work for the researching of the human mind are, definitely, the Confessions. The book is an “exploring guide” of the thoughts, sins and mistakes, virtues, falling and returning. If the City of God is more an argumentative book, the Confessions are the leading path of a human through the life. The human himself finds in the world someway as a stranger. The quote “You made us searchers of yours, oh Lord, and our hearts shall ever restless be, until they find their rest in Thee” (Confessiones 1:1) is maybe the most common place from his work.

Augustine states that the measuring of time and space come to the human being indirectly: he only adapts to them. There is well known his theory about the time and what is its meaning for the mentality: very normal to understand, as judging actually, but if asking exactly: “what is the time?”, the question remains eternally without a satisfactory answer.

The Confessions and the later Retractationes are models of a human who recognized always his limits, the possibility of error and return, as a total humble man. The sublime of Augustine’s thoughts is not coming from his brilliant theories, from his philosophy, but from his human fineness in this extraordinary book.

Other books:

On Christian Doctrine

On the Trinity

On Faith and the Creed

Concerning Faith of Things Not Seen

On the Profit of Believing

On the Creed: A Sermon to Catechumens

On Continence

On the Good of Marriage

On Holy Virginity

On Patience

On the Morals of the Catholic Church

Acts or Disputation Against Fortunatus the Manichaean

Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichaeans

On Baptism, Against the Donatists

On Nature and Grace

On Man's Perfection in Righteousness

On the Proceedings of Pelagius

On the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin

On the Soul and its Origin

On Grace and Free Will

On Rebuke and Grace

The Harmony of the Gospels

Tractates on the Gospel of John

Homilies on the First Epistle of John

Soliloquies

Expositions on the Psalms

Augustine remains a central figure, both within Christianity and in the history of Western thought. Himself much influenced by Platonism and neo-Platonism, particularly by Plotinus, Augustine was important to the “baptism” of Greek thought and its entrance into the Western Christian (and subsequently the European) intellectual tradition. Also important was his early and influential writing on the human will, a central topic in ethics, and one which became a focus for later philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, but also to the Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

His memory

The Roman Church and all the churches of the western traditions are celebrating St. Augustine in the day of his death, on August 28. In the Eastern communities, his image was not so strong imposed, so he is celebrated commonly with St. Jeronimus, on June 15.

The Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in A.D. 553, listed Augustine among the other Fathers of the Church who are normative for the entire Ecclesia “We further declare that we hold fast to the decrees of the four Councils, and in every way follow the holy Fathers, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Theophilus, John (Chrysostom) of Constantinople, Cyril, Augustine, Proclus, Leo and their writings on the true faith”. Later, in the acts of the 6th Ecumenical Council, he is called the “most excellent and blessed Augustine” and is referred to as “the most wise teacher”. In the Comnenian Council of Constantinople in 1166 he is referred to as “Ό Αγίος Αυγουστίνος” – “Saint Augustine”.

Although there are today some reserves about his celebration in the East, being called “blessed” (lat. “beatus”) and not saint, this situation came probably in the late Middle Ages, when he was accused of some “western” theories which were not accepted in the East, such as the theory of predestination, the papal primacy or the theory of Filioque. Though being so or not, the cathegory of “blessed” is not a typical eastern, which make only differences between monk-saints, hierarchs, martyrs, etc, but not between “more” or “less” saints. The actual situation is often debated and many educated voices claims to re-establish the memory of St. Augustine in its place.

His relics

The relics of St. Augustine are today in the “San Pietro” Church in Ciel d’Oro, from the Augustinian monastery in Pavia, Italy. Augustine died in Hippo, in 430 and was buried in the cathedral there. According to Bede’s True Martyrology, his body was moved to Cagliari, because of the vandal conquest of the region (they were arians). Bede tells that the remains were later redeemed out of the hands of the Saracens there, by Peter, the bishop of Pavia and deposited in the church of Saint Peter about the year 720, place where they rest until today.

Marta şi Maria sau despre Polinomia divină

2011-08-27T21:52:00.002+03:00

În textul de la Luca 10,38 sq., evanghelistul ne prezintă episodul binecunoscut al predicii lui Hristos în casa prietenilor săi din Betania, anume Lazăr, Marta şi Maria. Hristos le predică celor de faţă, până la momentul când Marta intervine, întrerupând cursul „firesc” al lucrurilor şi începând să o căineze pe sora ei, care o lăsase singură să pregătească praznicul pentru o asemenea vizită, desigur, neobişnuită. Marta intră în scenă, tulburând discursul Domnului aparent fără reţinere, rugându-l să o trimită pe Maria la treabă, să nu-şi lase sora singură. Hristos îi spune însă, cu o blândeţe amestecată cu un uşor reproş: „Marto, Marto, te grijeşti de multe, dar un singur lucru trebuieşte. Maria însă şi-a ales partea cea bună, care nu se va lua de la ea”. Probabil că Maria a rămas acolo, la picioarele lui Iisus, ascultându-i cuvintele. Nu ştim ce a făcut Marta mai departe: a lăsat oalele să dea în foc şi s-a aşezat şi ea, aşijderea, în apropiere de ceilalţi ascultători, sau poate s-a întors la ale sale?

Înainte de episodul acesta, Luca redă pilda Samarineanului Milostiv (10,38 sq). Nu pare să fie vreo legătură funciară între cele două bucăţi: una povestire, alta pildă, una legată de ajutorarea celui în nevoie, cealaltă, tocmai de priorizarea acţiunilor. Este interesant de observat binomia ambelor istorii:

- în prima, Samarineanul este exponentul activului: „acum e timpul să ajut pe cel în nevoie”, în schimb levitul şi preotul sunt exponenţii contemplativului: „acum e timpul să merg la rugăciune”

- în a doua, Marta este exponentul activului: „acum e timpul să lucrez”, în timp ce sora ei, Maria, este exponentul contemplativului: „acum trebuie să mă rog/să ascult/să stau din ale mele”.

Cine are dreptate? Există o regulă? În pilda samarineanului, e evident că Hristos favorizează comportamentul celui ce ajută pe aproapele lui, dar în cazul concret, al ajutorării tocmai pentru pregătirea tuturor pentru venirea Sa, El vede că altceva e mai important. Să ne mai gândim şi că Maria stătea la picioarele Domnului: El un bărbat de 30 de ani, ea o femeie, care potrivit obiceiurilor rabinice ale vremii, nu avea ce căuta la asemenea întâlniri. Probabil mai discutau acolo şi pasaje din Tora, le interpretau, nu ştim, oricum nepotrivit pentru o femeie. Poate că Marta tocmai a apostrofat-o indirect pe Maria nu pentru că nu o ajută, ci pentru că nu se comportă cum se cuvine.

Dar este un timp pentru a-ţi ajuta aproapele şi un timp pentru a asculta, conchide Hristos. Toate la timpul lor. Nu există judecată de valoare în binomul Marta-Maria, în sensul că una e bună şi alta e rea, ci în aceea legată de alegerea momentului propice pentru un act. „Iată, acum sunt cu voi”, spunea altă dată, iar când Iuda a intervenit, spunând că femeia desfrânată a cheltuit o avere pe mirul pentru Hristos, Domnul spune că „pe săraci îi aveţi pururea cu voi, dar pe Mine nu mă aveţi pururea”.

Mai sunt şi alte exemple. Fiii nunţii nu pot să postească atunci când Mirele e în mijlocul lor. Mai târziu este timp şi pentru alte lucruri, şi pentru alte activităţi. Toate la timpul lor.

Concluzia: acum e timpul (kairos). De văzut tot aşa, povestea cu învierea lui Lazăr după patru zile, deşi Hristos putea să vină la timp (Ioan 11, 20 sq.).

Dumnezeu gândeşte altfel.

Fiul risipitor --- Fratele ascultător

Vameşul --- Fariseul

Marta --- Maria

Banul văduvei --- Banul celui bogat

Etc.

Nu a face legea e mereu cel mai bine, nici a face judecăţi stricte de valoare.

Şi fariseul s-a întors îndreptat la casa lui, nu înseamnă că rugăciunea lui nu a fost primită. Şi fratele ascultător are parte de mântuire, nu numai romanticul risipitor întors acasă.

Creştinismul e ferit de căderea în ideologia pură, pentru că binomul nu este foarte clar statutat. Cel puţin aşa îmi place mie să cred.

Mulţumiri lui Rolf Hille, un pastor luteran cu vederi mult mai largi decât acelea ale propriei confesiuni.

Pentru orice lucru este o clipă prielnică şi vreme pentru orice îndeletnicire de sub cer.

Vreme este să te naşti şi vreme să mori; vreme este să sădeşti şi vreme să smulgi ceea ce ai sădit.

Vreme este să răneşti şi vreme să tămăduieşti; vreme este să dărâmi şi vreme să zideşti.

Vreme este să plângi şi vreme să râzi; vreme este să jeleşti şi vreme să dănţuieşti.

Vreme este să arunci pietre şi vreme să le strângi; vreme este să îmbrăţişezi şi vreme este să fugi de îmbrăţişare.

Vreme este să agoniseşti şi vreme să prăpădeşti; vreme este să păstrezi şi vreme să arunci.

Vreme este să rupi şi vreme să coşi; vreme este să taci şi vreme să grăieşti.

Vreme este să iubeşti şi vreme să urăşti. Este vreme de război şi vreme de pace…

(Ecclesiastul 3,1-8)

Grabarka, muntele sfânt al Poloniei ortodoxe

2011-08-21T15:12:00.011+03:00

Sărbătoarea Schimbării la Faţă este pentru ortodocşii de pretutindeni o zi importantă, în care ne bucurăm de vederea slavei dumnezeieşti, pe cât ne este posibil să înţelegem. Acest praznic are o însemnătate aparte pentru comunitatea ortodoxă din Polonia, fiind asociat cu cel mai mare pelerinaj din regiune. Acesta are loc în zilele de la mijlocul lunii august la mănăstirea de pe “Muntele” Grabarka, un deal împădurit, situat în lunca Bugului. Înalt Preasfinţitul Arhiepiscop Abel Poplawski al Lublinului, unul dintre arhiereii prezenţi în fiecare an la această sărbătoare, ne-a povestit cu bunăvoinţă despre însemnătatea sărbătorii şi a pelerinajului pentru ortodocşii polonezi.

Înalt Preasfinţia Voastră, în interviul acordat acum mai bine de o lună Ziarului Lumina,pentru care vă mulţumim, am avut ocazia să cunoaştem situaţia Ortodoxiei în Polonia. Am vorbit, de asemenea, despre mănăstirea Jableczna, care este pentru credincioşii ortodocşi de aici un loc important de pelerinaj şi totodată simbol al trăiniciei dreptei credinţe. Mai sunt şi alte centre monahale în Polonia?

Chiar dacă Biserica Ortodoxă din Polonia este mică în ceea ce priveşte numărul credincioşilor, avem o tradiţie foarte bogată. În ultimii ani am trăit o intensificare a vieţii duhovniceşti, al cărei rezultat a fost înfiinţarea de noi centre mănăstireşti, ajungându-se azi la un număr de 10 vetre monahale. Dar între acestea merită o atenţie specială Mănăstirea Sf. Onufrie din Jabłeczna şi Mănăstirea Sfintelor Mironosiţe Marta şi Maria la Muntele Sfânt Grabarka. Aici se adună în zilele de 18-19 august, de praznicul Schimbării la Faţă, potrivit calendarului iulian (stil vechi), peste 50 000 de pelerini din toată ţara şi din străinătate.

Ce anume reprezintă praznicul Schimbării la Faţă pentru credincioşii ortodocşi, precum şi pentru Înalt Preasfinţia Voastră, ca ierarh al Bisericii Poloneze?

Pământul îl ajută pe om prin formele sale, precum munţii, în urcuşul spre perfecţiunea duhovnicească şi fizică. Ştim că Mântuitorul Iisus Hristos, de multe ori în momente importante, a mers să se roage în singurătate pe înălţimi. Din Scripturi cunoaştem Muntele Măslinilor, Muntele Scopus, Muntele Sinai, Muntele Fericirilor, iar minunea Schimbării la Faţă a avut loc pe Muntele Tabor, în prezenţa ucenicilor celor mai apropiaţi - Petru, Iacov şi Ioan. Aceştia au văzut parţial Slava lui Dumnezeu, pentru a putea înţelege Patimile de bunăvoie şi Învierea Domnului. Tot aşa, Muntele Grabarka este unul dintre cele mai importante centre ale vieţii religioase pentru Biserica Ortodoxă din Polonia, locul în care Hristos este preaslăvit de praznicul Schimbării Sale la Faţă. De trei veacuri, acesta este un semn vizibil al persistenţei valorilor spirituale. Mii de cruci votive au fost puse pe munte de către pelerini, pentru cei bolnavi, suferinzi, rătăciţi, adormiţi, precum şi de către cei care au aflat vindecarea şi mângâierea. Grabarka este un loc sfinţit de rugăciunea, postul şi nevoinţa maicilor de la mănăstirea Sfintelor Mironosiţe, înfiinţată în 1947. Lumea din jurul nostru se schimbă, dar Grabarka rămâne neschimbată de secole şi continuă să fie un loc sfânt pentru pentru inimile ortodocşilor polonezi, un simbol al eternităţii şi al nemuriri, ţinut care încurajează nu doar la reflectarea de sine, ci mai cu seamă la osteneala purtării crucii vieţii şi la prefacerea noastră duhovnicească. Muntele Sfânt Grabarka este pentru noi Taborul polonez.

Aşadar muntele Grabarka este un loc special de pelerinaj pentru polonezii ortodocşi. Cum se face că a ajuns să fie numit astăzi “Muntele Sfânt”?

Aşa cum la Czestochowa se află cel mai mare lăcaş închinat Maicii Domnului, pentru majoritatea polonezilor de rit catolic, cunoscut prin aceea că aici se află icoana numită „Madona Neagră”, la fel şi Grabarka este cel mai sfânt aşezământ pentru ortodocşii polonezi. Istoria sa este asociată cu mai multe întâmplări minunate. Astfel, atunci când în Podlasia s-a abătut ciuma (în anul 1710), credincioşii se rugau pentru scăparea de la nenorocire. Se spune că atunci un bătrân a visat muntele de lângă satul Grabarka. Acesta era acoperit de pini şi mesteceni şi lipsit de cărări. Cu siguranţă, credinţa l-a făcut să înţeleagă că acest loc este ales de Dumnezeu. Şi s-a întâmplat o minune, căci la aflarea visului profetic, locuitorii din împrejurimi s-au suit pe munte, iar acesta i-a apărat de nenorocirea care se abătuse. Astfel, spălându-se cu apa ce izvora de la poalele muntelui, s-au vindecat, iar molima a dispărut. Acesta pare să fi fost semnul sfinţeniei, care a marcat acest loc încă din secolul al XVIII-lea. O altă explicaţie pentru sfinţenia locului se datorează faptului că la Mielnik, în apropiere de Grabarka, se afla icoana făcătoare de minuni a Schimbării la Faţă, numită şi „Mântuitoarea” („Spasa”), la care veneau tot felul de pelerini, cerând şi primind milostenie. Atunci când regiunea Podlasiei a fost devastată de tătari, pe la anul 1760, credincioşii s-au ascuns împreună cu icoana făcătoare de minuni în lunca Bugului şi în pădurile din împrejurimi. Este foarte posibil ca ascunzătoarea să fi fost muntele Grabarka şi numele său să fie legat de aceste evenimente. Aparent, după istorisirile multor localnici, icoana ar fi fost îngropată la 16 km mai sus de sat, într-un loc numit Grabarka.

Credincioşii şi iubitorii Ortodoxiei au fost de curând martori ai apelului de ajutorare a Bisericii noastre. În noaptea de 12-13 iulie 1990, cu o lună înainte de obişnuitul pelerinaj, s-a întâmplat cea mai mare dramă a Sfântului Munte, biserica fiind incendiată şi arzând în întregime. Dintre odoarele mănăstirii au putut fi salvate numai Evanghelia, arsă pe margini, precum şi două icoane şi crucea de procesiune. Incendiul a distrus o amintire de nepreţuit a culturii poloneze, împreună cu tezaurul bisericii arzând o icoană a Sfintei Treimi din secolul al XVIII-lea, una a Maicii Domnului cu Pruncul, din secolul al XIX-lea, precum şi lucrări originale ale pictorilor contemporani Nowosielski şi Stalony-Dobrzanski. Însă nenorocirea a dus totodată la solidarizarea ortodocşilor, ba chiar şi a multor neortodocşi, care au înţeles istoria Ortodoxiei şi care şi-au exprimat simpatia. Aceasta poate fi o altă minune a Sfântului Munte, căci reconstruirea lăcaşului s-a făcut foarte repede. Noua biserică, sfinţită în 1998, seamănă din punct de vedere arhitectonic cu cea arsă, fiind însă din cărămidă şi cu faţada placată cu lemn, imitând bârnele groase ale vechiului locaş. Această nefericire de la Grabarka, în ciuda experienţelor dureroase şi a pierderilor, a servit la notorietatea acestui loc minunat.

Ce se întâmplă cu totul special la Grabarka, de Praznicul Schimbării la Faţă? Există tradiţii populare specifice ori ritualuri liturgice deosebite?

Grabarka este Muntele Crucii - situat între cer şi pământ. Primii pelerini sosesc la sfântul munte deja cu câteva zile înainte de sărbătoarea propriu-zisă, venind pe jos tocmai de la Bialystok (aproximativ 100 de kilometri), fiind urmaţi de mii de credincioşi, mulţi chiar din eparhia mea de Lublin şi Chelm, care pornesc tot pe jos, la 13 august, de la Mănăstirea Sfântului Onufrie sau de la alte parohii. În ajunul Schimbării la Faţă, adică pe 17 august, este cinstită aici Icoana Maicii Domnului -„Iwerska”, donată mănăstirii de către călugării de la mănăstirea atonită Iviron.

Mulţi credincioşi obişnuiesc să treacă pe la pârâul sfinţit de poalele muntelui, unde se spală, rugându-se, pentru vindecarea de tot felul de dureri, lăsând pe mal eşarfe. La acest izvor au loc multe vindecări miraculoase, ca urmare a credinţei şi evlaviei oamenilor. Totodată, pelerinii iau cu ei acasă mii de litri de apă din fântânile situate în apropiere. Mulţi din cei care vin la Sfântul Munte aduc cruci, pe care sunt scrise numele lor sau ale celor dragi, spre sănătate. În unele cazuri, sunt scrise numele celor adormiţi, pentru pomenire. Aceste cruci sunt sfinţite de către preoţi în timpul unei slujbe de Te Deum. Grabarka a devenit astfel muntele miilor de cruci situate printre pinii care cresc în jurul bisericii.

