Psalms for the 5th Day24 25 26 27 28 29
Hymn to the Lord of the storm
"The life of discipleship can only be maintained so long as nothing is allowed to come between Christ and ourselves, neither the law, nor personal piety, nor even the world. The disciple looks always only to his master, never to Christ AND the law, Christ AND religion, Christ AND the world. Only by following Christ alone can he preserve a single eye." (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Psalms for the 5th Day
It’s 12:37 in the morning of July 5th. The night sky isn’t flashing as much with rockets as it was two hours ago, but the sound of small fireworks still fills the air. It’s another hot, windless night. Soon I will sleep for a few hours, and then up again and start another day, Sunday, so with church service. I have some thoughts.
Never to do or say anything one knows is wrong. The evil one, however, aping the words of Truth, has unleashed the demons in us to fulfill in our flesh all their fantasies, calling them ours. This he does, even on the church steps, even in the church itself, even sometimes at the pulpit and altar.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Psalms for the 4th Day
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
Psalms for the 1st Day
The Psalms have this unique characteristic: They are like a revolving door with God. They both convey the prayer of our hearts to Him, and convey His response to our every prayer.After reading and praying the Psalms for thirty-three years out of my Jerusalem Bible, I finally began reading and praying them from the Tehillim, the Hebrew version of the Psalms. Now, along with my Jerusalem Bible, a copy of the Tehillim rests with me on my prayer couch, and the blessing of reading and understanding the Hebrew cannot be adequately described.
There’s lots of things, even persons, who are, or will soon be seen to be, utterly unlike what we have imagined them to be all our lives.
The passage reminds me of modern day conditions so much. I only wish we had someone like Socrates to add to today’s mix. I guess it’s up to each of us to be, perhaps not Socrates, but at least (as Jesus says) “the salt of the earth” (cf. Matthew 5:13), and as Martin Luther commented, “what is the good of salt if it does not bite?” I entitle this excerpt, Socrates and the Sophists.
He was a strange man, first of all in his personal appearance. He had a snub nose and strangely protruding eyes. His gait was peculiar, being likened to that of a waterfowl. He was compared in appearance to a silenus or a satyr. He always went barefoot. But far more striking than his physical appearance was his personality. In no sense was he an ordinary man, although he did marry and have children. He gave up his family profession of statue-making and spent his time in discussion, regarding it as his divine mission to seek for truth.
Fasting is never a form of self-punishment.
Orthodoxy is knowing that love has entered the world in the man Jesus Christ, and living in that love no matter where it takes us.
There is one depiction of God in Three Persons which has been common in Western art, and has even burrowed its way into Eastern Orthodoxy, but which is not in accord with the mind of the Church, which is in turn the mind of Christ as revealed in scripture. This is the depiction of the Trinity as "an old man and a young man seated on thrones, and a dove in the air between them." Though Western art can portray God in this way, for the Orthodox it is unbiblical and therefore not admissible as an icon. This is not mere fussyness, but faithfulness to the truth, in contrast to human sentiment.
For this reason, it is fitting on this occasion only to depict the Holy Spirit in the likeness of a dove. But in any other place those who have intelligence will not depict the Holy Spirit in the likeness of a dove.
Remember, it is not just money that Jesus is talking about when He says, "You cannot serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or love the one and treat the other with scorn. You cannot serve both God and Mammon." The bottom line on Mammon is that it is anything that diverts your attention, unlawfully, from the Word of God.
There are various reasons for blogging. Originally, mine was to share some experiences with others about witnessing for Christ. Over the three years or so that I’ve been writing on line, my topics have ranged far and wide. The title of my blog came from my favorite spiritual book other than the bible itself, and in a very general sort of way, I have tried to stay with discipleship as a theme.
I never wanted my blog to be a flag advertising my opinions or to draw attention to myself, and thankfully, at least the latter hasn’t happened. For me, the best effect my blog has had, is that through it I have met many brethren who are faithful followers of Christ. If that’s all it has accomplished, I am satisfied, but I hope that among the anonymous visitors here, some have been helped in some way, and not hindered.
They said, “what good does that do? Nobody is listening. It doesn’t bring a return.”
I write as an Orthodox Christian, but what some of you may have suspected is true—I am actually a Baptist, of the same following as John the honorable forerunner. It took a child to teach me that living in my own tomb would only result in me dying there, when the Lord of life had been calling me to come forth and live. Though we are unprofitable servants, unworthy followers of the Lord of all, He has entrusted us with a real mission. Let’s not leave it lying at our feet, but pick it up, and carry it abroad, and speak the Word that He puts in our mouths, write it if He has given us the words, even if nobody is listening.
The Orthodox Christian does not proselytize; he evangelizes.
