Tuesday, May 21, 2013

St Constantine and St Helen, May 21


The Church calls St Constantine (306-337) “the Equal of the Apostles,” and historians call him “the Great.” He was the son of the Caesar Constantius Chlorus (305-306), who governed the lands of Gaul and Britain. His mother was St Helen, a Christian of humble birth...


The emperor deeply revered the victory-bearing Sign of the Cross of the Lord, and also wanted to find the actual Cross upon which our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. For this purpose he sent his own mother, the holy Empress Helen, to Jerusalem, granting her both power and money. Patriarch Macarius of Jerusalem and St Helen began the search, and through the will of God, the Life-Creating Cross was miraculously discovered in 326. (The account of the finding of the Cross of the Lord is found under the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14). The Orthodox Church commemorates the Uncovering of the Precious Cross and the Precious Nails by the Holy Empress Helen on March 6.

Read a brief life of Saints Constantine and Helen here...

Books by Muslim Scholars Advocating Killing of Christians found in French Bookstores

This book also contains
commands to kill Christians.

Paris, May 16, 2013

Books that justify killing of Christians in the name of Islam are freely on sale in France, reports Sedmitza.ru. According to the L’Observatoire de l’islamisation portal, books of the organization Arab World Institute contain references to Muslim scholars who justify killing of Christian monks and baptized converts from Islam as well as violence against Christian women.

The discovery of anti-Christian texts stirred memories among French Christians of the murder of seven Trappist monks in Tibhirine during the civil war in Algeria in 1996. It is considered that militants of an armed Islamist group were responsible for that crime.

Source: Pravoslavie.ru

Ecumenical Patriarch: even amid persecution and attacks on family, the Church endures


At a conference commemorating the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, in which Emperor Constantine decreed the toleration of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said that “the divinely-inspired Emperor established in action and legislation the fundamental principles on which modern Christian societies – and by extension and analogy, the entire world – are based to this day.”

“The basic human rights, for which all peoples and societies strive, but which are frequently perceived in a sense of retribution that does not resemble the spirit of the Gospel or Christianity, comprise spiritual values, which the Emperor Constantine planted within the governance and structure of his empire because he discerned and predicted that this was the only way of securing progress and preserving peace,” said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who holds the primacy of honor among the heads of Orthodox churches.

“It is essentially the same values that the modern world has inherited, except that titles have been altered, while humanity now formally declares that it does not believe in God and the hour of Christianity has passed,” he continued. “Nevertheless, despite these cries, Christianity and the Truth are not only not outdated, but have in fact increasingly matured.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch added:

Faith is not a social phenomenon or mere ideology. It is the sanctifying grace, which descends upon us and visits us eternally and silently … something discernible among those who obey God’s will but even recognizable among those who disobey his commandments. Despite frequent and dangerous reformations, which sometimes destroy the very foundations of society, such as a lack of respect for the sacred institution of family and marriage, the legal recognition and regulation of serious mortal sins or unnatural conditions, contemporary state institutions are deeply permeated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the blood of the Church Martyrs.

This is why we Christians are not dragged down and do not despair. We know that people make mistakes in their judgments, thoughts, programs, ideologies and considerations. However, the Church does not; the Church is not abolished, even when Christian nations are dissolved, even when the Church lives and exists in (sometimes harsh) captivity, even when the Church is persecuted. The Church is in the world and serves the world, but it is not controlled by the world, which is the reason why evil does not affect it. The spirit conquers the flesh. Christ reigns forever. The Lord is victorious over all.


The Persecuted Church: Setting the Record Straight


The Blaze recently published a two part interview series about Christian martyrdom, its focus being a provocatively titled new book by University of Notre Dame professor Dr. Candida Moss, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom.  As this author's premise could be upsetting for less historically informed Christians, I would like to respond by posting a few paragraphs from Fr Alexander Schmemann's classic work, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as make some points concerning the modern wave of persecution of Christians by Muslims.

As can be seen from Fr Schmemann's remarks below, attempts to "deny or minimize the fact of" Roman persecution of Christians is not a new phenomenon. On the other hand, Fr. Schmemann illustrates that this persecution was generally "neither bloodthirsty nor fanatic."

Understanding the realities of the early persecutions is helpful for us, as tens of millions of Christians today are being increasingly persecuted throughout the Islamic world. While there are similarities, the differences are perhaps most important. 

For example, as Fr Schmemann relates, Rome did not require the early Christians to deny Christ, just to "burn a few sticks of incense before the images of the national gods, call the emperor 'Lord', and celebrate the rites. Once he had fulfilled this, he was free to seek the eternal meaning of life wherever he wished." The Romans themselves often did not believe in the meaning of the pinch of incense, but complied out of necessity as a show of loyalty to the state and the emperor.  For the Christians, however, one could render unto Caesar only the coins with his image; incense, worship and the title of “Lord” is due to God alone.