În timpul sărbătorii Schimbării la Faţă întotdeauna se oficiază cinci Sfinte Liturghii, unde se spovedesc şi primesc cu evlavie Sfânta Împărtăşanie câteva zeci de mii de credincioşi. Tradiţional, în această zi se sfinţesc în toate bisericile ortodoxe din Polonia struguri, mere, pere şi alte fructe, lucru care se întâmplă şi la Muntele Sfânt, în timpul slujbelor.

Cât de activi sunt tinerii la această sărbătoare?

Prezenţa tinerilor la Grabarka este foarte mare, iar pelerinajele sunt dominate de către aceştia. Frăţia tineretului ortodox organizează tradiţional o tabără de muncă, în care sunt implicate aproximativ 100 de persoane, ajutând maicile la organizarea praznicului. Astfel, tinerii sunt peste tot: vând lumânări, ajută în bucătărie, se ocupă de curăţenie, etc. Dacă am evalua participarea la festivităţile ocazionate de Schimbarea la Faţă, atunci dintre zecile de mii de pelerini, cei mai mulţi sunt tinerii.

Aţi avut ocazia să întâlniţi la acest praznic şi pelerini din alte ţări?

Desigur, sunt mereu prezente numeroase grupuri din ţările vecine, Belarus sau Ucraina, dar şi din alte ţări europene. Sper că acest interviu, realizat pentru un jurnal atât de popular în rândul comunităţii ortodoxe din România, ca „Ziarul Lumina”, va contribui la atragerea fraţilor ortodocşi românii spre vizitarea lăcaşurilor noastre ortodoxe din Polonia.

Muntele Grabarka este un loc de pelerinaj numai pentru ortodocşi, sau la sărbătoare participă deseori şi credincioşi de alte confesiuni?

Sfântul Munte Grabarka este un loc de pelerinaj deschis tuturor. Aici vin cu bucurie şi credincioşi romano-catolici, care se bucură de darul minunat al apei izvorului, aduc de multe ori cruci cu cereri diferite, aprind lumânări în faţa icoanelor, lasă ofrandele lor la biserică, dar, din păcate, nu se împărtăşesc cu Sfintele Taine, pentru că, aşa cum ştim, nu sunt în comuniune euharistică cu noi. În fiecare an văd la festivităţile de la Sfântul Munte mulţi neortodocşi, ceea ce confirmă faptul că mănăstirea este un centru care integrează diferite confesiuni creştine şi adună, de asemenea, un grup mare de susţinători ai tradiţiei ortodoxe în Polonia.

http://www.ziarullumina.ro/articole;1699;1;61411;0;Grabarka-muntele-sfant-al-Poloniei-ortodoxe.html

Saint Helena the Emperess of the Romans

2011-08-17T22:55:00.002+03:00

Saint Helena (complete name: Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta) (ca. 250 – 18 August 330) was the consort of the roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus (293 - 306), and the mother of Emperor Constantine I (306 - 337). She is traditionally credited with the finding the relics of the True Cross, with whom she is invariably represented in all the Christian iconography.

Life

Helena’s birthplace is not known for sure, being supposed either Asia Minor or even Britain. Procopius of Caesarea (6^th century) is the first to mention that Helena was born in Drepanum, in Bithynia (Asia Minor). Because Constantine renamed the city as Helenopolis, after her death in 330, that supports the belief of Procopius. Anyway, there were also a Helenopolis in Palestine (modern Daburiyya) and another in Lydia, probably both named after Constantine's mother.

Eusebius of Caesarea (4^th century) states that she was about 80 on her return from Palestine (Vita Constantini 3.46), and if the journey is dated to 326–28, it may be calculated that she is born about in 250 AD. She came from a low ancestry, so that Saint Ambrose called her a “ bona” stabularia, a term translated as “good stable-maid” or “hostess”, so he understood such a occupation as a virtue (De obitu Theodosii 42).

It is unknown where she first met Constantius, but is probably as during his service under Emperor Aurelian. The precise legal nature of the relationship between Helena and Constantius is also unknown, different sources and even St. Jerome calling Helena as Constantius’ “wife”, but sometimes, as his “concubine”.

Helena gave birth to the future emperor Constantine I on the 27th of February, about 270/272 in Naissus (Niš, Serbia). Shortly after that, Constantius divorced Helena about in 290, in order to obtain a wife more consonant with his rising status, so he married Theodora, Maximian's daughter. Helena with her son were sent to the court of Diocletian at Nicomedia, where Constantine grew. Helena never remarried and lived for a time in obscurity, close to her only son, who had a deep regard and affection for her.

Constantine was proclaimed Augustus of the Roman Empire in 306 by Constantius’ troops after the latter died, and following to that, St. Helena was brought back to the public life, in 312 at the imperial court. She received the title of Augusta in 325.

Helena and the Holy Places

St. Helena acquired her greatest fame by the finding of the True Cross. After Constantine appointed his mother as Augusta Imperatrix, gave her unlimited access to the imperial treasury, in order to locate the relics of the Christian tradition. So, in 326-28 Helena undertook a trip to the Holy Places in Palestine. Eusebius of Caesarea records that she was responsible for the construction of two temples, the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and the Church on the Mount of Olives, sites of Christ’s birth and ascension. A tradition attributes to Helena also the construction of the Church of the Burning Bush of Mount Sinai.

The legend of Helena’s discovery of the Cross originated in Jerusalem in the second half of the fourth century and rapidly spread over the whole empire. Three versions of the legend came into existence in Late Antiquity: the Helena legend, the Protonike legend and the Judas Kyriakos legend. The Helena legend, which was known in Greek and Latin, is found at many Churchfathers and other writers: Rufinus (Hist. Eccl., 10.7-8), Socrates (Hist. Eccl. 1.17 PG 67, 117ff), Sozomen (Hist., Eccl. 2.1-2) Theodoretus (Hist. Eccl. 1.18), Ambrose (De obitu Theod., 40-49), Paulinus of Nola (Epist., 31.4-5), and Sulpicius Severus (Chron. 2.22-34). According to this version, when Helena came to Jerusalem, the city renamed as Aelia Capitolina was rebuilding from the destruction of Emperor Hadrian after the revolt of Bar Kochba (135 AD). In order to stop the Christian pilgrimages Hadrian also ordered to be built a temple dedicated to Venus over the site of Jesus’s tomb near Calvary. According to tradition, Helena ordered the demolition of the temple and chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. In order to recognize the true Cross, the Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem took all three of them and touched a woman who was already at the point of death. Her condition changed when she touched the third and final cross. After that, St. Helena ordered the building of the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

According to the Protonike legend, which circulated in the Syriac-speaking regions, Helena’s role is taken over by the fictitious first-century empress Protonike. Finally, the Judas Kyriakos legend, originated in Greek, but also known in Latin and Syriac, relates how Helena discovered the Cross with the help of the Jew Judas, who later converted and received the name Kyriakos. It became the most popular version of the three, probably because of its anti-Judaism.

St. Helena also found the nails of the crucifixion, and placed one of them in Constantine’s helmet, and another in the bridle of his horse, in order to protect him im the battles.

Helena left Jerusalem and the eastern provinces in 327 to return to Rome, bringing with her parts of the True Cross and other relics, which were stored in her palace’s private chapel, where they can be still seen today. Her palace was later converted into the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. According to one tradition, Helena acquired the Holy Tunic on her trip to Jerusalem and sent it to Trier, where supposedly there is the relics with the head of Helena.

Finally, another tradition states that St. Helena found also the relics of the Three Magi, which was firstly in the possession of the imperial family, and later given as gift to the bishop Eustorgius. After a while they were in Milano, from where the German Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa took them to the Dome in Cologne.

During her entire life, she gave many presents to the poor, released prisoners and mingled with the ordinary worshippers in modest attire.

Saint Helena died in 330, shortly after her journey to the East, in the presence of her son Constantine (Euseb., Vita Const., 3.46). She was buried in the Mausoleum of Helena, outside Rome on the Via Labicana. The porphyry sarcophagus, which contained her remains, is now in the Pio-Clementine Vatican Museum.

Celebrating

St. Helena was honoured immediately after her death. Eusebius of Nicomedia, the Imperial Chancellor called it “worthy of eternal memory”, St. Ambrose, “a great lady” and St. Paulinus of Nola praises her great faith in his poems.

In the Western tradition, St. Helena is the patron saint of the cities Frankfurt and Basel, of the English towns Abingdon and Colchester, and the dioceses of Trier, Ascoli, Bamberg, Pesaro, Frankfurt. She is the protector of dyers and of the manufacturers of needles and nails, but also the patron saint of new discoveries, because of the campaign in Palestine. In the Eastern tradition, she is often considered the one who helps the peasants for good and abundant crops.

To St Helena are dedicated many churches, monasteries and other sacred places. In the Great Britain (where a later legend, mentioned by Henry of Huntingdon, claimed that Helena was a daughter of the British King Cole of Camulodunum) at least twenty-five holy wells are dedicated to Saint Helena. In Poland, the most common place associated with the Holy Cross, but also with Helen, is a monastery and church of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate on the mountain Łysa Góra. In the Eastern Christianity there are very many monasteries and churches dedicated commonly to the Emperors Constantine and Helena. The patriarchal cathedral of Bucharest has the holy Emperors as its Patron Saints.

In the Orthodox Calendar, St. Helena is celebrated together with her son on 21 May (3 June, after the julian calendar), this day being called “the Feast of the Holy Great Emperors Constantine and Helen, Equals to the Apostles”. Likewise, the Anglican churches and some Lutheran churches keep the Eastern date. Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church falls on 18 August. In the Coptic Orthodox Church the Feast is on 9 Pashons.

Iconography

In the iconography of the East, St. Helena is put on the imperial costume, with crown on her head, clothed in rich eastern clothing, having a white kerchief on her head. Always she is accompanied by a cross, often held together with her son Constantine. Also she is one of the main characters depicted in the icon of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (eastern Feast on 14^th September), together with the Archbishop Makarios of Jerusalem.

In the sacred art of Western Christianity, St. Helena is associated always with the cross, the three nails and a model of the church. She is represented as a old woman also in an imperial costume.

Eastern Troparion (Hymn) of St. Constantine and Helena

(matter fact about Constantine)

“Beholding the image of Thy Cross in the sky,/ and like Paul receiving a call not from men,/ The apostle among kings placed the imperial city in Thy hands, O Lord./ Do Thou save it ever in peace, through the prayers of the Theotokos,// O Thou Who alone lovest mankind”

Kontakion on 21^st May

“Today Constantine and Helena, his mother, expose to our veneration the Cross, the awesome Cross of Christ, a sign of salvation and a standard of victory: a great symbol of conquest and triumph”.

Father Arsenie Papacioc, the Spiritual Father from the Black Sea, went to the Lord

2011-07-24T18:57:00.000+03:00

The day of 19 July 2011 is a sad day for the Orthodox believers from Romania, because they lost in that day their Spiritual Father, Elder Arsenie Papacioc from the St. Mary’s Monastery from Techirghiol. His staying in the last 38 years in the monastery near the Black Sea gave him the name of the “Spiritual Father from the Sea”. At the venerable age of almost 97 years, Father Arsenie was the last one in a generation of the big monastical fathers which were vital for the re-birth of the Romanian orthodox faith in the last 30 years.

A troubled youth of an intelligent man

Arsenie Papacioc was born in 15 August 1914, not far away from his eternal place of rest, that is in the village called Misleanu, county of Ialomiţa, as the seventh child of the orthodox believers Vasile and Stanca, being named Anghel (angel) after the Baptism.

As a young child, Anghel was very intelligent and memorized everything very quick, being a good student in the school. He was member in many youth cultural organizations, but also a good athlete.

In 1934, being about 20 years, he wanted to go in the monastery of Frasinei, county Valcea, a convent well known for its harsh rules, similar to those in the Mountain of Athos. The Starets Symeon refused him, because he knew his intellectual capacities and didn’t want him to remain there as an anonyme. So he went later as a brother in the Monastery of Cozia, in the heart of the Carpathians, being teacher for the seminarists for a wile.

In the harsh years of the second world war, father Arsenie was arrested, being accused of legionarism (the Romanian version of nationalism in the last years of the ‘30s), and spent in prison 4 years, until 1945.

After the changing of the regime, in 1947, Father Arsenie hide himself in the Monastery of Tismana and later in the northern Moldova, where he was teacher in the Neamt Seminary for a while. Later he was tonsured as a monk, at the monastery of Sihastria.

Runaway for three years in the forests of the Carpathians together with father Cleopa (+1998), another great spiritual father, finally he was arrested by the communists, and condemned for the same reason (legionarism and plotting against the state). For the second time he went incarcerated in the most famous Romanian prison for the politically convicted, at Aiud, where he was tortured together with the Romanian inter-bellum intelligentsia (1958-1964).

After the detention, the authorities allowed him to serve as priest in Transylvania, and later he was established in the Monastery of St. Mary in Techirghiol, near the Black Sea (1976), which he didn’t left until his passing away.

A spiritual Father of the Lowlands

For about 38 years father Arsenie was the spiritual father of many orthodox believers from the southern Romania. His preaching was intelligent, kind, and in the meantime authoritarian, showing the good way in the secular society of the last decades. He refused the acceptance of the biometrical passports not directly as an act of falling from the faith, as many said, but as an interference of the state in the intimate problems of the human beings. He recommended to all the believers, traditionalists or reformists also, the living peace, praying and sense of the measure, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodoxy. His preachings and conferences were recorded and printed in many books, being very popular not only among the orthodox circles, but also in the cultural society after the fall of the communism.

With the Father Arsenie moved to the Lord a big generation of the Spiritual Fathers such as Arsenie Boca from Prislop (+1989), Paisie Olaru from Sihastria (+1990), Cleopa Ilie from Sihastria (+1998), Sofian Boghiu from Bucharest (+2002) and Teofil from Sambata de Sus (+2009), which are considered by the Romanian orthodox believers as the new saints of the people. Father Arsenie will be buried in his monastery on 21 July, in the presence of His Exellency Metropolitan Teofan of Moldova, H.E. Archbishop Teodosie of Tomis and H.E. Archbishop Casian of Lower Danube, many priests and orthodox believers.

19 July 2011 is a sad day for Romania, because she lost a big spiritual Father. In the meantime, that is also a happy day, because the Church won today a new saint who is praying to the Heavenly Father for the orthodox believers.

May his remembrance be eternal!

Saint Christopher, martyr in Lycia

2011-07-20T20:06:00.000+03:00

Saint Martyr Christopher is an important saint in the Christian memory both in the West and in the East, his name being in the same time the definition of his beautiful Christian life: “Christo-phoros” means in greek “Christ-Bearer”, and because of that, he is often represented as carrying Jesus the Child on his shoulders. Many times, the Christian believers can see his other icon, which is quite strange, because the saint has a dog-head. This thing is quite rare in the Christianty and may be associated with the old Egyptian iconography of the god Anubis, who is represented with a jackal-face, but a human corpse. This ancient god is the protector of the souls passing from this life to the eternal, so it is quite interesting that St. Christopher is also the protector of the travelers and passengers.

The Kinokephaloi – the men with dog-heads

The probable existence of the mean with dog-heads is curiously mentioned not only in the history of St. Christopher. First, the ancient historian Ktesias (5^th century BC) speaks in his book, Indica, about the indian tribe of kinokephaloi. His assertion is taken later by the Churchfathers like Patriarch Photius. Further, in the histories about the trips of Alexander the Great in India, the men with dog-heads are met in the desert of Gedrosian (today in Pakistan). Later, a Byzantine Historian, called Tzetzes (12^th century) speaks about an entire people of kinokephaloi, who live somewhere in the farthest lands of India. Also Marco Polo spoke about this kind of human beings, living somewhere in the indan islands. Marco Polo mentions that those people are modeling their faces since a very young age, so we can understand that the dog-face is not a real one, but one imposed by some barbaric customs of (probably ritual) auto-mutilation.

In the greek version of Christopher’s life, he came in the Roman Empire through the lands of the Persians, so it could be believed that he came from India, maybe from this tribe.

Who was St. Christopher?

St. Christopher appears in icons even from the 4th century, in two formulas: one in which he carries Christ on his shoulders, as we have already mentioned, passing through a river. He bears a stick in his right hand, which miraculously has leaves. The second icon is the one in which he is represented with a dog-head or lamb-head. The first representation occurs oftener in West, and the second in the Eastern Churches. The third representation, met in the monasteries from the northern Romania, shows as Christopher as a normal human, carrying on a plate a dog-head (the same kind of representation like of St. John the Baptist, which is usually for the martyrs who died by beheading).

Two stories

The Eastern Synaxarion and Legenda Aurea mention that St. Christopher lived in the period of the ruling of Decius, around 250 AD, but another variant of his life places him later, during the reign of Maximinus Daia, about 300 AD. The latin legend names him as a Cannanite, but in the meantime the Synaxarion says that he came from the Eastern Lands beyond Persia. Both histories mention about the hateful-looking of this giant soldier of the Roman Empire, who had a good heart and tried to help the captive Christians. His name is “Reprobus”, a Latin name who sends to the understanding of his ugliness. On the second variant, Christopher was a very beautiful man who prayed to the Lord to take from him his beauty, because he provoked scandal among the women. In the end, God hears his praying and makes his face like a dog one.

The martyrdom of St. Christopher

This is the beginning of the history. The story of a beautiful man ends here, being in fact a legend about the modesty and against the lust. But the Byzantine Vita is longer: is a life of a martyr.

In In the Legenda Aurea, Reprobus, serving firstly to a Canaanite king, sees him crossing himself when speaking about devil, and that’s why he understood that the cross can help him against the evil. So, because he wanted to serve Christ and didn’t know how, an hermit says to him that, being so tall, he can help the people to cross a river and this would be his mission in the world. One time he bears a child, who curiously is so heavy, that he cross the river with big difficulties. The Child presents himself as Jesus, who wanted to see him serving. That’s why he is depicted in the Western icons as carrying Jesus on his shoulders through a river.

Later Reprobus go to the city of Lycia, being there a soldier in the Roman army. The Byzantine Synaxarion mentions that he had also speaking problems, being unable to say encouragements to the captive Christians. After praying, Christ “opens his mouth” and he is able to speak for them against a local persecutor, called Bachus. Because of this, he is condemned and sent to Rome, together with 200 soldiers, put to guard him. On the way to Rome, he is baptized by Babylus, bishop of Antioch, and since then he is named Christopher.

Probably Christopher never went to Rome. The tradition mentions that his martyrdom occurred in Lycia, which is in fact a region in Asia Minor, so he probably died in its capital city, Myra. He scares the emperor because of his face and also because of his giant stature. According to Legenda Aurea, he was about 5 cubits (2.3 m) tall and with a fearsome face. At the beginning, the emperor tries to convince him to renounce at his faith, later sends to him two beautiful women to make him fall in love, but no success with those. Both the 200 soldiers and the two women convert themselves to Christianity and because of that are sentenced by the emperor to death.