I can't believe that I found this essay, quite by accident, but what the author writes really speaks to me and defines very well how I feel about worship, what I think worship is, in the context of liturgy, or what goes on in church. It is because I feel this way, or rather because I know these things to be true, that I am disappointed with the kinds of things I see going on in my own home parish of Aghía Triás, and in other churches that I have visited, looking for a place to worship. Thank God that in at least some Orthodox churches, the Divine Liturgy still conforms to worship as described in the following essay, which I found here.
It’s strange how once people have decided that they have pigeonholed you, they then proceed to build a relationship on the phantom they have created, with what is merely a figment of their imagination. So it is with my boss, whom I have known and worked with since I was twenty-nine years old and he was twenty-five. It’s a wonder that people can know someone for decades, and yet not even begin to know them. I hope I know him better than he knows me. He certainly has given me the opportunity to see his actions and hear his opinions these nearly thirty years. When you're the boss, you think you can say anything. But when you know Who is really in charge, you dare to say anything (that He gives you to say).In a series of dramatic revelations for the ignorant (the very definition of a hardcover best-seller, I’d say), Ehrman notes that there have been a lot of changes to the Bible in the past 2,000 years. I don't want to come between Mr. Ehrman and his payday, but this point has been made much more eloquently by, among others, Benson Bobrick in his wonderful Wide as the Waters: The Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired. [This book] has much of the same information as Misquoting Jesus, minus the idiocy.Now, I would never call my boss ignorant, but this reviewer does call a spade a spade when he describes at least some readers of this book in those terms, as he points out that little if anything new was presented in Jesus, Interrupted that hasn't already been presented to public scrutiny elsewhere.
—Alex Beam, “The new profits of Christianity”, The Boston Globe, April 12, 2006.
Bishop Theophan the Recluse used to say that praying only with words written by another is like trying to talk in a foreign language using only textbook dialogues. Like many other church fathers, he said that we must look for our own words in order to pray. I suppose that this is truly possible for us (if we dismiss artificially invented prayers of our own) only in moments of desperate need, real anguish, either for ourselves or for others. In such moments we do not "recite" prayers, we simply cry out to God, "Lord! Please come to him and comfort him!" The audacity of prayer is born only in the audacity of love.
In His conversation with the woman of Samaria, whom the Greeks name Photiní, the enlightened, our Lord Jesus Christ revealed what is important, or rather, what is more than important—what is essential—to the Father as regards worship.
There is an excellent and brief post on Fr Stephen's blog Glory to God for All Things. It underscores the importance that the experience of God has for the Christian. I will explain no further, but only provide a short quotation which spoke volumes to me, and leave it to you, dear brethren, to continue if you wish and read his whole thought, called We Have Seen. This, I testify again, is true Orthodoxy. This is what is waiting for all followers of Jesus, if they have not yet reached it.
Not sure of how this post is going to end up, but fairly certain of three things I want to say, hopefully I won’t reveal too little or too much. There are two absolute uniques in my life, and many more that are not quite absolute, but almost. Unique is the person of Jesus Christ, as the Son of God in the Holy Triad, as living Truth, Teacher, and Savior. Unique is the Bible as the only expression of the Word of God on earth. There are my two absolute uniques, from which I cannot budge. Of course, in a mystery, they are really One unique.
These are sayings of a Serbian bishop which resonate in my heart, as they reflect the truths by which I have tried to live my life in Christ. They define for me what true Orthodoxy essentially is, not a doctrinal formulation or a rudder full of rubrics, but living in such a way that reveals Christ in you to others, and Christ in others to you.
And the greatest thing I see is after three days this same ‘one like a son of man’, rising from the rich man’s tomb, with death conquered and Hades bound, glorified in a body that is an exemplar of the bodies that we ourselves will put on at the last trumpet.
“But when the Son of Man comes, will He find any faith on earth?”
I have nothing of my own to say or write, but I would like to share this story about Elder Porphyrios (may his memory be eternal).





A Christian brother wrote,
We say we study the bible, but actually the bible is studying us. We may think we are rightly dividing the Word of God, but actually the Word of God is rightly dividing us. That is, if we let Him. (Jesus is the Word of God. The bible is His icon.) Rightly dividing us from our sin, from the world and all its pomp, and from the power of the evil one.
This means rising in the morning with the Word on our lips, praying and thanking the Lord in the words of psalms and prophecies, not just five times a day as Muslims do, but all through the day (and night).
I often have to yank my attention back to where it belongs, visit the mansion that Christ my Lord and Saviour has prepared for me in His Father’s house. What? You thought He was talking about the heavenly mansion? Well, yes, of course, that one too. But the study of and meditation on the inspired words of the divine and holy scriptures, that is like a foyer leading into the heavenly mansion, and a foyer is part of the house, isn't it?