In contrast, under resurgent Islam today, as with the period of intense persecution of the Orthodox Church under the Militant Atheists during the twentieth century (during which over 60 million were killed), we are seeing an ever escalating wave of anti-Christian persecutions with the specific goal of expelling Christians altogether from their once thriving native lands. Abductions and raping of Christian girls, forced conversions to Islam, firebombing of Christian churches, sometimes, as in recent atrocities in Egypt, aided and abetted by Muslim authorities, reveal how the global Islamic culture is so rabidly anti-Christian that conversion to Islam or a state of open hostilities and persecution are fast becoming the only two options. 

And, unlike in the Roman era, we are seeing, in the raging Muslim persecutions against the Copts in Egypt, the Orthodox in Syria, the Chaldaean and Assyrian Christians in Iraq, and Christians in Gaza, Morocco, Libya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Indonesia, and elsewhere, that Islamic persecution of Christian believers everywhere, unlike the early Roman vintage, is demonstrably both "bloodthirsty and fanatic." 

For Christians in the United States, who at this time are seeing perhaps the first signs of government persecution in the form of the HHS Obamacare mandate and the IRS targeting of Christian organizations, or of open persecution of Christians by civil authorities in Muslim enclaves such as Dearbornistan Michigan, it is Fr. Schmemann’s discussion of “The Last Great Persecutions” which deserves our serious attention. The outbreak of renewed persecutions in the mid-third century caught many by surprise, accustomed as they were to a more widespread acceptance of the Christian faith. Many committed apostasy, and caused the Church to be mocked by the pagan Romans. How would we fare if we were suddenly thrust into a crucible similar to what our Christian brothers and sisters in Egypt and elsewhere are enduring with such faith? Indeed, as can be seen by recent Muslim assaults of Catholic priests in France, where the Muslim population is reaching the all important 10% threshold, there are many Christian communities in Europe, America and Canada which will likely be confronted with the existential threat of open persecution in the not too distant future.



Excerpted from Fr. Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy:


Basis of Persecution by Rome.

            The persecution of Christians has been variously treated by historians from early times. After the accounts of martyrdom had been embroidered by Christian piety into a shining legend, a later age of enlightenment to which Rome appeared as an ideal of justice and culture attempted to deny or minimize the fact of persecution. Whatever its destructive intention, this attitude has helped to separate genuine documents from the vast hagiographic literature, so that we are now in a better position to explain the persistent struggle against Christianity over three centuries by the Roman Empire, which was in fact basically neither bloodthirsty nor fanatic.

            When Christianity appeared, the most varied religions were flourishing in the empire, and Juvenal’s satires mock the fascination of these many exotic cults for the Romans. At first the authorities took no notice at all of the Christians and did not perceive the radical distinction between them and the Jews. Judaism, though strange and unusual, was a legitimate religion, and the Church survived its first decades, as Tertullian has said, “under its roof.” Even in this period, however, we encounter hostility and frequently even hatred for Christians on the part of the multitude. The lack of temples, the night meetings and secret ceremonies, all inevitably aroused suspicion, and naturally the most monstrous rumors developed about orgies, magic, and ritual murders at Christian meetings. Although this created an atmosphere favorable for persecution, the Roman state was in general law-abiding and did not permit arbitrary outrages. The true cause of the conflict must therefore be sought in the essential nature of the Roman state.

            Like all states of antiquity, Rome had its gods, its national-political religion. This was neither a system of beliefs nor a system of morals (the Roman citizen could and very often did believe in foreign gods). It was a ritual, worked out to the last detail, of sacrifices and prayers, a cult of primarily political and state significance. Rome had no other symbol to express and maintain its unity and to symbolize its faith in itself. Although in this troubled period very few believed in the symbol, to reject it meant disloyalty, being a rebel. Rome demanded only outward participation in the state cult as an expression of loyalty; all that was required of a citizen was to burn a few sticks of incense before the images of the national gods, call the emperor “Lord,” and celebrate the rites. Once he had fulfilled this, he was free to seek the eternal meaning of life wherever he wished.

            For a man of the ancient world the validity of such a demand was self-evident. Religion (the word is of Roman origin and without synonym in Greek or Hebrew) was not a problem of personal choice but a family, tribal, and state matter. One’s personal faith or lack of it had nothing to do with religion, since religion itself had never been a problem of truth, but only an acknowledgment of the existing system, its legitimacy and justifiability.

            The Christians refused to fulfill this self-evident, elementary civic duty. Their act was neither rebellion, condemnation of the state as such, nor even opposition to its particular defects or vices. Starting with St. Paul, Christians could boldly declare their loyalty to Rome, referring to their prayers for the emperor and the authorities. But they could not fulfill two requirements: they could not recognize the emperor as “Lord,” and they could not bow down to idols, even outwardly, without faith in them. “Lord” in the language of that time meant absolute master and ruler, but for Christians the whole significance of their faith was that the one true Lord, Jesus Christ, had come and ruled in the world: .” . . God hath made that same Jesus . . . both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). This meant that God had given Him all authority over the world, and that henceforth He was the only Master of human life. “One Lord!” We no longer feel the force and paradox of this early Christian exclamation that has come down to us, but it rang out then as a challenge to a world in which lordship had been claimed through the ages by every authority, every state, and every “collective.”