Finally, the saint is tortured, being put on an incandescent copper chair, but he speaks further about his vision of Christ, in a stronger light than the sun. In the end, after some other tortures, St. Christopher dies as a Martyr of Christ by beheading.

His Celebration

The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Saint Christopher on May 9. The Tridentine Calendar allowed a commemoration of Saint Christopher on 25 July only in private Masses. This restriction was lifted later (see General Roman Calendar as in 1954). Although the Roman Catholic Church still approves devotion to him, listing him in the Roman Martyrology among the saints venerated on 25 July, Pope Paul VI removed his feast day from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in his 1969 motu proprio Mysterii Paschalis. At that time the church declared that this commemoration was not of Roman tradition, in view of the relatively late date (about 1550) and limited manner in which it was accepted into the Roman calendar, but his feast is still observed locally.

In Greece, many churches place the icon of St Christopher at the entrance so that people can see it as they enter and leave the building. There is a small poem in Greek which says, “When you see Christopher, you can walk in safety.” This reflects the belief that whoever gazes upon the icon of St Christopher will not meet with sudden or accidental death.

His relics

The relics of St Christopher were firstly in placed in a church in Lycia, and later transferred to Toledo and finally to the abbey of St Denis in France.

The Church of Saint Justine from the Rab island of Croatia possesses in its museum a gold-plated reliquary which probably holds the skull of St. Christopher. The relics came here in the 11th century, having a special honor in the local belief. The legends say that when it was placed upon the city wall, it destroyed a siege of the city by an Arabian army.

Saint Christopher is the patron saint of many regions and town, such as: the ancient lands Baden, Brunswick and Mecklenburg in Germany, Saint Christopher's Island (Saint Kitts) from the Carribean Islands, town of Barga in Tuscany, Rab in Croatia; Roermond in the Netherlands, Girona in Catalonia, Mondim de Basto in Portugal, Agrinio in Greece, Vilnius in Lithuania, Riga in Latvia, Havana in Cuba and Paete in the Philippines.

Troparion (hymn) of Saint Christopher

“O, Christopher, robed in the purple of your martyrdom, you came before the Lord of Heaven; therefore with choirs of angels you sing now the Thrice-Holy Hymn. Intercede for the salvation of those who honor you!”

Saint Stephen the Great, prince of Moldova (+2 July 1504)

2011-07-06T19:51:00.004+03:00

Saint Stephen the Great, known also as Stephen III Muşat (1457-1504) is one of the most celebrated saints in the modern Orthodoxy in Romania. Being a big hero of our history and big protector of the Church, ther was decided in 1992 to proclaim his saintness, being celebrated on 2nd July, in the day of his passing away.

His human qualities, as a good politician, strategist and diplomat, his actions in order to protect the integrity of his country, and his cultural sensibility caused a big admiration in Moldova and in the whole Europe, and thanks to the popular tradition, was transformed into a legendary hero. Moreover, Pope Sixtus IV called him Athleta Christi (athlete of Christ) and the people composed the ballad: ”Stefan Vodă (Prince), the great Lord, has no equal into the world but only the proudly sun”.

There is quite controversial to speak about a saint like Stephen the Great, and the public media brought a lot of arguments against his saintness. In this way, there is a problem to which the modern Christians should answer: how should we define the saintness and which man/woman can be proclaimed as a saint? But to this question we will answer later. Now, we should expose shortly the life of such a wonderful man for the political and Christian history of Romania.

Stephen the Great was born sometimes around 1430 in the village of Borzeşti, being the son of the Voivode Bogdan II Muşat of Moldova (1449-1451) and Lady Oltea, a noblewoman in the „Lowlands” of Moldova, from the family of Basarab, the rulers in Wallachia in that time. His ancestry is, by following, a noble one. His ancestor, Bogdan I founded the principate of Moldova at the end of the 14th century, and the Family of Muşat was connected by marriages with a lot of kings’ families from the whole Europe.

The young boy Stephen grew up far away from the voivodal Court from the capital city of Suceava. Probably he had some others brothers from his father’s marriages, thing that is quite unclear. Anyway, in 1451 his Uncle, Petru Aron, killed his father during a feast in Reuseni and becomes the new voivode of Moldova. In the same time, Petru Aron signs the first treaty with the ottoman Turks, so that Moldova becomes for the first time a vassal state of the Otoman empire.

Petru Aron tried to kill all the pretenders of the Throne, only Stephen escapes and run in Wallachia, to his cousin, Voivode Vlad III (well known in the western literature as Dracula). Later, in 1457 Sephen comes back with military enforcements from Vlad and sieges in the battle of Doljeşti, near Suceava. Since then, he becomes the new voivode of Moldova, ruling for about 47 years. He is unctioned as voivode, after the Byzantine ritual of consecrating the emperors, by the metropolitan Teoctist of Moldova. This is the longest reign in the whole history of Romania, excepting King Carol I (1866-1914), who is the exponent of the modernization of Romania.

Internal Politics

Stephen the Great changed the internal politics since the beginnings. He restraints the rights of the noble families, even punishing many of them to death. One of the preferred punishments in the Middle Ages was the impaling, and Stephen doesn’t make any exception from that rule. This thing will be controversial for the judging his saintness.

Anyway, we must understand his way of ruling in the mentality of the Middle Ages, which was not such humanistic in the way we understand today.

The local tradition tells that Stephen was confessing to an ascetical father from the Carpathian Mountains, known as Daniil Sihastrul (“The Hesyhcast” + 1497, also a saint), who counseled him not only in the spiritual, but also in his political actions.

The political situation of Moldova was very difficult, being situated in the sphere of influence of three great powers: the Ottoman Empire, who conquered under Mehmet II the Constantinople in 1453, the Kingdom of Hungary, ruled by Matthias Corvinus, and the Kingdom of Poland, ruled by Casimir IV. So, the political purpose of Stephen was to maintain the equilibrium between them and also to remain independent, as much as possible. That situation was but very difficult, and he was obliged to bear about 50 wars against those kingdoms and also against the Tatars who came quite often, destroying everything.

Stephen replaced all the noblemen who had another interest than protecting the country. Sometimes, after a battle, he named as noblemen some peasants, and punished the traitors. Also he was interested in building strong fortresses at the borders of the country, which proved to be very important in the later politics.

Building Churches

Stephen opened an interesting tradition, so after every battle he was building a church or a monastery, even if winning or losing it. His mentality was, that even in the battle against the enemies, killing the invaders is still a sin, so he wanted to build a church for the souls of the dead soldiers, Moldavians or enemies. Also, after all the battles he was fasting for a period and he obliged also his soldiers to fast, in order to be cleaned by the sin of killing.

Between the 44 documentary attested churches built by his command, there is worthy to mention the reconstruction of Neamţ Monastery, an important cultural centre for the whole history of Romanians, the Voroneţ Monastery, known also as “The Oriental Sixine Chapel”, because of the beautiful painting and the well-known scene of the Last Judgement, and Putna Monastery, where he was buried. This last one is very important, because at the end of the 19th century here started the actions of the Romanian Upraising from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. So, Putna and the grave of Stephen the Great were symbols for the independence of the nation.

External politics

Stephen loved very much the culture and not only the Eastern one. At his court were poets, doctors and literate men from the Western countries, and he corresponded through letters with many rulers from the West. After the big battle of Vaslui (1475) where he won against Mehmet II, the same who conquered the Constantinople, His Holiness, Pope Sixtus VI named him Athleta Christi, and thought about the possibility to open a new battle against the Turks. Anyway, the plan never realized. In the next year, 1476, Stephen found himself alone against a big Turkish army and looses. He was almost to run away from the country, because none from the Western Kingdoms helped him, but after the advice of the monk Daniil, he starts the war again. In the end, he would be obliged to make peace with the Turks, paying an annual tribute in money and different materials. Another fights sent away Matthias Corvinus (Baia, 1467) and John Albert of Poland (Codrii Cosminului, 1497), establishing the independence of the country against Hungary and Poland.

After a glorious kingship, Stephen died on 2nd of July 1504. The funerary cortege went from the capital of Suceava to the Monastery of Putna (about 70 km) and the chronicles registered that a lot of people came to the funeral as crying after their own father. Interesting to say, that after the popular television contest, known as “Mari Români” (The greater Romanians), which also happened in some other countries, Stephen the Great was voted the Biggest Romanian from all the times, being followed by the King Carol I (1866-1914).

What about his sainthood?

This question came and still comes today in our media and press. Stephen was quite harsh with his enemies. Furthermore, he had three wives and many other illegal adventures. As an example, his illegitimate son, Petru Rareş is the most known son he had, and also voivod of Moldova, after his official brother, Bogdan III (1504-1517), because he was promoted in this position by the Turks, through his intelligence and money (1527-38 and 41-46).

Being saint or hero, these are two different things, but his canonization was not only a nationalistic business of the modern Orthodox Church in Romania. The first reason of being a saint, is that of protecting the Church in Moldova and helping it. Stephen is well known also by helping the monasteries from the Mount Athos, who were at that time in a very difficult financial situation, and in danger to be sieged by the Turks. Of course, financing the Church doesn’t mean automatically the saintness. But Stephen is known through the contemporary chronicles as a very faithful voivode, who was respecting all the Church traditions, such fasting, praying, helping the poor and the widows and so on.

The second argument of being a saint is, that he was a very just voivode, a strong fighter against corruption and lies, strongly practiced in the Middle Ages. But not only his justness was the quality of the voivode. He was a very modest man, living in a modest home, and exercising the virtue of humility in front of the priests, monks and other men and women of God. We mentioned already his humble attitude after a war, fasting and praying for the dead soldiers, equally if his own, or the enemies.

The second argument, quite unknown since a few years, is the way he died. It is well known that he crowned his own son even before his death. In the Middle Ages, the laws in Moldova stated that they cannot be two voivodes simultaneously, so probably he entered in the monastical status. Eve if that was not confirmed by the chronicles, in the middle of the 18th century his grave was opened, and his Relics were found in the Porphyry robe, usual for the voivodes. Still he had no coffin, but his body stand on 13 iron bars, and under his head was found a brick. Those things can attest the fact that Stephen died as a monk, such as also some of his successors, like Alexandru Lăpuşneanul (1552-61 and 64-68).

Finally, for the Eastern Christianity, the process of canonization differs from the western one. The necessity of the relics, or of the miracles is not obligatory. Instead of it, the popular veneration of a saint and the orthodoxy of his faith are obligatory, in order to proclaim him officially. That was also the old practice of canonization, because in the first centuries there’s totally unknown any process of making someone as a saint.

In this way, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church proclaimed him as a saint on 2nd July 1992, during a big feast at the Monastery of Putna. The celebration of 500 years after his death, in 2004, was a National Holiday.

Troparion of the Saint

“Fearless defender of the faith and of our country, great founder of sanctuaries, O, Prince Stephen, pray Christ the God to deliver us from the troubles and needs!”

Saint Paul the Apostle

2011-06-28T11:00:00.002+03:00

Saint Paul, well known as the Apostle of the Nations, or “Apostle to the Gentiles” (Romans 11,13, Galatians 2,8, 1 Timothy 2,7), has been almost all the time associated with the other big Apostle of the Church, Saint Peter. Except the period that both lived and preached in Rome, about the period of Nero’s reign as emperor, there’s possible that both met only twice in their lives and there may possible, that they hadn’t quite the same ideas about preaching the Gospel among the nations. But until coming to the point about the ideas and the mission of St. Paul, there’s also important to mention that he is the most important writer of the New Testament. If we try to calculate statistically, Paul wrote about one third of the whole canonical corpus of the New Testament, being followed by St. Luke with about one fifth, and the Saints John the Evangelist and Matthew, with some around one tenth each. Of course, the statistics are not very appropriate concerning the Bible, but they may show us about how much important is the teachings of St. Paul for our Church.

There is also to mention the fact that, according to the new scholar researches, St. Paul would be the first to mention about the Last Supper and the words of Our Lord about the bread and the wine as His Holy Body and Holy Blood, in 1 Corinthians 11,23-26.

Paul’s Biography

The main source for historical informations about Saint Paul’s life is the material found in several of his epistles, such as Galatians and Romans and the Book of Acts, written by St. Luke, who may have been a mission-comrade to Paul. Even if the Book of Acts is after its twelfth chapter no more an Acta Apostolorum, but either an Acta Pauli, that writing tells us nothing about the Paul’s life after arriving Rome, or about his supposedly martyrical death.

As there is known, St. Paul is born in Tarsus, the capital city of Cilicia, in the southern Turkey today. Being a roman citizen and a scholar in the Rabbinical School of Gamaliel, we may imagine that he would be born in a rich family, of tent-makers, a trade that Paul practiced in order to support himself throughout his ministry. At his time, only a few people in the East had the privilege of being Roman citizens. This quality helped Paul a lot in his mission and later escaping him from the furious people from Jerusalem, who wanted him dead. On the other side, being “of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee”(Philippians 3,5, but also at Acts 23:6), and a scholar “at the feet of Gamaliel”, it means that he was a very good knower of the Hebrew Law, that being obvious also from his teaching in the Epistles. On the other side, there’s known that Gamaliel gave an advice at the rabbinical council in Acts 5:34-39, to “refrain” from slaying the disciples. That may be interpreted that his teaching was not a fundamentalist one, being somehow in contrast to the rashness of his student Saul, who went on a rampage, after the death of Stephen, persecuting the “saints”.(Acts 9:13; Acts 26:10)

His original name Saul, in Hebrew Shaul, means “asked for, prayed for”, and was a regular name towards Israel. The usage of the name Paul comes first after his conversion, when he begins his first missionary journey into a new territory.

Paul as an Apostle

Before his conversion, Paul may have been living in Jerusalem in the times when Jesus was convicted and crucified. Anyway surely he was among the ones who convicted St. Stephen to death, even if himself didn’t stoned him, but he just guarded the clothes of the ones who killed the first martyr (Acts 7,58 and 8,1). Paul himself confesses in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians that he persecuted the church of God “beyond measure”, prior to his conversion. So his activity was a strong struggle against the ones who confessed that Jesus is Messiah. But even like that, the episode of his conversion makes us to believe that his “persecution” was not only a fight against, but also a personal searching of the Truth. Also his fury and his ambitious character, first exercised against the Church, provd to be changed by Our Lord into good qualities for preaching His Gospel.

On the way to Damascus, where he was sent to imprison the Christians, Paul has a vision and Jesus Himself shows himself to him as a thunder of light (Acts 9,3). Paul hears a voice saying: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (9,4). There is important to mention, that the Latin word persequeris is noted in the Greek version with “διώκεις”. The verb διώκω means in the first understanding, to run swiftly in order to catch a person or thing, to run after someone, but metaphorically means to pursue, to seek after something eagerly. So the Words of our Lord may be understand also as “why are you running after me?”, discovering even to Saul himself that his struggle was in fact a running not against, but on finding Something, the Truth, the true Messiah.

Paul’s conversion can be dated to the years 31 – 36, by the reference to his letters. After being temporarily blinded and cured by Ananias, an apostle in Damascus, Paul may have lived there for a while. Shortly he left in Arabia (Gal. 1,17), which was commented either as the Nabataean Kingdom, or symbolically as Mount Sinai, the mount of the visions. Here went to seek God both Moses and Eliah, the very ones who appear in the Transfiguration episode in the Gospels. There’s possible that here occurred the famous ascension of Paul until the third Heaven, that he mentions in 2 Cor.12,2-5. Also Paul mentions that he went back in Damascus and only three years later he met the Apostles. This information is important, because that says partly, that Paul didn’t take his Apostolate through the Preaching of the 12 Disciples of the Lord but from the Lord Himself (Gal. 1,12), and also, because there should be pass some years, so that the Apostles believe him that he is no more a simple Pharisee, a persecutor, neither a kind of traitor infiltrated inside the Church, but the very Apostle of Christ.

The missionary Journeys

In the same epistle to Galatians, Paul states that he met Peter and stayed together with him for 15 days and he met also St. Jacob, the Lord’s Brother (Gal 1,18-19). Shortly after, he went to Antioch, where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. From there Paul started together with Barnabas his first missionary journey among the people from Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Greece, which accomplished with a great success, founding new communities in Iconium, Listra and Derbe. Shortly after his coming back in Antioch, the success of his mission had echoes, but the methods applied by Paul, without obliging the new Christians to respect the Jewish Law and customs, such as the circumcision, were quite strange to understand and to accept by the Palestinian community. So it happened the Apostolical Synod in Jerusalem, around the year 50. The decisions taken here were the ones applied already by Paul. The Christians are not obliged to respect the Jewish customs, if they were pagans before, but they must some minimal rules. Paul’s genius was obvious. In his epistles there’s quite clear that he respects the Jewish Law in which concerns its morality, but he refuses to accept the traditions and rituals, as unnatural for the New People of God. In this direction, the old and the new Christians, even if they differ in customs, language, traditions, they are the same: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3,28).

Even if the Council accepted the conversion of the non-Jews, Paul seems to have had a conflict with Peter. There is true, that Peter was an authority in the Church, but Paul doesn’t shy to attention him when he was wrong: being among the Christians in Antioch, Peter didn’t want to take the meal with the one not circumcised. Paul states that “when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel I said unto Peter before them all: If thou being a Jew livest after the manner of Gentiles and not as do the Jews why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Gal. 2,15). This verse shows that Paul became an authority in the Church such as Peter or James or another among the Apostles.

Second missionary journey

Paul leaves from Jerusalem for his second missionary journey, in the autumn after the Council of the Apostles. On their trip, Paul and Barnabas decided to separate, Barnabas taking John Mark with him, while Paul takes Silas. They travel to Tarsus, Derbe and Lystra. Here they meet Timothy, and later go to the western shore of the Lesser Asia. In Troy there’s possible they have taken St. Luke, because after this moment, the Evangelist refers as to the second person plural. Further, they go in Europe. At Philippi, Paul and Silas are put in jail, but after a miraculous earthquake, the gates of the prison fall apart and Paul and Silas are able to escape; this event led to the conversion of the jailor. They continued traveling, went by Berea and Athens where Paul preached to the Jews and Greeks in the Areopague about the “unknown God”, a masterpiece in the technic of oratory. In Corinth, Paul met Aquila and Priscilla who became faithful believers and helped Paul through his other missionary journeys. The couple followed Paul and his companions to Ephesus, and stayed there to start one of the strongest and most faithful Church at that time. In 52, the missionaries sailed to Caesarea to greet the Church there, and traveled down to Antioch to stay there for about one year before leaving again on their third missionary journey.

Third missionary journey

Paul began his third missionary journey by traveling all around the region of Galatia and Phrygia to strengthen, teach and rebuke the believers. When he arrived in Ephesus, he stayed there for a little less than 3 years and performed a lot of miracles, like healing people and casting out demons. Then he went through Macedonia, Greece, and as he was getting ready to leave for Syria, he changed his plans because of the Jews who had planned a plot against him, and had to go back through Macedonia. He finished his trip in Caesarea, intending to go back in Jerusalem, in order to help the community here with supplies.

