Serbianna.com January 25, 2007
DETROIT (AP) — Detroit is emerging as a national center for the rebirth of Orthodox Christian churches, which have deep ethnic roots in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Orthodox Christianity
Lefty political groups fund NCC
The Institute on Religion and Democracy released their report Yokefellows that examines the funding sources for the National Council of Churches (NCC). It’s not pretty. The Tides Foundation and other leftwing groups contribute a good chunk of change. Read the Executive Summary.
I got an advance copy a month or so ago. Read my comments.
Panorama of Constantinople
Why not “Istanbul”? Because the name Istanbul is really an Arabic derivative of the Greek. If you live near New York City for example and are heading into Manhattan, you don’t say “I am going to New York City.” Instead, you say “I am going to the city.”
Well, the “Istanbul” means the same thing. “Ee steen polee” is the Greek way of saying in the city (in this case the “city of Constantine” or Konstanteen-oupolee — Constantinople in English). Change the the Greek hard “p” to the Arabic hard “b” and you end up with “ee-stan-bolee” or Istanbul. The Arab speakers in Turkey know this of course. Non-Arabic speakers think the name of Constantinople actually was changed.
Islam gets concessions; infidels get conquered
LA Times Raymond Ibrahim December 5, 2006
What they capture, they keep. When they lose, they complain to the U.N.
IN THE DAYS before Pope Benedict XVI’s visit last Thursday to the Hagia Sophia complex in Istanbul, Muslims and Turks expressed fear, apprehension and rage. “The risk,” according to Turkey’s independent newspaper Vatan, “is that Benedict will send Turkey’s Muslims and much of the Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims.” Apparently making the sign of the cross or any other gesture of Christian worship in Hagia Sophia constitutes such a sacrilege.
Orthodox Priest Beheading and Recent White House Omission
Religious News Service October 13, 2006
Lead to Call for American Protection of Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch Meeting in Turkey
Yesterday’s reported beheading of an Orthodox Priest and a recent White House omission during a meeting between President George W. Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan increased concerns about protecting the spiritual heads of the two largest Christian denominations, while in Turkey together. Catholicism’s Pope Benedict XVI and Orthodoxy’s Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will be meeting in Turkey in late November. Turkey is the first Muslim country that Pope Benedict will visit. Until the year 1054, the Pope and Ecumenical Patriarch were presiding Patriarchs of the then-undivided Christian Church, in Rome and Constantinople.
Desert Prayer With Egyptian Roots
Los Angeles Times David Kelly July 3, 2006
Life at North America’s only Coptic Orthodox monastery is rigorous and strictly for worship. It draws those who seek a deeper insight into Christianity.
NEWBERRY SPRINGS, Calif. — Down an unpaved road, past brooding icons and swaying stands of mesquite, lies St. Antony’s Monastery, a place of scorching winds and emptiness that perhaps only a holy man could love.
Priest finds faith that looks ‘like me’
The Grand Rapids Press Juanita Westaby July 01, 2006
GRAND RAPIDS — When The Rev. Moses Berry was a child, his mother told him: “We are all flowers in God’s garden.” But he remembers thinking: “Where were the flowers in God’s garden that looked like me?”
Many black Christians join move to Orthodox traditions
Gannett News Service June 24, 2006
After a lifetime in traditional black churches, Robert Aaron Mitchell discovered the sights, smells, sounds and ancient traditions of the Orthodox church.
“I discovered Orthodoxy while I was on the Internet one day back in 2001, and I was so drawn to it that I had to go attend a liturgy,” Mitchell says. “I had no frame of reference for these traditions, but suddenly, I felt like this void was filling in my life. I felt like I was finally coming home.”
THE ICON OF THE THEOTOKOS OF VALAAM RETURNED TO HOME MONASTERY FROM SPACE
PRAVOSLAVIE.RU Saint-Petersburg, May 22, 2006
The copy of the miracle working icon of Theotokos of Valaam returned to its home monastery at the Ladozhskoye lake. According to the press secretary of the Valaam monastery Mikhail Shishkov, the revered icon was met at the main cathedral on the island, where it would be kept from now on.
Oil-painted copy of the miracle working Valaam icon was delivered to the space station with the blessing of the great Northern monastery in September 2005. It was carried by a freight spaceship Progress M54, and, according to the astronauts, has purified the space station. Accompanying Sergey Krikalev and John Phillips it flew around the Earth more than a thousand times.
The original version of the Theotokos of Valaam was created at the end of the nineteenth century by the monk of the Valaam monastery Alipy (Konstantinov). The Mother of God is pictured full height, walking on clouds with Her Son in Her arms. The space station’s copy was painted by the brothers of the Valaam monastery. Visitors from the orbital space center arrived at the monastery last summer, and Bishop Pankraty (Zherdev) of Troitsk offered them the shrine to forward to the space station.
Orthodox Metropolitan warns Europe against abandoning Christian roots
Interfax May 3, 2006
VIENNA. The Russian Orthodox Church believes that Europe’s abandonment of its Christian roots could ultimately lead European society to shocks comparable to those that Russia experienced under the Bolsheviks, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad has said.