            The indifference of Christians to the external world, their effort to free themselves from it, has been regarded as a strange way of combating the pagan demands of the empire. In actual fact, by their refusal to fulfill a requirement that was not taken seriously even by those who had imposed it, the whole measure of Christian responsibility in the world was revealed for all ages. By rejecting the formal requirement of the state, they thereby included the state within the perspective of the kingdom of Christ and — however passively — summoned it to submit to the Lord of the world.

            Modern observers, even some Christians, regard this conflict as a struggle for freedom of conscience, for the right of a man to make religion his private affair. For the early Church its significance was much more profound. Christianity was not so much a new religion as an upheaval in world history, the appearance of the Lord to do battle with one who had usurped His authority.


Blood of Martyrs.

            The beginning of the persecutions was illumined by fire in the Eternal City. On the night of July 16 in the year 64 a great part of Rome burned down, and popular rumor accused the emperor himself of arson. In order to distract attention from himself, Nero shifted the blame onto the Christians, showing that the existence of Christianity was known to all. Although Nero’s persecution was confined to Rome and its cause was arbitrary, it raised the question about Christians for the first time on the plane of politics and the state, where it was also to be examined in the future. During the rest of the century the frequent rebellions and disorders left Rome no time for the Christians. But the persecutions were gathering head: Church tradition places the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome in this period, perhaps under Nero, and of John the Evangelist in the East under Domitian (81-96).

A Mournful Pascha - Copts and Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter under ominous threats


by Ralph H. Sidway

Orthodox Christians throughout the world celebrated Pascha, the Resurrection of Christ from the dead, on May 5, and will continue the festal joy through the Ascension of Christ, which falls on June 13 this year. 

For Coptic Christians and Orthodox believers in the Islamic world, this year’s Pascha was held under the dark cloud of severely escalating persecution from Muslim mobs and extremist groups, as well as from official Islamic government bodies. 

John Sanidopoulos of MYSTAGOGY blog has just completed the translation and posting (in six parts) of a Greek article titled, Pascha Under Turkish Domination. This is an immensely important survey of several hundred years of history, which incorporates many Greek Orthodox source texts, as well as observations by non-Greek diplomats and travelers, regarding the conditions of Christians subjugated under Turkish Muslim oppression.

Parts One through Three relate a relatively benevolent period of about two centuries of Turkish Muslim domination (dating from 1519 through late seventeenth centuries), when the Orthodox were allowed to celebrate Pascha with relative freedom. But the three day celebrations allowed during this era were notable primarily for the lifting of the usual oppressive restrictions against the Orthodox (called “the slaves” in the source text) codified in the dhimma contract. 

By the mid eighteenth century, however, severe oppression was again being inflicted upon the Christians especially during the Great Feasts by their Muslim overlords, with severe consequences if the restrictions were transgressed. It should be emphasized that these restrictions derive precisely from the Pact of Omar and the classic application of the dhimma contract, which subjects Christians to humiliating conditions under Islamic rule. 

Posted below is the second half of the article (parts four through six as found on Mystagogy). The final paragraph is especially sobering, as it relates how the Muslims deliberately scheduled executions of the Christians to coincide with the great feasts of the Church in order to demoralize the Orthodox believers. 

Readers of Raymond Ibrahim’s work and observers of current events in Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere in the Islamic world will recall mass killings and bombings being perpetrated or threatened precisely during great Christian feasts such as Christmas (see here and here), both to inflict maximum casualties, as well as to demoralize the Christian targets. This article therefore further demonstrates this consistent practice across centuries of Islamic jihad against Christians.

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A Mournful, Silent Pascha

Let us see now how they celebrated Pascha after the privilege of the three-day uninhibited celebration of it was abolished in the Queen City.

A historical document of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which was discovered many years ago in the Sacred Monastery of Sinai and dates to around 1772, reveals how the Turkish conquerors acted to smother the religious sentiment of the slaves during their great feasts and especially during the days of Pascha. In order to destroy the enthusiasm, consistency and hope that the traditional celebration of Pascha gave the slaves, they now put into practice decrees of oppression and exclusion which were issued from time to time and established how they should dress and how the Romans should celebrate these days.

For Constantinople in particular, the administration of the Ottoman Porte invited the Ecumenical Patriarch and gave him strict orders and instructions for the celebration of Pascha by Orthodox Christians in Constantinople.

They commanded the Patriarch to bring to his flock the orders of the Porte which stated that Christians, during the days of Pascha, should be dressed in poor clothing and not bright formal dress, nor beautiful and colorful outfits. These were only allowed for the tyrannical masters and were "prohibited dress" for the slaves.