Journey to Rome and the Martyrdom

In Jerusalem, the community there received him joyfully, but being in the temple for a prayer, Paul is recognized and beaten almost to death before being arrested by the Romans. That was his salvation, because he was a Roman citizen. Being kept as a prisoner in Caesarea for about one year and a half, he was transferred to Rome after his request and was released after the Roman commander realized that he was born a Roman citizen. Paul and his companions went on to Rome, which was probably their last missionary journey, in 60.

In this moment stops all the biblical informations about the Apostle. According to the traditions, Paul continued to preach in Rome and possibly traveled to other countries like Spain and Britain before he died as a martyr, probably also in Rome by beheading. This event has been dated either to the year 64, when Rome was devastated by a fire, or a few years later, in 67. Being a Roman citizen, he wasn’t tortured such as other Christians, and he wasn’t crucified as St. Peter. The tradition states that he might be executed in the same day with St. Peter, on 29^th of June, during the persecutions ordered by the Emperor Nero. The early liturgical solemnity of Peter and Paul, celebrated on June 29, may reflect the day of their martyrdom.

The intense activity of St. Paul is beautifully described by himself. It was a successful one, but not without troubles, beatings and other dangers. He says about himself that:

“… Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool: I am more in labours more abundant in stripes above measure in prisons more frequent in deaths oft; Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; Thrice was I beaten with rods once was I stoned thrice I suffered shipwreck a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often in perils of waters in perils of robbers in perils by mine own countrymen in perils by the heathen in perils in the city in perils in the wilderness in perils in the sea in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst in fastings often in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the churches. Who is weak and I am not weak who is offended and I burn not. If I must needs glory I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which is blessed for evermore knoweth that I lie not...” (2 Cor. 11,23-30).

Veneration

Fourteen epistles in the New Testament are attributed to Paul, those being to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, to Gallatians, to Efessians, to Philippians, to Collosenes, two to the Thesalonicenes, two to his disciple Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon and one to the Hebrews. The importance of his epistles is unmeasurable and speaking about them, on may write entire libraries without finishing.

The Grave of St. Paul was, according to the tradition, under the altar of The San Paolo alle Tre Fontane church in Rome. Another tradition holds that Paul was interred with Saint Peter at Catacombs by the via Appia until moved to what is now the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. St. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, writes that Pope Vitalian in 665 gave Paul’s relics (including a cross made from his prison chains) from the crypts of Lucina to the King Oswy of Northumbria, from northern Britain. However, Bede's use of the word “relic” was not limited to corporal remains.

In June 2009, Pope Benedict XVI announced the excavation results concerning the tomb of Paul at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. The sarcophagus itself was not opened, but was examined by means of a probe. It revealed pieces of incense and purple and blue linen as well as small bone fragments. The bone was radiocarbon dated to the 1st to 2nd century. According to the Vatican, this seemed to confirm the tradition of the tomb being Paul's.

Saint Paul is the patron saint of London and of another many cities and Christian Communities around the World. He is almost always celebrated together with St. Peter and millions of Christians bear his name.

Saint Paul is the author of the most beautiful hymn ever dedicated to love, which is to be found in the 1 Corinthians, chapter 13:

“If with the tongues of men and of messengers I speak, and have not love, I have become brass sounding, or a cymbal tinkling; and if I have prophecy, and know all the secrets, and all the knowledge, and if I have all the faith, so as to remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing; and if I give away to feed others all my goods, and if I give up my body that I may be burned, and have not love, I am profited nothing. The love is long-suffering, it is kind, the love doth not envy, the love doth not vaunt itself, is not puffed up, doth not act unseemly, doth not seek its own things, is not provoked, doth not impute evil, rejoiceth not over the unrighteousness, and rejoiceth with the truth; all things it beareth, all it believeth, all it hopeth, all it endureth. The love doth never fail; and whether there be prophecies, they shall become useless; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall become useless…”

Troparion of St. Apostles Peter and Paul:

“First-enthroned of the apostles, teachers of the universe: Entreat the Master of all to grant peace to the world, and to our souls great mercy!”

Saint Onuphrius from Egypt

2011-06-25T10:46:00.000+03:00

The name Onuphrius or Onoufrios (Greek: Ονούφριος) comes from Egyptian, Wenn-nefer meaning “the always-good being”, an attribute to the Egyptian god Osiris. In Arabic, the saint is known as Abū Nufar, which, besides being a variant of the name Onuphrius, also means “herbivore”, also an hermit.

St. Onuphrius is supposed to be lived as a hermit in the desert of Upper (southern) Egypt of Thebaida, in the 4th or 5th centuries.

The most complete and wide “Life of St. Onuphrius” is written by Paphnutius the Ascetic, an Egyptian monk who encountered him after a long journey in the Egyptian desert. There is uncertain which Paphnutius is this author. He could be Paphnutius of Scetis, a 4^th century abbot in the northern Egypt, named in the Apophtegmata Patrum or Paphnutius the Ascetic, named by St. John Cassian in his Dialogues with the Desert Fathers.

The Life of St. Onuphrius

Much about the early life of the saint is not known. A tradition states that Onuphrius had studied jurisprudence and philosophy before becoming a monk near Thebes, and later a hermit, that thing not being stated in the classical biography mentioned above.

According to Paphnutius, the author of the “Life” undertook a pilgrimage into the desert, to study the hermits’ way of life and to determine whether he must live such a life or not. After 17 days of wandering in the desert, thirsty and tired, Paphnutius came across a wild figure covered in hair, wearing a loincloth of leaves. Paphnutius ran away to a mountain, because he was afraid of the strange vision, possible a demon, but the figure called him back, shouting, “Come down to me, man of God, for I am a man also, dwelling in the desert for the love of God”. This part of the story is quite similar with the Life of St. Mary the Egyptian and St. Zosimas, because the authors of the ascetic lives inspire themselves many from the same type of tradition, so they use the same literary motives (“topoi”).

Turning back, Paphnutius talked to the wild man, who introduced himself as Onuphrius and explained that he had once been a monk at a large monastery in the Thebaida called “Erete”, but he later left it and lived as a hermit for 70 years, enduring the extreme thirst, hunger, and discomforts like heat during the days and coldness during the nights. After a while he was accustomed to this life. A miraculous palm tree grew near his cell, producing fruits 12 times in year (that is a clear account to the Tree of Life mentioned in the last Chapter of the Apocalypse). Also an angel came every Sunday and brought him the Holy Eucharist. Hearing about this story, Paphnutius forgets about hunger, heat, or even about the whole world, because he was symbolically in the “paradise” together with his new teacher.

Onuphrius took Paphnutius to his cell, and they spoke until sunset, when bread and water miraculously appeared outside of the hermit’s cell. After the night spent in the prayer, when Onuphrius had completely turned into fire, in the morning Paphnutius knew that Onuphrius was near death, and God sent him here, in order to know such an extraordinary life. Paphnutius asked the hermit if he should remain in this cell after his death, but Onuphrius told him, “That may not be, your work is in Egypt with your brethren”. After blessing him, Onuphrius died, being the 16^th day of the Egyprian month Paone.

Due to the hard and rocky ground, Paphnutius could not dig a hole for a grave, and therefore covered Onuphrius’ body in a cloak, leaving the hermit’s body in a cleft of the rocks. After the burial, Onuphrius’ cell crumbled an the palm tree fell down, which Paphnutius took to be a sign that he should not stay.

Onuphrius’ life is a typical life of the desert hermits or anchorites, in which the wonder-histories and the teaching are mixed in a pedagogical way, in order to help the monks to improve their personal but also comunitary life.

Veneration

Onuphrius’ cult spread across the Western Europe, Middle East, Eastern Europe and Russia. Both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches traditionally mark his feast day on 12 June (or 25 June for the Churches who respect the Old Calendar), the day of his death.

A part of his relics are situated in the church in Sutera, in Sicily, together with the relics of St. Paul the Hermit.

In Rome, the church of Sant’Onofrio, was built on the Janiculan Hill in the 15th century. Saint Onuphrius is venerated in Munich, Basel, and in the all southern Germany. The Duke Henry the Lion (1129 –1195) of Saxony, and of Bavaria, the traditional grounder of Munchen and a big crusader, held St. Onuphrius as his patron saint. Images of Saint Onuphrius as “wild man" were painted in many churches after the Crusades. Usually he is depicted as a wild man completely covered with hair, wearing a girdle of leaves around his middle.

The archbishop Antony of Novgorod wrote around the year 1200, that Onuphrius’ head was conserved in the church of Saint Akindinos in Constantinople. The Image of the Saint is depicted together with other anchorites at Yilanlı Kilise (or the Snake Church), in Cappadocia, already in the early Middle Ages.

A monastery dedicated to St. Onuphrius is situated in Jerusalem, at the far end of Gai Ben Hinnom, the Gehenna “Valley of hell”, where according to the tradition is the location of Hakeldama, the place bought with the 30 dinaries of Judas Iscariot.

The cult of St. Onuphrius is strongly spread in the Eastern Poland, where a monastery dedicated to him was built at Jableczna, dating from at least 1498. According to the legend, after a big flood, the waters of the River Bug brought, on the place of the actual altar, the icon of the Saint. At the Feast of the saint, celebrated according to the old calendar (25th June), every year come thousands of pilgrims and traditionally the bishops celebrate the Holy Liturgy 4 times during the night, at the 4 churches of the monastery. There are in Poland also other churches and some monasteries dedicated to St. Onuphrius, both catholic (Bircza, 1422) or orthodox (Posada Rybotycka, 1367 and Perehinsk, now in Ukraine, 1400).

Troparion of the Saint

In the flesh you lived the life of an Angel, you were a citizen of the desert and a treasury of grace, O Onuphrios adornment of Egypt. Wherefore we honour your struggles as we sing to you: Glory to Him Who has strengthened you; glory to Him Who has made you wonderful; glory to Him Who through you works healings for all.

Sărbătoarea de Suflet a Ortodoxiei Poloneze, la mănăstirea Jabłeczna

2011-06-24T09:05:00.000+03:00

interviu cu Înalt Preasfinţitul Abel Popławski, Arhiepiscopul Lublinului şi Chełmului

aby czytac interview po polsku, tutaj: http://mitrutpopoiu.blogspot.com/2011/06/uroczystosc-swietego-onufrego-u.html

În zilele de 24 şi 25 iunie are loc la mănăstirea Jabłeczna, situată la graniţa Poloniei cu Bielorusia, sărbătoarea Sfântului Onufrie cel Mare, potrivit calendarului vechi, respectat de comunitatea ortodoxă de aici. Cu această ocazie, numeroşi pelerini sosesc la acest locaş de închinăciune, transformând sărbătoarea Sfântului într-un adevărat praznic al Ortodoxiei poloneze, o Biserică dătătoare de mulţi martiri pentru dreapta credinţă, mai ales în secolul trecut.

Pentru a afla mai multe despre ce reprezintă pentru poporul polonez Sfântul Onufrie şi mănăstirea în care el este prăznuit, datată de la sfârşitul secolului al VX-lea, am fost primit cu bunăvoinţă pentru realizarea acestui interviu, de către Înalt Preasfinţia Sa Abel Popławski, Arhiepiscopul Lublinului şi Chełmului. Vlădica Abel este unul dintre cei 11 arhierei ai Bisericii Ortodoxe Autocefale a Poloniei, fiind din 1989 chiriarh al eparhiei ortodoxe din partea răsăriteană a ţării. De numele său se leagă renaşterea Ortodoxiei în această regiune greu încercată în ultimul secol.

Błagosłowite Władyka !

Înalt Preasfinţia Voastră, întreaga lume a auzit despre credinţa poporului polonez, dar nu toţi ştiu multe despre Ortodoxia de aici. Pentru binecredincioşii români este destul de dificil de înţeles modul în care se poate trăi credinţa ortodoxă fiind în minoritate. Ne-aţi putea da mai multe amănunte despre viaţa credincioşilor ortodocşi polonezi, într-o ţară majoritar catolică? Este respectată libertatea credinţei, sau uneori întâmpinaţi anumite dificultăţi?

- Ideea că poporul polonez ar fi în întregime catolic e o percepţie stereotipă. Începutul ortodoxiei din Polonia coincide cu misiunea Sfinţilor Chiril şi Metodie, cei întocmai cu Apostolii. Din păcate, experienţa istorică, în special cea legată de Evul Mediu, a condus la situaţia în care tradiţia orientală a fost înlocuită în mod agresiv de către cea latină. Cu toate acestea, Biserica Ortodoxă din Polonia are o bogată tradiţie proprie. Pentru mai mult de o mie de ani, aşa cum am menţionat, am contribuit deosebit la spiritualitatea creştină a ţării noastre. Aşadar, Ortodoxia nu este străină statului polonez, fiind o tendinţă religioasă autohtonă, întrupând în sine conştiinţa, cultura şi identitatea naţională. Tradiţia Bisericii Ortodoxe a avut în mod special o influenţă importantă asupra istoriei jumătăţii de răsărit a Poloniei. Adepţii religiei greceşti - aşa cum erau numiţi ortodocşii - au reprezentat în anumite perioade istorice aproximativ jumătate din populaţia regatului polono-lituanian. Însă după unirea de la Brest, care s-a întâmplat în anul 1596, ortodocşii au devenit minoritari.

Consecinţele triste ale unirii de la Brest au devenit şi mai complicate ca urmare a pierderii independenţei Poloniei. Aşa se face că, la începutul secolului al XX-lea, o dată cu renaşterea statului polonez, ortodocşii au devenit fără vrerea lor simbolul celor 123 de ani de opresiune a imperiului rus. Perioada interbelică a însemnat, aşadar, o perioadă foarte sensibilă şi grea pentru Biserica Ortodoxă. Dar consecinţele cele mai tragice pentru relaţiile religioase şi sociale din Polonia sunt reprezentate de evenimentele din anul 1938, care au provocat indignare în Europa şi în întreaga lume. Este vorba despre distrugerea ilegală a 127 de biserici ortodoxe şi, în acelaşi timp, transformarea a peste alte 100 de lăcaşuri ortodoxe în biserici romano-catolice. Această acţiune a dus la deteriorarea semnificativă a imaginii Poloniei pe scena internaţională şi la agravarea relaţiilor cu alte ţări. Biserica Ortodoxă Rusă din exil şi-a exprimat îndeosebi indignarea, iar Patriarhul de atunci al Bisericii Române, Prea Fericitul Miron Cristea, a trimis poporului polonez, în semn de protest, toate medaliile şi premiile primite până atunci din partea guvernului de la Varşovia.

Următoarele tragedii pentru comunitatea ortodoxă din Polonia au însemnat alte două acţiuni, îndreptate în primul rând împotriva ortodocşilor din Ucraina Sovietică, în anul 1945, iar apoi prin “acţiunea Wisla”, din 1945. Prin aceasta din urmă s-a vizat repopularea teritoriilor din vestul Poloniei, câştigate de la Germania, cu ortodocşi polonezi, ucraineni şi bieloruşi din est, cu scopul vădit de a-i împrăştia. Această acţiune a afectat în mod direct Eparhia noastră, a Lublinului şi Chełmului şi se părea că acesta ar fi sfârşitul Ortodoxiei în regiunie. Eparhia a fost însă restabilită în anul 1989 şi, o dată cu ea, o nouă perspectivă pentru Ortodoxie. Astăzi, într-o ţară democratică, avem propriile drepturi, care reglementează relaţia dintre stat şi Biserica Ortodoxă şi suntem cetăţeni cu drepturi depline ai ţării noastre.

- În zilele de 24 şi 25 iunie, credincioşii polonezi vin la mănăstirea Jabłeczna, la sărbătoarea Sfântului Onufrie cel Mare. Ce reprezintă pentru Înalt Preasfinţia Voastră, ca ortodox şi ca arhiereu al Bisericii Ortodoxe Poloneze, această mănăstire?

- Mănăstirea Sfântului Onufrie de la Jabłeczna a fost în perioada interbelică şi mai târziu în statul comunist singura oază de viaţă monahală ortodoxă din Polonia, care a funcţionat ca mănăstire de călugări. În această chinovie s-a format o parte semnificativă a ierarhiei ortodoxe poloneze, inclusiv Întâistătătorul ei actual, Mitropolitul Sawa, dar şi eu. Sfântul Onufrie, pustnic din Egipt, a devenit patronul simbolic al comunităţii ortodoxe din Polonia şi în special al vieţii monahale. De aceea, astăzi poporul ortodox se îndreaptă către acest lăcaş de viaţă duhovnicească din Podlasia de sud. Pentru mine personal, mănăstirea Jabłeczna este matca duhovnicească în care m-am format spiritual.

- Cine a fost Sfântul Onufrie şi ce reprezintă acest sfânt pentru Ortodoxie?

- Sfântul Onufrie, ca anahoret egiptean care a dus o luptă duhovnicească în pustiu timp de 63 de ani, a devenit pentru ortodocşii de pretutindeni un simbol al vieţii ascetice şi întruchiparea spiritualităţii răsăritene.

- Ne puteţi explica, cum anume Sfântul Onufrie a devenit atât de popular în Podlasia şi în ţinuturile din jur?

- Mănăstirea Jabłeczna a fost în ultimul secol, să-l numim convenţional, perioada cea mai grea pentru noi, o oază de spiritualitate, singurul centru al vieţii monahale. Astfel s-a născut în inimile credincioşilor noştri popularitatea sfântului Onufrie, iar viaţa lui spirituală şi luptele sale au devenit cunoscute şi populare pentru mulţi dintre credincioşi.

- Ce se întâmplă în mod deosebit la Jableczna în zilele de 24 şi 25 iunie? Aţi putea să ne descrieţi, în câteva cuvinte, specificul acestei sărbători?

- În fiecare an, la acest praznic participă toţi ierarhii Bisericii Ortodoxe din Polonia, condusă de Întâistătătorul ei, Înalt Preasfinţitul Mitropolit Sawa, împreună cu mulţi reprezentanţi ai clerului, alături de pelerini din întreaga Polonie. Sfânta Liturghie este săvârşită în toate cele cinci biserici ale mănăstiri, mii de credincioşi primind acum Sfintele Taine ale Mărturisirii şi Împărtăşirii cu Trupul şi Sângele lui Hristos. Într-un cuvânt, pentru noi acesta este triumful Sfintei Ortodoxii.

- Mai sunt şi alte sărbători la care participă atât de mulţi credincioşi?

- O altă sărbătoare importantă pentru Biserica noastră Ortodoxă din Polonia este Schimbarea la Faţă a Domnului, prăznuită la mănăstirea de maici de pe Muntele Sfânt de la Grabarka, unde se adună de trei ori, sau chiar mai mulţi pelerini. Aceasta este inima spiritualităţii Bisericii noastre. Eu personal nu îmi pot imagina cum se poate trăi anul liturgic fără să fi participat la hramul mănăstirii Grabarka.

- Înalt Preasfinţia Voastră, v-aş ruga, în încheiere, să adresaţi câteva gânduri duhovniceşti pentru românii ortodocşi, cititori ai ziarului nostru. Vă mulţumesc!

- Admir comunitatea ortodoxă românească, pentru că în cadrul culturii occidentale, din ce în ce mai puternice, reprezentaţi o Biserică Ortodoxă înfloritoare. Am o mulţime de prieteni printre ierarhii, clerul şi credincioşii Bisericii Ortodoxe Române. De multe ori am ajuns în Transilvania, la Mănăstirea Maicii Domnului de la Nicula, lângă Cluj. Astfel s-a născut în mine o relaţie atât de frumoasă şi cordială cu întreaga Biserică românească. Tuturor celor care mă cunosc şi întregii comunităţi a credincioşilor le transmit salutările mele şi binecuvântări!

The Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist

2011-06-24T08:15:00.001+03:00

St. John the Baptist is one of the most important saint in the Christianity, known as the Forerunner Our Lord. The most important informations about him and his teachings are to be found in the Holy Gospels. There are also some other traditions and writings, which may be later dated. But an important accout about him comes from the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. According to his report from Antiquities 18.116-19, stated also by Mark 6:17-29; Matt. 14:3-12; Luke 9, 7-11, the Jewish tetrarch Herod Antipas, who was from 4 B.C. until his banishment to Lyon in A.D. 39 a “quarter prince” over Galilee and Perea, had executed John the Baptist at Machaerus, his fortress high in the mountains east of the Dead Sea. This fortress lay at the remote southern end of Perea, on the east side of the Jordan, not so far away from the place called Betabara, opposite to Jericho, commonly known until today as the place “in the desert” where John began his work of baptism “across the Jordan” (John 1:28; 10:40). After this event, all his apprentices either went to Jesus and became His disciples, either went back to their homes.

But why is John the Baptist a prophet and why Jesus called him as “bigger than the prophets and the biggest between the born from women” (Mt. 11,7-9; Lc. 7,24-26) ?

Some informations about the importance of this person, who binds the Old and the New Testament, we can know if we study the episode about his birth, which both the Eastern and Western Churches celebrate on 24^th of June, the (approximate) Summer Solstice.

Biblical References about the Event

The biblical texts referring to St. John the Baptist are always situated at the beginning of the Gospels: because John is a Forerunner per excellentia. Of course, some other stories about him come later, until his death, mentioned above.

In the Christian iconography, the Evangelist Luke is symbolized through a lion, and that’s because his Gospel begins with the prophetical text “The voice of the one who cries in the Desert: prepare the way of God…”, the text which is always associated with the ascetical life of St. John in the Desert of Judaea. Matter fact, this text, from Isaiah 40,3-5, comes by Luke only in his third chapter, precisely on 3,4-6. But the echo of John’s speaking is present from the beginning. So, Luke begins his Gospel not with a genealogy, but with the episode about the birth of St. John the Baptist.

In the 1^st chapter Luke tells that Zachariah, a priest from the Aaronite generation went to the temple and there he had a vision. An angel (Gabriel, the angel of the good news) came to him and told that he will have a son. Of course, Zachariah was astonished, firstly because of the vision and secondly because of the fact that he was already old, and his wife, Elisabeth, couldn’t have babies. According to the Jewish traditions, the couple without children was considered as cursed by God.

The angel tells about the future of the baby: “Fear not, Zacharias, for thy supplication was heard, and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear a son to thee, and thou shall call his name John, and there shall be joy to thee, and gladness, and many at his birth shall joy, for he shall be great before the Lord, and wine and strong drink he may not drink, and of the Holy Spirit he shall be full, even from his mother's womb; and many of the sons of Israel he shall turn to the Lord their God, and he shall go before Him, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn hearts of fathers unto children, and disobedient ones to the wisdom of righteous ones, to make ready for the Lord, a people prepared.” (Luke 1,13-18)

The story later is well known: Zachariah doesn’t believe such a thing and asks for a sign, so that the Angel tells him, that he won’t be able to speak until the day when he will put to the child his name. After that, the priest gets out from the temple and the people there understand that he have seen something exceptional, because his face was changed and he couldn’t communicate but through the gestures. So Zachariah goes home, and after a while Elisabeth gets pregnant.

In the meantime the same angel goes to Mary and tells her about the future birth of Jesus Christ, “The Son of God” (Luke 1,35). Later Mary goes to her relative, Elisabeth, and there happens a miracle: “And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe did leap in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke out with a loud voice, and said, 'Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb” (Luke 1, 41-42). The prophecy of the angel is being reality: John is full of Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb, being the first confessor of the divinity of Jesus. Another interpretation of his “leap” in the womb is that, John makes his first reverence in front of the Lord, showing that a prophet is smaller than the Son of God.

After a while, Elisabeth gave birth to the child and the relatives came to see the wonder. The Gospel says that they wanted to name him Zachariah, like his father, but the parents opposed strongly. They chose surprisingly the name John, and then Zachariah could speak again. The name of John, in Hebrew, Johannan, means “God is gracious”: He is Merciful with his people, sending him such a prophet.

After the birth, Zachariah sang a Hymn which is partly a prophecy about the future coming of the Messiah (Luke 1,67-75), and partly about the child John himself: “And thou, child, Prophet of the Highest shall thou be called; For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, To prepare His ways. To give knowledge of salvation to His people in remission of their sins, Through the tender mercies of our God, In which the rising from on high did look upon us, To give light to those sitting in darkness and death-shade, To guide our feet to a way of peace” (Luke 1,76-79).

Already the prophecy of Zachariah tells us the role and the importance of John. He is called for the first time as a prophet of the Highest, the one who goes before the face of the Lord. Those things tell even John about himself: “'I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet. And those sent were of the Pharisees, and they questioned him and said to him, Why, then, dost thou baptize, if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying, 'I baptize with water, but in midst of you he hath stood whom ye have not known, this one it is who is coming after me, who hath been before me, of whom I am not worthy that I may loose the cord of his sandal.'” (John 1,23-27, Mt. 3,11; Lc. 3,16; cf. Mc. 1,7-8). He is only the one who prepares the people for the coming of the Lord. His baptism is only a symbol of the repentance for the ones who were waiting for Messiah.

Some other things about St. John the Baptist

Finally, about the childhood of John we don’t know much, only that “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit, and he was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel” (Luke 1, 80).

The Christian tradition says that shortly after the event of his birth, Herod began his persecutions against the children around Jerusalem and Bethlehem and so Elisabeth and the child ran in the desert. In some circumstances Zachariah was killed. Shortly after, Elisabeth dies and John remains alone in the desert, being cared only by God Himself and His angels. So, being about 30 years old, he comes near the river of Jordan and begins his preaching about the shortcoming Kingdom of God.

Some other implications of his baptism and his teaching we will leave for another article concerning the Saint Prophet. Here we will stop only about another thing, and that is the confession made by Jesus about John. That happens in an episode, when John sends to Jesus some of his disciples to ask if he is Messiah, or if they must wait for another. This question is quite strange, after the miraculous events occurred earlier in the river of Jordan (The Epiphany). Anyway, Jesus answers indirectly, showing him the wonders happened: “Having gone on, report to John what ye saw and heard, that blind men do see again, lame do walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf do hear, dead are raised, poor have good news proclaimed; and happy is he whoever may not be stumbled in me” (Luke 7,22-23). Immediately after, Jesus speaks about John: “What have ye gone forth to the wilderness to look on? a reed by the wind shaken? but what have ye gone forth to see? a man in soft garments clothed? lo, they in splendid apparellings, and living in luxury, are in the houses of kings! 'But what have ye gone forth to see? a prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet: this is he concerning whom it hath been written, Lo, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee; for I say to you, a greater prophet, among those born of women, than John the Baptist there is not; but the least in the reign of God is greater than he.' And all the people having heard, and the tax-gatherers, declared God righteous, having been baptized with the baptism of John” (Luke 7,24-29).

In this confession Jesus states clearly, that John is neither a zealote (“reed shaken by the wind”), nor an essenian (“a man in soft clothes”). Even from here we understand that John is not politically engaged. He doesn’t wait for a political Messia, who will free the Jews from the Roman occupation. John is neither an essenian, even if until today some scholars make lots of parallels between his baptism and the ritual bathes from Qumran. Even living in the desert, John is a prophet, in the way that Eliah was. During those time were already a lot of people who believed that John isin fact Eliah who came back in the World. That happened because John was preaching and baptizing at Betabara, the place where, according the tradition, Eliah went to heaven. Jesus says more about John, that he is the greater born among the women, a one who prepares the Ways.

One more thing is to say. St. John the Evangelist mentions in his third chapter, that even Jesus started to baptize, not him directly, but his disciples. So happened that the people around started to question about that and went to John, saying about someone “stealing his practice”. Apparently Jesus took John’s “copyright” without permission. “…And they came unto John, and said to him, 'Rabbi, he who was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou didst testify, lo, this one is baptizing, and all are coming unto him.” But John, being aware of his mission says: “ no man is not able to receive anything, if it may not have been given him from the heaven; ye yourselves do testify to me that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am having been sent before him; he who is having the bride is bridegroom, and the friend of the bridegroom, who is standing and hearing him, with joy doth rejoice because of the voice of the bridegroom; this, then, my joy hath been fulfilled. 'Him it behoveth to increase, and me to become less; he who from above is coming is above all; he who is from the earth, from the earth he is, and from the earth he speaketh; he who from the heaven is coming is above all…” (John 3,26-31).

John is aware of his mission. He knows that he is only a man, the one who prepares the way. From the moment of the Theophany, Jesus must increase, and John must become less, because the history of the Salvation is written so. Nothing human can put God in shadow.

The Feast of St. John, between the Christianity and Paganism

In a mysterious way God fix the historical fact with the very astral things. If the Natalis Domini is celebrated on 25^th December, around the Winter Solstice, the smallest day of the year, the Birth of St. John the Baptist is celebrated on 24^th June, around the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. After this Feast, the days are becoming less, exactly like St. John himself. The very Nature becomes lesser and lesser, waiting for the Rise of the Sun of Justice, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

There are some opinions that the both Feasts of Natalis Domini and Natalis Iohanni are in fact not the very days of their birth. The Church fixed those dates around the 4^th century, in order to overlap two big feasts in the Graeco-Roman pagan calendar, that is Dies Solis (25^th December), respectively, Dies Dianae (midsummer), a Feast of the vegetation and fertility. That may be true. In the popular Romanian calendar, the Feast of St. John is known as Sânziana (Sancta Diana), or Drăgaica (from the Slavic root drag, meaning love), a statement that there were mixed two popular traditions, the Roman and the Slavic, both stating the importance of the Middle of the Year. This feast has an important role in prophecing the future of the year and even the future of the members of the comunity. Only the plants collected in that day have the best curative qualities.

There are hundreds of traditions and practices with a clear pagan connotation. But that mustn’t be a scandal for the Christians. The very nature works together with God for our own salvation and Christ had prophets also among the pagan nationalities.

St. Gregory Dascălul (“the Teacher”), the Metropolitan of Wallachia (1822-1833)

2011-06-22T01:08:00.002+03:00

St. Gregory “the Teacher”, a recently canonized saint in Romania, lived a monastic exemplary life and at the same time he was a loving man of culture. Due his activity, the movement of the revival of monasticism (known as the “philokalic” movement, or “neo-patristic”) was spread in the south of Romania, through the translations of patristic works into the local language, which is Romanian. Moreover, he revived the Romanian elements in the Church worship, supporting the printing of the liturgical books in Romanian.

Early Life

He was born in Bucharest, in 1765. His parents have supported his high education in the classical and spiritual sciences. Gregory showed an extraordinary intelligence, being the best student of the College of Saint Sava, the best Romanian school of his time. There he studied Latin and Greek, Theology, Grammar and other sciences.

During his studies at the College of Saint Sava, he met the monks Gherontie and Dorotheos, two of the disciples of St. Paisie from Neamţ, the Abbot who started the revival of the monasticism in Romania and Russia in the late eighteenth century. At that time, Moldova and Wallachia were two romanian separate states, under the Turkish rule, Gregory being Wallachian.

In 1790, St. Gregory came by himself at Neamţ Monastery, situated in the northern part of Moldova, where he was a direct apprentice of Paisie Velichkovsky, who tonsured him as a monk and taught him the rules of monastic life. In the monastery of Paisie lived at that time several hundred of translators and copyists, who influenced the spiritual life in Moldova, Wallachia and Russia for more than a century. Among them, being well acquainted with Greek, St. Gregory has translated various works of the Church Fathers, encouraged by Paisie.

Printing activity

In 1796, Dositei Filitti, the Metropolitan of Wallachia (Walachia) has specifically requested two translators from Neamt Monastery. The monks Gherontie and Gregory were chosen by their Abbot for this mission and so they began printing in Bucharest, in 1799 the “Useful book for the Soul”, which is popular even today in the Orthodox space, being a kind of catechism. In 1801 the two monks were printed “the Kiriacodromion” of the Greek Scholar Nikiforos Theotokis, which explains the text of the Evangelical readings in the Sundays throughout the whole year.

In the meantime, the Metropolitan of Moldova, Veniamin Costachi urged them to translate “The pious mystery of our orthodox faith”, printed in 1803, and “Interpretation of the Gospels” of St. Theophylact of Bulgaria, published in 1805. In 1806 it was printed the translation of the “Dogmatica” (“Teaching of the true Faith”) of St. John Damascene, an essential book of theology from the 8^th century. In addition, the monk Gregory has translated and published some other books in Romanian.

In 1812, St. Gregory and Gherontie went together to the Holy Mountain (Mount Athos), to “worship God in the holy monasteries there and to meet with parents for the benefit of the pious soul”. On their return, near the city of Plovdiv in Bulgaria, they were attacked by robbers, and Gherontie died due the cruel beating. Gregory retired to Căldăruşani, near Bucharest, for five years between 1818 and 1823, until his election as Metropolitan of Wallachia. Here he translated in Romanian some very important books for the candidates for the priesthood, namely: “Treatise on the priesthood” of St. John Chrysostom and “Word for the priesthood” of St. Gregory the Theologian.

Metropolitan

In 1822, after 110 years, it was elected a Romanian of Wallachia, namely Grigore Ghica. He supported the election of a new Metropolitan in Bucharest, in a time when there was no bishop in Wallachia and after a difficult war with the Turks.

Elected as metropolitan, Gregory took firm balanced and full of wisdom decisions concerning the revival of the spiritual life of his country. He managed to ban the Greek bishops in the south of the Danube to ordain priests outside their diocese. That practice was quite “normal” in the Middle Ages, so that many priests knew almost nothing about their own faith. After a complaint addressed to the Patriarch in Constantinople, this practice stopped.

At the decision of Metropolitan Gregory, many schools were provided with books and the best teachers were brought in to teach. Gregory knew that cultural and spiritual progress are mutually reinforcing, so he helped many poor students to study and tried to build theological seminaries, for the good preparation of the future priests and teachers. Above all, he tidied up the monastic life, trying to reestablish the rules of the Church Fathers in Romanian monasteries.

After the outbreak of new conflict between Russia and Turkey in 1828, Gregory was forced to flee to Chisinau. In 1831 the Government in Bucharest required his resignation, but Gregory refused, saying: “God gave me a soul and a diocese, then I will leave the diocese when the soul will get out of my body, because these are things that concern the salvation of the souls”. It was only on 22 August 1833 he returned to Bucharest, but he lived only one year more, passing into eternity on June 22, 1834. He was buried sitting in a chair, in a vaulted tomb near the Metropolitan Cathedral in Bucharest. Over seven years, his bones were moved to Căldăruşani Monastery. His will may be found in the preface to the translation of the book “the Wheat-Sharing” of Saint John Chrysostom: “Only so much I desire to live, in order to help the Orthodoxy, my people and my brothers, so that they can easily acquire the eternal goodness through the teachings of the saints”.

The Veneration of Saint Gregory the Teacher

Gregory “The Teacher”, venerated already for a long time in Bucharest and around, was officially canonized on May 21, 2006, his feast day being on June 22, the day of his passing away. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church has approved this decision in the October 2005 work session, at the proposal of the Metropolitan Synod of of Muntenia and Dobrogea (which is the Metropolis of Wallachia).
The relics of St. Gregory are currently in the Căldăruşani Monastery, where he himself spent five years between 1818 and 1823, until he was elected metropolitan.

Troparion

The Hymn of the saint is the same for the Holy Hierarchs (e.g. St. Nicholas of Myra has the same hymn in the Church Cult):

“In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence; your humility exalted you; your poverty enriched you. Hierarch Father Gregory, entreat Christ our God that our souls may be saved!”

Kontakion (Specifical hymn of the Saint)

”The Romanian Church had you as Fearless defender of the right faith and compassionate facilitator for the oppressed people, o, Holy Hierarch Gregory, because you have advised the priests and the faithful people, you’ve taught the youth and protected the orphans and your wise writings and teachings remained priceless treasure of our Orthodox Church!”

Conferinţă ecumenică luteran-ortodoxă despre rolul teologiei în rezolvarea problemelor contemporane

2011-06-20T17:53:00.003+03:00

În zilele de 16-18 iunie au avut loc la Bamberg (Germania) lucrările simpozionului internaţional „Ecumenism şi Ortodoxie în Europa” („Ökumene und Orthodoxie in Europa“), sub egida Centrului de Cercetare “Dietrich Bonhoeffer” şi a Institutului Internaţional de Cercetare Ecumenică „Trinitas” pentru Teologie Ortodoxă şi Cultură, din cadrul Facultăţii de Teologie Evanghelice din oraşul bavarez. Conferinţa a adus împreună 49 de invitaţi permanenţi, din Anglia, SUA, Africa de Sud, Rusia, Bulgaria, Grecia, Ucraina, România, precum şi din ţara gazdă, care au discutat pe marginea relaţiei dintre teologie şi problemele lumii contemporane.

În cuvântul adresat participanţilor, prin intermediul Înalt Preasfinţitului Mitropolit Serafim, Prea Fericitul Părinte Daniel, Patriarhul Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, remarca faptul că problemele actuale, precum cea a mediului, sunt urmări ale crizei morale prin care trecem astăzi, iar ieşirea din această criză este posibilă numai prin raportarea iubitoare faţă de aproapele. Europa de azi se află în negare a propriei culturi, susţinea profesorul Wolfgang Huber (Berlin), iar Bisericii îi revine astăzi importanta misiune de a reafirma identitatea noastră creştină, prin propovăduirea Evangheliei lui Hristos.

Dialogul interconfesional - o necesitate în înţelegerea aproapelui

Dialogul intercreştin este începutul raportării pozitive către aproapele, dar aceasta nu înseamnă pierderea propriei identităţi, ci înţelegerea celuilalt. Unul dintre promotorii acestei forme de dialog interconfesional a fost, în anii de la mijlocul secolului trecut, însuşi părintele Dumitru Stăniloae, care avut iniţiativa începerii discuţiilor dintre teologii ortodocşi români şi cei luterani germani, după cum afirma Johann Schneider, referentul Bisericii Evanghelice din Germania pentru dialogul cu Ortodoxia.

Organizatorul acestei conferinţe, profesorul Daniel Munteanu de la Facultatea de Teologie din Bamberg, afirma că adâncirea dialogului ecumenic dintre cele două confesiuni duce la dezvoltarea unei culturi a păcii şi a reconcilierii, ale cărei efecte pozitive se simt prin transformarea societăţii contemporane. La întrebarea firească - în ce măsură teologia poate servi lumii moderne - se poate răspunde că dezbaterea deschisă, bazată pe respectul reciproc, reprezintă un început bun în încercarea de recunoaştere şi apreciere a aproapelui şi a culturii sale. Aceasta potenţează încercarea de realizare a unităţii a Trupului mistic al lui Hristos, care începe prin înţelegerea reciprocă, dar totodată şi prin afirmarea pluralităţii. Nu unirea cu orice preţ a tuturor confesiunilor este scopul întâlnirilor ecumenice, afirma profesorul Jürgen Moltmann de la Tübingen, ci dialogul ca drum către înţelegerea şi cunoaşterea reciprocă, care era aproape imposibilă până acum câteva decenii. Acelaşi teolog afirma faptul că fără Ortodoxie, cultura şi teologia europeană este incompletă şi de neînţeles, bogăţia liturgică şi patristică a Răsăritului neputând fi ignorată de Occident.

Biserica şi lumea contemporană

Conferinţa a vizat, de asemenea, aşa-numita „teologie publică”, adică discursul teologic al Bisericii la întâlnirea cu lumea contemporană. Teologia creştină nu este importantă numai pentru teologi, ci pentru toate ştiinţele, ca model de înţelegere a omului şi a mediului înconjurător, care constituie împreună creaţia lui Dumnezeu. Deşi se afirmă deseori că un astfel de discurs cade în capcana relativizării valorilor creştine, acest lucru este departe de adevăr. Biserica şi-a expus concret învăţătura, prin scrierile Sfinţilor Apostoli şi ale Sfinţilor Părinţi, precum şi prin hotărârile Sinoadelor ecumenice, atunci când a fost nevoie de un răspuns. Această dinamică a creştinismului, denumită „teologie a contextualităţii” (Prof. Georgios Martzelos – Tesalonic), este vie şi azi, dând răspunsuri la probleme noi. Creştinismul ortodox nu cade în eroarea contemporană a panteismului (amestecând creaţia cu divinitatea) sau a deismului (separând creaţia de Creatorul ei), tocmai pentru că învăţătura Bisericii a fost îndreptată întotdeauna către fiecare om ca persoană capabilă de iubire, icoană a Sfintei Treimi şi nu către individualităţi impersonale (Pr. Ioan Tulcan – Arad).

Aniversarea unui teolog „al speranţei”

Simpozionul a ocazionat în acelaşi timp împlinirea a 85 de ani de viaţă a teologului german Jürgen Moltmann, numit de către Prea Fericitul Patriarh Daniel „prieten al românilor şi al teologiei ortodoxe româneşti”, cel care a susţinut traducerea şi publicarea în limba germană a Teologiei Dogmatice a părintelui Dumitru Stăniloae. Renumitul profesor, care a activat multă vreme la Facultatea de Teologie din Tübingen, a fost întotdeauna interesat de teologia crucii, etica socială şi de dialogul teologic îndeosebi cu Ortodoxia, fiind cunoscut ca promotor al curentului intitulat „teologia speranţei”, care vine prin Învierea Domnului. Părintele Ştefan Buchiu, decanul Facultăţii de Teologie din Bucureşti, evidenţia în referatul său, caracterul hristocentric al gândirii teologului german, care foloseşte nu rareori limbajul Ortodoxiei, dar totodată înţelege teologia ortodoxă ca o teologie a frumosului. Împărăţia lui Dumnezeu, vestită de Întruparea Mântuitorului Iisus Hristos, este o realitate care trebuie asumată de fiecare creştin, niciodată numai prin sine, ci totdeauna prin iubirea aproapelui.

Tagungsprogramm

Donnerstag, 16. Juni 2011

PD Dr. Daniel Munteanu & Prof. Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm: Eröffnung und Begrüßung

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Huber, Berlin: Die ökumenische Bedeutung der öffentlichen Theologie in Europa

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Jürgen Moltmann, Tübingen: Ökumene, Orthodoxie und Europa

Prof. Dr. Bernd Oberdorfer, Augsburg: Ökumenische Begegnung mit der Welt der Orthodoxie

Prof. Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, Bamberg: Öffentliche Theologie als Theologie der Hoffnung

Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. h.c. Michael Welker, Heidelberg: Ökumene und Pluralismus

Regionalbischöfin Susanne Breit-Keßler, ständige Stellvertreterin des Landesbischofs: Empfang durch die Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern

Grußwort S.E. Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea, Patriarch der Rumänisch-Orthodoxen Kirche

Grußwort des Oberkirchenrats Dr. Johann Schneider Referent für Ökumene, Stipendien und Orthodoxie Kirchenamt der EKD Hannover

Freitag, 17. Juni 2011

Prof. Dr. Celia Deane-Drummond, Chester: A Theology of Creation in a Changing Climate

PD Dr. Daniel Munteanu, Bamberg: Grundaspekte der Orthodoxen Ökotheologie

Prof. Dr. Cyril Hovorun, Kyiiv: Recapitulatio (anakaiphalosis) as an aspect of the Christian Ecotheology

Prof. Dr. Stefan Buchiu, Bukarest:Die Schöpfungstheologien von Dumitru Staniloae und Jürgen Moltmann

Prof. Dr. Georgios Martzelos, Thessaloniki: Die Rolle der kontextuellen Theologie der Orthodoxie in den ökumenischen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit

Prof. Dr. Dr. Theodor Strohm, Heidelberg: Ökumenische Diakonie im Horizont des Reiches Gottes

Samstag, 18. Juni 2011

Prof. Dr. Sergey Chursanov, Moscow: The trinitarian Doctrine and Christian Anthropology in Russian Orthodox Theology of the 20th Century

Prof. Dr. loan Tulcan, Arad: Die trinitarische Schöpfungstheologie Jürgen Moltmanns und ihr Gegenüber in der rumänisch-orthodoxen Theologie des 20. Jhds.

Assist. Prof. Dr. Petr Mikhaylov, Moscow: The Competence and Responsibility of Natural Theology

Assist. Prof. Dr. Ribolov, Sofia: Theology of Creation in the Bulgarian Theology of the 20th Century

The Holy Martyrs Zotikos, Attalos, Kamasis, Philippos from Niculiţel and other Martyrs from Scythia Minor

2011-06-04T09:58:00.003+03:00

The Land of Scythia Minor, the actual Romanian region of Dobrogea, situated between the Danube and the Black Sea was one of the first Christianized regions in the world.

The popular traditions say that St. Andrew the Apostle, in his way from Greece to Scytia (the today Ukraine) went through this region, where he would have stayed a few years, preaching the Gospel to the Dacians, Scythians and the Greek colonists from the cities here.

The attestation of the early Christianity here is also recognized through the archeological discoveries. A few dozens of churches from the 2^nd-4^th century show the intensity of the Christian activity here. Beyond the rich traditions about the Andrew’s preaching here, there is not much known. It is possible, that the Christianity would be preached here peacefully, also because the Dacians, the ancestors of the Romanians, the dwellers here were already monotheists.

Anyway, at the end of the 3^rd century and the beginning of the 4^th there are registered some strong actions of persecutions in the area, in the periods of the Emperors Diocletianus (284/305), Licinius (319-324) and later in the times of Julian the Apostate (361-363), respectively of the King Athanaric of Gothia (about 370-372). More than a dozen of soldiers, priests or simple citizens were killed because they confessed their faith in Jesus Christ.

About those saints martyrs there was not very much to know, only a few notes in some Synaxaries. At 4^th of June, the Syriac Martyrologium indicates only the Feast of St. Philip, but the “hieronimian” Martirologium, adds here the names Zoticus, Atalus, Eutichius, Camasis, Quirinus and other 28, unnamed.

These saints were almost forgotten, but they came one more time in the attention after an event which passed about 40 years ago.

In the summer of 1971, after some rich rainfalls, some locals from the small village of Niculitel, known much more because of its vineyards, discovered in a landslide some ruins. After more digging, it was obvious that there are not only some ruins, but an entire crypt built like a small chapel. Inside of it were the bones of 4 men, put into a wooden coffin, and above it were on the walls 2 inscriptions in Greek, painted in red colour: “Martyrs of Christ”, respectively “Martyrs Zotikos, Attalos, Kamasis, Philippos”. Both inscriptions were accompanied by the sign of Chrismon (XP), an old Christian symbol.

Even if the discovery occurred in the middle of the communist era, it made sensation between the archaeologists, historians and theologians. The crypt confirms the notation about some martyrs with those names, included in the synaxaries mentioned above and into an extended Greek synaxarion, together with other 32 more Christians who died in Scythia Minor, in the Old Noviodunum, a port at the Danube, not far away from the Danube Delta (the actual Isaccea). The historians believe that they died during the persecution of Licinius (319-324), or Julian the Apostate (361-363).

About the other 32 there is no more informations. Only the 4 Saints Zotikos, Attalos, Kamasis, Philippos were buried here. Because of the barbarian migration that occurred beginning with the 4^th century, probably the church, which was initially built over the crypt, was destroyed, and the crypt itself, situated under the altar, was covered with rests which protected it for more than 1500 years.

The archaeological researches discovered 2 more rooms, under this crypt, where there were found the bones of 2 more martyrs. The way those bones were found, made the specialists to believe that also these were martyrs. In the earth found, there were 2 offering vessels and a piece of sandstone with the inscription: “here and there the blood of the martyrs”. The 2 martyrs may be some earlier, maybe from the persecution under Decius (249-251).

On 17 January 1973, the Archbishop Antim Nica of the Lower Danube (from Galaţi) decided the holy relics to be moved in the Monastery of Cocoş from nearby. They are still in this monastery, being venerated by the all Orthodox Romanians. Over the martyrikon ther it has been later in the ‘80s a building which covers both the crypt itself and the ruins of the church, together with some findings from here.

Together with the 4 Holy Martyrs of Niculitel, celebrated in the Romanian Orthodox Church on 4^th of June, we mention some other Saints from the same period in the region between Danube and the Sea:

Bishop Ephrem of Tomis (the province’s metropolis), killed in on March 7, 304, was the first Christian martyr of this region, persecuted and killed during the repression ordered by emperor Diocletian. His feast is made on 7^th March, together with the Martyrs in Chersones, where all died as martyrs.

Deacon Ermil and his friend Stratonic, drowned in Danube during the persecution of Licinius (307-324). Feast on 13^th January

Saint Sava from Buzău, even if he died in the region occupied at this time by the Goths, in the actual central-eastern Romania, may be mentioned here. He was drowned in the waters of the Mousaios river (Buzău) by the orders of the gothic king Athanaric. His relics were asked by St. Basil the Great through a letter from St. Bretanion, the bishop of Tomis. He is celebrated in the Eastern Churches on 12^th April, and in the West, on 28^th April. He is important also because of the attestation of the Christian faith in the “pagan” regions beyond the Danube, so not in the Roman Empire.

Soldiers Pasicratus and Valentinus, died by beheading during the persecution of Diocletian in the city of Durostorum (today Silistra, in Bulgaria), in 298. Their Feast is on 24^th April.

Soldiers Cyril († 20 nov. 303), Kindeas /Candea (20 nov. 303) and Tasios/Dasius (20 nov. 303) from Durostorum (today Silistra), are together celebrated on 26^th April. About Dasius we know that he died during the feast of the Roman Saturnalia, because he refused to play the role of Saturn at the feast celebrated here by the Legion XI Claudia.

Maximus, Quintilianus and Dadas from the village of Ozovia (Ozobia) were probably Romans by name, only Dadas maybe Dacian. Maximus was lecturer in the Church. They were brought to Durostorum, beaten and finally beheaded on 28^th April 204.

Iulius the Veteran was contemporary with Pasicratus and Valentinus and died by beheading during the same persecution on 27 May 304, also in Durostorum.

Nicander and Marcianus, also soldiers in Durostorum, were strongly tortured and finally beheaded on 8 June 298

Epictetus, the priest and his apprentice, Astion the hermit, originals from the Small Asia, are celebrated on 8 July. They died as martyrs about in 290 BC, being from several years missionaries in Scythia Minor, in the City of Halmyris (today the village Dunavăţul de Jos), on the shore of Danubius. The Governor Latronianus tortured them terribly and finally ordered the beheading of them. They may be the first martyrs in Scythia Minor known today. In the Martyric Act of them (which is today to be found only in a copy from the 15th century in the Church of the Saviour from Utrecht), there are described the bodies of the two beheaded saints, as snow-white. The sick people used to kiss their relics and were sometimes healed. The Basilica from Halmyris was discovered in 2001 and also the Holy Relics of the Saints here, which are today in the monastery built here. Part of their relics can be found also in the Cathedral Church of the Archdiocese of Tomis, in Constanţa.

Emilianus from Durostorum, son of the Roman prefect Sabbatianus, was killed because he destroyed with a hammer the idols that he found in the city. Finally he died being threown in the fire, on 18 July 362.

Zilele Bisericii Evanghelice-Luterane la Dresden (1-5 iunie)

2011-06-02T12:06:00.000+03:00

Predica de pe munte a Mântuitorului Iisus Hristos este pentru toţi creştinii un izvor de învăţătură şi model de înţelegere a vieţii. Referindu-se la binecunoscutul verset “Că acolo unde este comoara ta, acolo este şi inima ta” (Matei 6,21), preluat ca slogan, reprezentantul Bisericii Luterane din Germania, Katrin Göring-Eckardt a deschis la 1 iunie lucrările celei de-a 33-a ediţii a Zilei Bisericii germane, în oraşul Dresden.

De mai bine de jumătate de secol, creştinii luterani din Germania organizează o dată la doi ani, în preajma sărbătorii Înălţării Domnului, manifestaţiile intitulate “Ziua Bisericii” (Kirchentag). Această festivitate bienală a fost gândită încă de la primele ediţii ale ei ca un mijloc de a face mai puternic simţită activitatea bisericească într-o lume din ce în ce mai secularizată. Pe lângă obişnuitele slujbe şi rugăciuni din biserici, cu această ocazie au loc în pieţele oraşului gazdă, în săli de conferinţă, în corturi special amenajate sau pur şi simplu pe stradă conferinţe pe teme religioase, concerte, prezentări de carte, seminarii pe teme biblice, dar mai ales dezbateri referitoare la problemele creştinismului actual.

Cea de-a 33-a ediţie a zilelor Bisericii Evanghelice din Germania, organizată anul acesta în oraşul de pe malul Elbei, a fost concepută ca o oportunitate de a regândi propria identitate religioasă şi de retrezire la creştinism a unei lumi secularizate, aşa cum a afirmat preşedintele responsabil cu desfăşurarea acestor manifestări, Katrin Göring-Eckardt.

La manifestaţiile creştine de la Dresden sunt asteptaţi peste 100.000 de participanţi permanenţi (înscrişi) şi numeroşi alţi invitaţi, care vor lua parte la cele peste 2200 de activităţi cu caracter religios şi social, între zilele de 1 şi 5 iunie.

Citatul biblic ales ca slogan în acest an trimite automat la întrebarea, ce anume este cel mai important pentru creştini şi dacă lucrul care îi uneşte este comoara pământească sau cea din cer. La această provocare a lumii contemporane va încerca să răspundă pe data de 2 iunie, de la o tribună montată în centrul oraşului, preşedintele consiliului Bisericii Evanghelice din Germania (EKD), Nikolaus Schneider, alături de alţi invitaţi. Această întrebare stringentă este văzută ca o chestiune-cheie a festivităţilor, următoarele conferinţe axându-se pe aceeaşi tematică, în care teologia încearcă să dea răspuns provocărilor secolului. Se va dezbate astfel asupra unor probleme, precum aceea dacă omul îşi poate regăsi bucuria vieţii în Dumnezeu, cum ne manifestăm în vremuri bune sau rele, sau care anume tip de economie aduce fericirea.

Biserica Ortodoxă este şi ea reprezentată la acest eveniment, printr-o prelegere despre importanţa dialogului ecumenic, susţinută sâmbătă, 4 iunie, în sala de conferinţe a Bisericii Evanghelice din Dresden, de către ÎPS Mitropolit Augoustinos, reprezentantul Patriarhiei Ecumenice şi preşedintele conferinţei ortodoxe din Germania.

St. Bede the Venerable, the Churchfather of England

2011-05-26T11:32:00.002+03:00

In the way that St. Patrick is the emblem of the Christianity in Ireland, St. Bede, also known as “The Venerable” could be considered the symbol of the Christian treasure of England.

The anglo-saxon Christianity have always had some particularities which made it special among the whole Church of Christ. The insularity of Great Britain and of Ireland made the customs here to be somehow distinct and conservative, if we compare them whether to the Eastern or to the Western Church. The Conversion of England itself is special, being the result of two distinct groups of missionaries, first among them being the ones who came from the Celtic-speaking lands (such as Bretagne or Ireland) and the second from Rome. For a long time the priests and the bishops remained here as married men, the the monks lived an ascetic individual life, approximately like the ones in the Egyptian Desert, the churches were emptier as we may imagine, and the baptism occurred often on the shores of the rivers. The Easter’s date was established independently from the rest of the Church for many years.

Like in Egypt or Cappadocia, the monasteries represent for Britain the beginnings of the new culture. Even before the Danish and later the Norman invasions, the monks were writing in Latin or Celtic some original pieces of Christian Works. Between those literate ascetics could be counted also Bede “the Venerable”, who lived in the 7th-8th centuries in northern England.

Bede (Old English: Bæda or Bēda, translated as “prayer”) was a Benedictine monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, (today Sunderland) and later at the monastery of Saint Paul (the modern Jarrow). The kingdom of Northumbria, in which he lived, was a native angle-speaking country which covered the north-eastern part of the actual England, which resisted to the Danish invasion, but it was conquered by the Normans in 954.

Among the convents in the area, Bede's monastery had a big library which included works by Eusebius and Orosius, which were used by Bede in writing his own historical works. Because of his historical preoccupations, he is well known as the “Father of the English History” both ecclesiastical and civil.

The life of Bede

Bede is born probably in 672 or 673 in Wearside or Tyneside, somewhere near the monastery of St. Peter in Wearmouth, where h went as a young child, at 7 years old. His education was putted under the care of St. Benedict Biscop (in calendars on 12 January), meaning that he would came from a high-class family. St. Benedict came from the French monastery in Lerins, bringing a lot of books which represent the first sources of the later Bede’s writings. After a while Bede went to the new monastery in Jarrow in 682, together with his new teacher, St. abbot Celofrith (25 sept.). He remained here until his death, which occurred in 735 BC.

From an anonymous writing about the life of St. Ceolfrith it might be possible to know something more about Bede’s youth. The plague in 686 caused the death of the majority of the monks in the monastery. Only the abbot and a young boy remained alive, trying to follow further the monastical rules and to continue the holy services. With this occasion the young boy is made priest. With this occasion we know that the ritual in the monastery insisted on the antiphonic type of singing, which means the monks were separated in 2 groups which sang alternatively, making the service more active. On some other source, Beda was made deacon when he was 19 and later priest with 30 years old, being ordained by St. John of Beverley (celebrated on 7 may), bishop of Hexham and York.

Scholar

Before writing the historical book which made him famous, that is the Ecclesiastic History, Bede started with some other minor works, intended as manuals for the classrooms, De Arte Metrica and De Schematibus et Tropis (both about the poetic art, written about in 701). Totally, he wrote approximately 60 books, the later being a letter addressed to his student, Ecgbert of York, from 734.

In 708, some monks at Hexham accused Bede of having committed heresy in his work De Temporibus, because he contradicted the standard theological view of world history as the six ages of the world, after the opinion of Isidore of Seville. In contrast, in his book, Bede calculated the age of the world for himself, rather than accepting the authority of Isidore, and came to the conclusion that Christ had been born 3,952 years after the creation of the world, rather than the figure of over 5,000 years that was commonly accepted by theologians. Bede wrote a letter to Wilfrid, the bishop of Hexham in which he replied, defending successfully himself.

Without speaking more about his minor works, we come directly to his Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum (The church history of the English people), a work of ecclesiastical and political history in 5 books and about 400 pages. It referes to the period from the Republic in the Caesar’s ages (about 55 BC) to 731 AD, when the work was written. The first 21 chapters covers the history of the English church before the mission of St. Augustine of Canterbury, that means, the “celtic” period, before the official Roman mission.

The Church History of Bede refers to different passages from earlier writers, such as Orosius, Gildas, Prosper de Aquitanie or Pope Gregorius I, mixing legends with historical facts. The speciality of Bede is using the new era’s year counting, that means he calculates the years in the way that the Scythian monk Dionysius Exiguus made in 525 BC. That means, he doesn’t use anymore the old calendars, based whether on the Foundation of Rome, whether of the Greek Olympiads, but he refers to the year 1 as the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Even if the later scholars found a mistake of about 4-7 years in the calculation of Dionysius, the new era represents a revolution in the modern thinking, placing Jesus Christ in the middle of the history and in meantime at the beginning of the Time of Healing.

If Dionysius is the author of the new calculation, Bede is the one who popularized the new calendar in Western Europe, with some expressions as “anno ab incarnatione Domine”, for the years before Christ and “anno incarnationis dominicae”, for the years and events before the Incarnation of Our Lord. In his time, the new year began with the day of the Annunciation, on 25th March.

At the end of his Ecclesiastic History Bede wrote some lines about himself, saying that he is spending his life in the monastery, being interested in the study of the Holy Scriptures.

Other Works

Bede was moreover a skilled linguist and translator, and his work with the Latin and Greek writings of the early Church Fathers contributed significantly to English Christianity, making the writings much more accessible to his fellow Anglo-Saxons.

Bede is also known for some chronicles and an adaptation of the Roman Martyrology.

He translated some works of the Church Fathers, wrote homilies, commentaries to books from the Bibles, of astronomy and time calculation (such as De Temporibus, mentioned above), educational works and some vernacular poetry.

Bede’s passing away

In 735 Sf. Beda got sick (of some breathing disease) but tried to teach further to the scholars and dictated his works further. On the Tuesday before Acension Day (26 May) his breathing became worse, and his feet swelled. He continued to dictate to a scribe, however, and despite spending the night awake in prayer he dictated again the following day. In the last night, he prayed the monks to remember him in their prayers. He said that “The time of my departure has come and my heart longs to see the beauty of Christ, my King”. He died exactly after finishing dictating his last work, a translation to the Gospel of St. John, singing “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost!”

A work known as “Cuthbert's letter” relates a five-line poem in the vernacular that Bede would have composed on his deathbed, known as “Bede's Death Song”. It is the most widely copied Old English poem, and appears in 45 manuscripts, but its attribution to Bede is not absolutely certain.

The text of the poem (adapted to modern English) is this:

“Facing that enforced journey, no man can be

More prudent than he has good call to be,

If he consider, before his going hence,

What for his spirit of good hap or of evil

After his day of death shall be determined”

A well-known saying of St. Bede is this: “Better a stupid and unlettered brother who, working the good things he knows, merits life in Heaven than one who though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a doctor, lacks the bread of love.”

Veneration

Bede died on 25th of May 735 in the Monastery in Jarrow. His body was moved from Jarrow and transferred to Durham Cathedral around 1020, where it was placed in the same tomb with Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. Later they were moved to a shrine in Galilee Chapel at Durham Cathedral in 1370. During the English Reformation, this shrine was destroyed, but the bones were reburied in the chapel. In 1831 the bones were dug up and then reburied in a new tomb, which is still there.

Other relics were claimed to be in the Cathedrals in York, Glastonbury, or even in the German town of Fulda.

As the author of Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum he gained him the title of “The Father of English History”. In 1899, Bede was made a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII, a position of theological significance; he is the only native of Great Britain to achieve this designation, only Anselm of Canterbury being also a Doctor of the Church, but he is originally from Italy. He is also the only Englishman in Dante’s Paradise (Paradiso X,130), mentioned among theologians and doctors of the church in the same canto with Isidore of Seville and Richard of St. Victor.

Bede became known as “Venerable Bede” (Latin: Beda Venerabilis) by the 9th century, but this was not linked to consideration for sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church. According to a legend the epithet was miraculously supplied by angels, thus completing his unfinished epitaph. It is first utilised in in the 9th century, where Bede was grouped with others who were called “venerable” at two ecclesiastical councils held at Aix in 816 and 836. Paul the Deacon then referred to him as “venerable” consistently. By the 11th and 12th century, it had become commonplace.

There is no evidence for cult being paid to Bede in England immediately after his death. One reason for this may be that he died on the feast day of Augustine of Canterbury (25th May). Later, when he was venerated in England, he was either commemorated after Augustine on 26th May, or his feast was moved to 27th May. He was first venerated outside England, mainly through the efforts of Saint Boniface and Alcuin. Bede’s cult became prominent in England during the 10th century revival of monasticism. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester (c. 1008–1095) was a particular devotee of Bede, dedicating a church to him in 1062, which was Wulfstan’s first undertaking after his consecration as bishop.

His feast day was included in the General Roman Calendar in 1899, on 27 May rather than on his date of death, 25/26 May which was then the feast day of Pope Saint Gregory VII. After the 1969 calendar reform, Bede’s feast day moved to its proper day, on 25 May. He is also present in the Orthodox Calendar on 27th May.

Hymn (Troparion)

“Throughout the dark years of thy times, O Bede, thou didst water the English lands and all the West with outpourings of grace, and like a skilled sower thou didst cast the seed of divine knowledge far and wide over the fields of thy Master, where, springing forth, it hath borne fruit for Him an hundredfold. Wherefore, having thus acquired boldness before Him, O venerable one, pray thou unceasingly that our souls be saved!”

Iubirea creştină şi terorismul internaţional

2011-05-17T00:03:00.002+03:00

Să aibă oare creştinismul ceva de a face cu terorismul global al ultimilor ani? Se poate vorbi despre o luptă nedeclarată între lumea creştină şi lumea islamică? Politologii, istoricii modernităţii, dar mai ales televiziunile şi presa vorbesc tot mai mult despre o temută ciocnire a civilizaţiilor, prezisă acum vreo 30 de ani în urmă de către Samuel Huntington în cartea omonimă.
Cu toată această presiune socială iscată de terorismul din ultimii ani, deja prin anul 2007, preotul Steve Turner de la Biserica anglicană a Sfântului Clement din Sydney, Australia, a îndrăznit să posteze un afiş mare chiar la intrarea în biserică, pe fundalul militar de camuflaj, pe care a scris: „Jesus loves Osama” (Iisus îl iubeşte pe Osama”), iar cu litere mărunte, dedesubt a adăugat că „Iisus a spus: iubiţi pe duşmanii voştri şi rugaţi-vă pentru cei care vă prigonesc” (Matei 5, 44). La puţină vreme, placatul a devenit deja celebru, fiind fotografiat şi publicat în numeroase ziare locale şi chiar internaţionale. Preotul Turner şi-a motivat gestul, prin aceea că opinia publică trebuie atenţionată. Isteria acelui 11 Septembrie a înrăutăţit relaţiile dintre oameni. Afişul nu este doar o sursă de amuzament, mirare, sau de ce nu, publicitate făcută în mod inteligent, ci un semn de exclamaţie care trebuie să trezească lumea creştină la realitate, să o readucă la esenţa ei, ferind-o de pericolul extremist.
Cât de departe se poate însă merge, în realitate, cu iubirea aproapelui? Aceasta este o întrebare pe care creştinismul a formulat-o şi reformulat-o încă de la naşterea sa, iar răspunsurile au fost, pe parcursul celor două milenii de existenţă, foarte diferite. Martirii primelor secole respectau întru totul cuvintele Domnului şi mureau în numele Dumnezeului iubirii şi al iertării, al Celui care a intrat în casa vameşului şi care se înteţinea cu desfrânatele şi cu proscrişii. Mai târziu, situaţia s-a schimbat, iar argumentaţia bine alcătuită de capetele luminate ale Occidentului, dar deopotrivă şi ale Bizanţului, au nuanţat porunca lui Hristos. Astfel că, în numele Lui, au început să se poarte războaie, să se organizeze cruciade, inchiziţii şi câte şi mai câte.
Îl iubeşte, în realitate, Hristos, chiar şi pe cel mai de temut tâlhar al lumii? Întrebarea revine în actualitate o dată cu evenimentul care a răscolit media în ultimele săptămâni, anume uciderea lui Osama Bin Laden, căutat de mai bine de zece ani. Brusc, ştirea a făcut înconjurul lumii şi evenimente precum revoluţiile din Libia şi Siria, ori catastrofa nucleară de la Fukushima au devenit neinteresante. Atât preşedintele american, cât şi cel rus, ceva mai târziu, dar şi alţi lderi politici au declarat că lumea e mai bună, mai sigură, după moartea teroristului numărul unu al planetei.
Să fie oare lumea mai bună după moartea unui om? Ne-am putea întreba dacă umanitatea s-a îndreptat în vreun fel după moartea lui Nero, a lui Diocleţian, ori după căderea imperiului otoman. Iar răspunsul, cu mare greutate ar putea fi unul pozitiv. Ura în lume nu moare o dată cu un om, nu dispare prin distrugerea unei organizaţii teroriste. Cuvântul e cel care schimbă oamenii. Cuvântul Domnului a schimbat lumea acum două mii de ani în urmă şi o schimbă şi azi, însă numai dacă fiecare dintre noi îşi deschide inima, pentru a primi pe Cel în care ne găsim pacea şi odihna.
Da, numai o singură moarte de Om a făcut lumea mai bună şi mai sigură. Însă o moarte care a fost urmată, a treia zi, de Înviere. De atunci lumea nu mai e la fel.

St. Gabriel Zabłudowski, martyr child of the Orthodox Poland

2011-05-03T19:10:00.008+03:00

The Saints and the anti-semitic myths from the Middle Ages

St. Martyr Gabriel Zabłudowski, in Polish language, Muczenik mładieniec Gawriił Zabłudowskij, in Russian: Гавриил Заблудовский or Белостокский (“from Bialystok”), was born in nearby of the village Zvierki, near the town Zabludovo (13 km away), in the Orthodox (probably Belarussian) family of Peter and Anastasia Gowdel (Russian: Gavdel, Гавдель).

According to the tradition, on April 11, 1690 the six-year-old boy left his home and for a while nobody has observed that he is missing. After some time, his body was found in the fields nearby. His death occured during the Jewish Passover, and because of this, the investigation and the judicial process ended with the indictment of the local Jewish population of kidnapping the boy. Especially it has been accused for this murder the Jewish arendator Shutko, who confessed under torture that he carried the boy to Bialystok.

According to the indictment, the child was tortured and killed ritually. The torture implied poking him with sharp objects and draining his blood for nine days, or imitating the Passion of Christ: pinned by the arms and legs on a wall and punctured, in order to collect his blood. Due to loss of blood, he died on April 20 (according to the Gregorian calendar, on May 3) 1690, and his body was secretly left on the edge of the forest near Zwierki. The prosecution facilitated the accusation by the fact that the child's death occurred during the time of the Easter Holidays, when according to the widespread belief, the Jews had carried out ritual murders.

Since the boy's burial in the cemetery in Zwierki the cult of the child was gradually growing among the Orthodox community. The cult of St. Gabriel came thirty years after his death, when during a burial, his tomb was opened by mistake, and there was found that his body has not decomposed. Immediately after this, many people began to argue that he makes wonders and heals the sick. There is the tradition that in his childhood he was distinguished among his peers by his piety and avoidance of conflicts on the playground. According to the local beliefs, the prayers to him ceased the epidemic prevailing in the area.

The Relics of St. Gabriel were soon moved from the cemetery in the church of Zwierki and miraculously survived the fire which occurred in the church in 1746, when they were further moved to the monastery in Zabludow.

In 1755 his relics were transferred to Slutsky Monastery of Saint Trinity, in the Guberniya of Minsk, attached was a placard blaming Jews for his death. His cult developed and spread throughout the Russian Empire, and the boy was officially canonized in 1820 by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. He is considered the patron saint of children.

In the 1930s, during the communist persecution in the former USSR, the relics were transferred to the Minsk museum of Atheism, as an example of the Christian “mystification”.

In 1944, the Relics were moved to Grodno (Bielorussia), where they stayed until 1992, when they were moved to Białystok, in Poland.

Today there is being building the church of St. Gabriel in Zwierki, to which the relics will be moved in the future.

St. Gabriel and the anti-semitism

Even if the Jews were well protected by laws in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, having a much better situation than in the middle-ages Spain or Germany, the anti-semitism was very strong also in this eastern-European region. The self-organization and the often self-seclusion of the Jews into their own cities and villages created in the mentality of the simple Christians a lot of superstitions, such is that the Jews use the blood of Christian babies for their ritual purposes during pre-Passover days. Needless to say, no evidence has ever been presented to support this defamation of the Jewish people.

In a old edition of the Catholic Saints, St. Simon of Trent is a young boy who fell victim to the brutal ritual murder of the Jews. After discovering the boy's body, the Tridentine Jewish leaders were tortured and finally confessed to the crime. Residents of the city burned them on the stake, and destroyed the synagogue. After the Second Vatican Council, in 1965 it has been made a new trial on the Simon of Trent which found the previous process to be invalid. As an effect, the name of Simon was removed from the Catholic Maryrology.

This kind of accusation against another religion is not something new. In the same manner, the Christians themselves were accused by the Romans in the first centuries B.C., that they kill a child and eat him in the Eucharistic rituals, or that they worship the head of a donkey. This kind of accusation comes often in the history of religion, in connection with the fear, created by “the others”, the unknown civilizations. The need of protecting its own religious and cultural identity brings many times to the most abdominal kind of accusations such as religious murders, ritual orgiastic cults and so on. This type of accusation could be connected today with the widespread Christian idea, that all the muslims are terrorists. In the same manner, many muslims believe even today that the Catholics and Orthodoxes are idolaters, because they are celebrating the cult of the saints nearby the cult to God.

In the context of such an anti-semitistic mentality, the accusation that Gabriel had been murdered by the Jews, who needed his blood to bake matzoth (the holy bread for Pessah), was spread quickly in the Orthodox regions of Eastern Poland, where the cult of the saint flourished. There is already known the fact about the medieval processes in which Jews were forced by torture to admit to imaginary crimes. So it might have happened also with Shutko, the supposedly killer, who confessed the murder.

Even today the anti-semitism is living in the Eastern Europe as in the whole world, but it must be made a difference between the general idea and some individual opinions. On July 27, 1997, on All Saints Day, the Belarussian state television also reiterated in the 1997 the thesis of the Jewish ritual murder made on the Orthodox children. The revival of the cult of St. Gabriel in Belarus was cited as a dangerous expression of antisemitism in international reports on human rights and religious freedoms. It was reported to the U.S. Congress on Anti-Semitism in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, as well as at the U.S. Congress Subcommittee on Foreign cases. These materials were also brought to the analysis of the Commission for Refugees United Nations (UNHCR).

St. Gabriel today

The strengthening of worship Gabriel today is due the Metropolitan of Warsaw and Polish Orthodox Church, His Beatitude Sawa, who led to the transfer of the remains of the saint child from the Belarussian town of Grodno to Poland, in the Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas, where they are still in the focus of the pilgrimages.

Currently, the cult of St. Gabriel is the largest among the Orthodox community in Poland and Belarus. He is considered the most important Orthodox saint born in the present borders of the today-Poland.

St. Gabriel is the patron saint of the children and also the patron of the Society of the Orthodox Youth in Poland (“Bractwo Młodzieży Prawosławnej w Polsce”).

There is very important to mention, that in the biographies of the saint on the websites of the Orthodox Church in Poland[1] such as on the one of the Orthodox Youth Organization[2] there is no mention about the accusations alleged against the Jews. That means, that the saint is celebrated today because of his martyrdom and because of the miracles occurred in connection with him. The anti-semitic mythology is anti-christic and against the love for our neighbors and it must be convicted in this manner as an act against the values of our religion.

Celebration of St. Gabriel

St. Martyr Gabriel is celebrated in the Orthodox Church for three times:

- April 20 / May 3 [2], the Gregorian calendar - his death’s anniversary

- September 9/22 - the anniversary of the transfer of the relics in Poland, in 1992

- third Sunday after Pentecost (The day of the Orthodox saints of Belarus).

In the iconography, St. Gabriel is presented as a small child dressed in a bright shirt. He holds in the right hand a cross, and with the left he makes a gesture of prayer.
On some of the icons it appears in the background the church of the Assumption of Our Lady of Zabludow. St. Gabriel occurs also in the icons of the whole Belarusian saints.

Troparion of the Saint

"Holy Child Gabriel, in the name of the One pierced for us, bad people had pierced your body, and for the One who blooded for us, your whole body was bleeding and ha terrible wounds, but now and in eternal glory you are enjoying with Him. Remember there about us, who here on earth are worshipping you, pray for the health of our bodies and the salvation of our souls!"

[1] http://www.cerkiew.pl/index.php?id=swieci&tx_orthcal[sw_id]=272&cHash=5a1142cdd3

[2] http://bmplublin.pl/index.php?id=patron

Christ is risen !

2011-04-23T12:00:00.016+03:00

The Resurrection of Our Lord

The Centre of the time and of the space

In the Eastern Tradition is the Holy Cross the Axis Mundi, the Axe of the World, which unites the World with the Sky, stuck into the Holy Mountain, which is for us, the Holy Golgotha. Early in the first Christian centuries, the believers have built a big church in Jerusalem, at the place which it was believed that Our Lord suffered the Crucifixion and on the Holy Sepulchre, from where He resurrected. Tat is, for the Christians, the Holy Mount of Zion, even if geographically is not exactly so.

If the centre of the spacial imaginary is situated, if we may say, in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from Jerusalem and in its different parts (The Chapel of Adam, The Chapel of the Cross, The Aedicula of the Holy Sepulchre and The greek Catholicon with its omphalos), in this way remains the Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ as the center of the Christian Time. Around it gravitates the Fasting Time of the Big Lent (The time of Triodion) with its special Sunday services, special Liturgies, Vigils and Matins, and on the other Hand, the Time of the Pentecostarion, the holy time of the 50 days of Feast, joy, and perpetual singing of the hymn of Joy, “Χριστός Ανέστη”, “Christ is risen”.

It may be said that we should live everywhere in the same way, or that we must have no special altars, because God doesn’t live in manmade houses. In the same way, it may be said that we must celebrate Our Lord every day, because He is eternal. But we as humans, as creations between space and time, we need always landmarks which puts a line between here and there, between then and now.

Resurrection as re-creation in the Holy Services

About the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ it has been written hundreds of homilies, theological treaties and liturgical organizations of the ceremonies. We shouldn’t forget the words of the Apostle Paul who tells to the Corinthians, that the Resurrection of Christ makes our belief special: “And if Christ is preached, that out of the dead he hath risen, how say certain among you, that there is no rising again of dead persons? and if there be no rising again of dead persons, neither hath Christ risen; and if Christ hath not risen, then void is our preaching, and void also your faith… And now, Christ hath risen out of the dead - the first-fruits of those sleeping he became, for since through man is the death, also through man is a rising again of the dead…” (1 Cor 15, 12-14 and 20-21). I would say that the very basis of the Christianity is the faith in the reality of the Resurrection of Our Lord as a definitory faith, unique in the whole History of religions. If some other beliefs are special to a confession or another, the faith in Resurrection is the very Basis Stone of our existence.

The Feast of the Resurrection is not only the middle of the time, but also its beginning: a new start. The ceremony in the Midnight, when all the candles are closed and the priest shares the single new light, which represents the new beginning. It’s like God says one more again, “Let be light” like in the Book of the Genesis. We are re-born, re-surrected, washed of our sins. From now on, we will leave a new life, in Christ.

In the Eastern tradition there is the custom, that the priest shares the light to all the Christians, and after that, all of them leave the church, starting the Easter ceremonial outside the church. It is read a short passage reminding the Resurrection, and in this time the bells are singing in the night. After that, the priest says a prayer for all the Christians, at which the believers answer with “Kyrie Eleyson”, and after singing the holy hymn “Christ is risen”, all of them are going around the church, singing without stop the joy of the Resurrection. Being again in the front of the closed doors, the priest is cnocking with a silver cross and says: “Lift up your heads, O you gates; be lifted up, you ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in!” From inside someone is questioning: “Who is this King of glory?” and the priest with the Christians answer: “The Lord strong and mighty,

the Lord mighty in battle…” (Psalm 24, 7-10). This happens 3 times and in the end the doors are opened: the priest with the people come inside singing “Christ is risen” and continue the holy service until the morning.

The symbolic of this short introitus means the undergoing of Our Lord into the Hell (leaving the church), the awakening of all the righteous residing there (the going around the church), and the knocking at the Heaven’s doors (here, at the church’s doors) which finally are opened for the Christians. That’s why the whole ceremonial of the Resurrection is based not specially on the historical act of the awakening from the dead, but on its effects: the awakening of us. In the same manner, the canonical icon of the Resurrection is in the Eastern Church not the awakening of Jesus from his tomb, but the breaking through the doors of the hell. Our lord is represented in white wearing, with his feet on the broken doors of the hell. He keeps by hands Adam and Eve, the holy ancestors and beyond them are the prophets, the righteous and other holy persons from the Old Testament. Under them it may be seen a black hole full of broken chains, locks and keys which are now senseless. A bound black man under represents the devil, which has no more power.

Before the matins ending, all the believers come and kiss the Holy Cross, the Holy Gospel, being saluted by the priest with the salute: “Christ is risen” and ther answer: “True he is risen!”. This kind of salute is kept until the Ascension day, so that the usual “Good morning” or “Hello” is no more used.

the Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom

After all the people in the church are saluted so, the priest reads a masterpiece of the Christian literature, which is the Easter Homily of St. John Chrysostom. In this small text it is shown that everyone shall enjoy the Resurrection, even ones who didn’t prepared themselves adequately, because the Feast is for all. Because it is so beautiful, I couldn’t cut it, so I decided to put it here entirely:

“If anyone is devout and a lover of God, let him enjoy this beautiful and radiant festival.

If anyone is a wise servant, let him, rejoicing, enter into the joy of his Lord.

If anyone has wearied himself in fasting, let him now receive his recompense.

If anyone has labored from the first hour, let him today receive his just reward.

If anyone has come at the third hour, with thanksgiving let him keep the feast.

If anyone has arrived at the sixth hour, let him have no misgivings; for he shall suffer no loss.

If anyone has delayed until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation.

If anyone has arrived even at the eleventh hour, let him not fear on account of his delay. For the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention.

Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord, and, whether first or last, receive your reward.

O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!

O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day!

You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast, rejoice today!

The table is rich-laden; feast royally, all of you!

The calf is fatted; let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness.

Let no one lament his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn his transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free.

He that was taken by death has annihilated it!

He descended into hades and took hades captive!

He embittered it when it tasted his flesh!

And anticipating this Isaiah exclaimed, "Hades was embittered when it encountered thee in the lower regions."

It was embittered, for it was abolished!

It was embittered, for it was mocked!

It was embittered, for it was purged!

It was embittered, for it was despoiled!

It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It took a body and, face to face, met God!

It took earth and encountered heaven!

It took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen!

"O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?"

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen, and life reigns!

Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

For Christ, being raised from the dead, has become the First-fruits of them that slept.

To him be glory and might unto ages of ages. Amen.”

Furthermore, the Evangelium read at the Holy Liturgy in this special night says nothing about the Resurrection. It is the Prologue of the John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood…” (John 1, 1-4 and further to the verse 16). The mystical sense is the same: we hear the Gospel of the New World, which is the same as Genesis, but explained in a christian manner. Now we understand that Christ was the very Creator of us. Nothing was made without them. Speaking about the history of the Resurrection is now not so important; everyone knows it. But speaking about Christ as God the Creator, as the one who awakens us from the dead, that is the special importance of this holy feast.

The small importance given to the historical act of resurrection doesn’t mean that it is enshadowed by some secondary symbols. The Resurrection is celebrated adequately. It is prepared all the week before in the special Liturgies and ceremonies and furthermore after. The other 2 days of the Feast and the whole week after, which is called the “Enlighted Week” is celebrating the historical act of the Rising from the dead.

The popular Balkanic customs on Easter

With all the liturgical ceremonial are connected some traditional customs, such as the boiling of the red eggs, the Easter Cake, the Pasca-Cake (which are different) and the baked lamb. All of these have a special symbolistic.

The red egg is connected with some legends about it. According one of them, Mary was in Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifiction. She tried to appease the soldiers with a basket full of eggs, which he placed under the cross.

Blood flowed from the feet of Jesus, and so the eggs were reddened. Another tradition says that Mary Magdalene had preached the gospel before the emperor Tiberius. Coming from him, she demonstrated the miracle of the Resurrection, showing an egg, which then made red. Alongside these are many more legends, more or less credible. That is not really important. The idea of the red egg is a double idea of life. (the symbol of the embryonic life and the red colour). In the Balkans there is the custom that two persons knock the eggs saying “Christ is risen”, and answering: “True he is risen!”. When one of the eggs is broken, that is the symbol of the opened grave.

Cozonacul, or the Easter Cake is a special cake, made from normal sourdough bread mixed with egg, sugar, raisins and nuts. It is blended and put into the baking tray. The way how this cake is braided symbolizes the shroud of Jesus, and the tray symbolizes the grave.

Pasca is another special cake made on Easter. The cake is shaped like a pizza, put in a large tray to be baked. On the edge there is put a braided bread, which is like an imcomplete circle. In the center there is made a cross from bread. Over them is put there a mixture of eggs, cheese and raisins. All the contenue is baked. The Pasca symbolizes the Paradise. The incomplete circle symbolizes the walls of the Eden and the gates of heaven which are now open. The cross in the middle is the tree of life, and the cheese and egg filling is the joy in heaven.

The baked lamb has no need to be explained into its symbolistic. Of course, it is the symbol of the Christic Sacrifice.

Singing the Resurrection of Our Lord

The Feast of the Easter is matter fact celebrated on the next 40 days, until the Ascension. The services are shorter but brighter, all the christians carry candles with light in this period and there is sung all the times the hymn (troparion) of the Easter: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death , and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!”

The Holy Hierarch Calinic from Cernica

2011-04-11T12:43:00.004+03:00

The Holy Hierarch Calinic from Cernica Monastery was one of the great spiritual fathers of the 19th century in Romania. His importance remains about his own life like a monk dedicated to the ascetic life, as a bishop, dedicated to the life as shepherd of his sheeps and as political man, who could stand in front of the secularization politics in his times.

His life was described in detail by Archimandrite Athanasius Baldovin, one of his disciples, monk in the Monastery of Cernica, only a few kilometers far from Bucharest.

Early life

He was born in Bucharest, on 7th October 1787, from the the noble family of the very believer Christians Anthony and Floarea (translated as: Flower; his mother became also a nun as Filothea, at her old age, at the Monastery Pasărea (=bird), near Bucharest). He had a good education in one of the schools that existed then in Bucharest, near a church, maybe at St. George church or Colţea. The atmosphere of prayer and Christian living in the family, have influenced the inner life of the young Constantine, as he was called after his baptism.

Therefore, in March 1807, so before he was 20, came to Cernica Monastery near Bucharest, where he maybe have already often came to attend services and listen to the sermon of the abbot George († 1806), also a big saint and scholar of St. Paisius Velichicovski, the renewer of the monastical life in Romania, in the 18th Century, the one who brought the athmosphere from Mount Athos in the all Eastern Space.

The following year, his confessor, Pimen, asked the abbot Timothy to give to the young Constantine the "angelic face of monasticism." Thus, on 12th November 1808, the young monk is named Calinic (the Romanian form for the greek Calinikos – the good victorious).

After a month at St. Nicholas Church of Cernica, the Bishop Sofronie from Vratsa (Bulgarian), refugee in Bucharest because of the Turks, ordained him as hierodeacon. Guided by its spiritual father, began a life of harsh religious endeavors, with fasting, prayer, work, readings from Scripture or from the works of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.

In 1812 he was sent to Neamt monastery together with his spiritual father, to collect aid for rebuilding St. Nicholas church, destroyed by an earthquake. In 1813, he was consecrated hieromonk by the Bishop Dionysius Lupu the future of the metropolitan of Wallachia, and after two years he was ordained and appointed confessor of his convent, than big Ecclesiarch (the responsible with the good making of the holy services).

In 1817 he went to Mount Athos, where he spent nearly a year, succeeding to know closely the religious life there, and to collect teachings that will be useful in the later labors.

Abbot

After the death of abbot Dorotheos, at 14 December 1818, the congregation of Cernica elected Calinic in this function, in age of 31, and 2 years later he was ordained archimandrite, the biggest monastical function. He remained abbot at Cernica abbey for 32 years, where he coordinated the religious life, being a good administrator also: he built a new church, new houses for the monks and a school for the young monks. Between 1832-1836 he built the new church dedicated to Saint George at the island of the monastery. As soon destroyed by an earthquake, the abbot began rebuilding it, finishing it again in 1842. He built a new infirmary for sick monks, and in 1846 he began (with money and donations of believers) to build a new church dedicated to the Holy Trinity at Pasărea monastery, under the protection of Cernica. He established also some workshops for monastical clothes. He dealt also with copying of manuscripts, especially the writings of the Fathers, because in this times in Wallachia was no more typographies.

The monastic community grows and among them came several future personalities of the church: the bishop Ioanichie Stratonichias, originally from Transylvania, the Protosingelos Naum Ramniceanu, a prominent composer, Archimandrite Veniamin Cătulescu, Professor of Religion at the College of “St. Sava” in Bucharest, Anastasius Baldovin his disciple and biographer, Nicander, his successor as abbot.

St. Calinic was a good mentor also for the believers who came to the monastery. For several months in 1821, he fed a large numbers of people refugeed because of the turks, in his monastery. For the children in the village of Cernica he founded a school and paid a teacher. With the testamentary gift of a faithful, he built the church of Assumption in Câmpina, and found a school near it. From the money of the monastery, and from his own donations, he built also some other churches in the villages around, at Bueşti Sohatu, and some others and aided other monasteries, from Poiana Mărului Ghighiu and the Icon skete of Bucharest.

Bishop

In 1850, after 43 years in the monastery, of which 32 years of rule of the monastic community, the abbot was summoned to the high Calinic hierarchal service. Since 1834, after the death of the st. Metropolitan of Wallachia, Gregory the Teacher, the Prince Alexandru Ghica advised him to receive the ordination as Metropolitan, but he refused, considering himself unworthy of such a high honor. In 1850, when all four bishopric seats in Wallachia were vacant, the new Prince Barbu Ştirbei persuaded him to accept the ruling of a diocese. At 14 September 1850 he was elected bishop in the ancient seat of Râmnicu-Valcea. He was ordained a bishop in the metropolitan cathedral in Bucharest on 26 October 1850, at the feast of St. Demetrius.

Called to this high service, the new bishop found the diocese in a difficult legacy faces. For 10 years the it had only deputies, the bishop's residence and cathedral were destroyed by a fire, the number of priests was insufficient, poorly prepared and the seminary was closed after the Revolution of 1848, such as also some places of worship. The new bishop to visit the diocese and ordained new priests. In 1851 opened the seminary in Craiova, then in 1854 moved it back to Ramnic, and he opened some schools to prepare church singers.

In 1854, after moving to Ramnic residence, he began raising a new Episcopal cathedral and rebuilt inside the Episcopal residence an infirmary. Between the years 1859-1864 has raised from his money from a new church in hermitage Frasinei. He introduced here the harsh rules of living from Mount Athos, which he himself respected as he entered in the monastery.

In his years, the first prince of the reunited Romania, Alexandru Ioan Cuza proceded to the secularization of the church’s properties. Almost 25 % of the whole surface of the country was in the property of different dioceses and monasteries, mostly subordinated to some other “mother-monasteries” in Greece or Palestine. So, the measure of Cuza was good, taking back in the property of the Romanian state a big territory and giving after to more than 1.000.000 peasants. But, Cuza made also bad things. He restricted the possibility of entering in the monasteries, he closed some churches and seminaries, and ordained that the election of the new bishops to be approved officially by himself, establishing in this way a kind of caesaro-papism. In this harsh times, Calinc was the only bishop remained as titular. He intervened to Cuza, to save the monastery fromsecularization. The prince responded positively to his request, and the hermitage is the only one left with all the goods it had before.

As a book-lover and supporter of culture, the bishop Calinic opened a typography and printed a few books in Bucharest. By 1860, “with borrowed money”, as he himself confessed, established a new printing press at his diocese, for printing church and teaching books. A year before his death, he donated the printing machine to the city of Râmnic, providing that the printing press to bear his name and that half of its revenue to be used for the maintenance of city schools and poor students and the seminarians, and another

Political man

The Bishop was also an animated patriot. As an hierarch, he took part in public work of the Assembly of the country, then was elected deputy in the new parliament of the united Romanian. He was also part of the country elective Assembly which elected the first ruler, Alexandru Ioan Cuza. Since the spring of 1857 he sent a circular to the Deans and superiors, demanding that all churches to make prayers “for the union of the Romanians in one will and conscience”.

His personal life

Especially we must search about his particular life as a life of sanctity. Everyone who knew him were impressed by his many charity, the simplicity of dress, his kindness and gentleness, his healer prayers, his fastings and vigils. Athanasius Baldovin, his biographer, wrote that Calinic had a list of people who helped. Always when he ordained priests, he gave them books and even money for the trip. “He was so gracious that if he didn’t have to give something, he gave his own clothes and, weeping, prayed me the unworthy to look for money wherever I know, that he may have to giveto his brothers in Christ, because so called the poor and powerless”.

Contemporary witnesses recount several cases of the disease healed by prayers of St. Calinic, such as was a young daughter of a worker from Muiereasca, who worked then at the construction of the Episcopal cathedral in Râmnic.

The life full of restraint he had (he never ate meat, he was resting only on a wooden chair), and the old age, urged him to write his will. Among other things, he wrote that he leaves no money for his own burial or memorial, because everything he had, he split to the poor and offered to restore buildings. Old and sick, he retired at Cernica Monastery in 1867. Since then the government refused his withdrawal from the seat, he remained officially bishop until the end of life, sending the Archimandrite Gregory from Cernica to rule the affairs of the Diocese. He lived almost a year as a simple monk, until 11th April 1868, when God called him to Himself. He was buried in the church of St. George, his foundation.

Canonization and Relics

His holy life, demonstated by his acts, but also by the faith of the believers in Wallachia, made the Holy Synod of our Church to decide, on 28 February 1950, to put bishop Calinic among the saints. His solemn canonization was made at Cernica Convent on 23 October 1955, in the middle years of harsh communism, in the presence of many Romanian and foreign bishops, of many monks, priests and faithful. The relics have been placed to honor and worship in the church of St. George. Thus, the humble abbot and bishop Calinic became one of the greatest saints of the Romanian Orthodox calendar. His feast day is on 11 April. His image is portrayed in many parish churches and monasteries, and his name is held by many believers who enter into the monasteries as monks.

Hymn of the saint

“Your light-bearee memory, Hierarch Calinic, gladdens the hearts of believers and the reach the holy shrine of your holy relics, sanctifies the feelings and gives healing; for this, as debt, we honor you and sing your joy: Hail, Holy Hierarch Calinic, the wise of God!” (The Holy Akathist of St. Calinic, Kontakion 1).