Instead of expanding your facilities and upgrading your film stash and other technological enhancements, get back to the bible, teaching it, studying it, learning it by heart, worshipping with it, praying it, prophesying with it, evangelizing with it, healing with it, feeding on it and living in it.
This way of life came directly from reading the bible—the psalms, the prophets, the gospels, the epistles, the acts of the apostles. We had no one to teach us, and we didn’t really understand how the Holy Spirit works in us yet, but He was at work just the same, doing what He always does, not drawing attention to Himself, but pointing us to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Deaconess Noel was a gentle spirit who was testing her new vocation with the charm of anxious young womanhood emerging from the simplicity of her girlhood faith. Later, she would move on and be ordained a priest, after the Episcopalians fell under the spell of the spirit of the age. Father Neville (who used to say, “if you can remember the devil, you can remember Father Neville”) was the last generation of those old country Oregon pastors who knew more jokes than gospel but wasn’t worried because “our Grandfather in heaven” only wants us to have a good day and be happy, after all. God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world. Again, simplicity, but of a different kind.
The cover shows a young, longhaired man with his wife and children in a wooded setting. That picture could’ve been my little family. I bought that book when I was a poor, starving student, and I read it here and there, but to this day have never actually read it through. Perhaps it wasn’t that kind of book. Anyway, even without reading it, we were actually living a life in the way it described, or very close to it. How to live on nothing? Well, not absolutely nothing, but very close. This didn’t last, however.
That started a whole series of capitulations on my part, out of love and sympathy for the “needs” of others, which gradually transformed our simple, self-sufficient lifestyle in ways I could never have imagined. I felt like Peter, to whom Jesus said, “when you were young you put on your own belt and walked where you liked, but when you grow old you will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go” (John 21:18 JB). And go I must, and the simple, straight words of the truth we read in scripture, overlaid with the world’s demands, were almost choked to death in me. Yet here I am, having survived my middle years, and ready again to live the life of discipleship, ready and willing again to live on nothing.
It costs us nothing to graciously withdraw our hand when we see our interference would cause more harm than good. It is free to let another go ahead of us, or to have the last piece of anything, even if we must sometimes go without, because what we receive in the action of not receiving for ourselves outweighs all earthly benefits, letting us have a foretaste of the heavenly kingdom.

To the Word, coeternal with the Father and the Spirit,
I have been angry—at myself, at other people, at situations—and sometimes I have acted out the anger in emotional outbursts, foolish words, hurtful words. Strangely, I have never experienced what I have heard from others, anger at God. Maybe it’s because of my upbringing—I don’t know—but He could never be an object of my anger, because He always ends up being the only comforting bosom to which I can flee when everyone and all else fails me.
The Church as it has existed at least from the times of the late Roman Empire under Constantine has manifested on earth both as “a mystery with structure” and a “structure with mystery.” She seems to fluctuate between these two poles, which are inversions of each other.
I cannot pass these words by without leaving at least a trace of them for visitors to my blog. They are from a homily posted by Fr Milovan on his blog Again and Again. To read the entire homily, click here. In the excerpt below, I have made a few corrections to spelling and grammar. Otherwise, it is presented here as it is (italics added).
Although Mark closes his gospel with a brief mention of it, Luke reports it twice, once in greater detail, writing to Theóphilos both times. Perhaps Theóphilos was intrigued with what he read in the evangélion and wanted to know more, so Luke obliged him in the opening words of his book of the acts of the apostles, the práxeis.
“Nevertheless as coming the tokens, behold, the days shall come, that they which dwell upon earth shall be taken in a great number, and the way of truth shall be hidden, and the land shall be barren of faith. But iniquity shall be increased above that which you now see, or that you have heard long ago. And the land, that you now see to have root, you shall see wasted suddenly. But if the most High grant you to live, you shall see after the third trumpet that the sun shall suddenly shine again in the night, and the moon thrice in the day: And blood shall drop out of wood, and the stone shall give his voice, and the people shall be troubled: And even he shall rule, whom they look not for that dwell upon the earth, and the fowls shall take their flight away together: And the Dead Sea shall cast out fish, and make a noise in the night, which many have not known: but they shall all hear the voice thereof. There shall be a confusion also in many places, and the fire shall be oft sent out again, and the wild beasts shall change their places, and menstruous women shall bring forth monsters: And salt waters shall be found in the sweet, and all friends shall destroy one another; then shall wit hide itself, and understanding withdraw itself into his secret chamber, And shall be sought of many, and yet not be found: then shall unrighteousness and incontinency be multiplied upon earth. One land also shall ask another, and say, ‘Is righteousness that makes a man righteous gone through you?’ And it shall say, ‘No.’ At the same time shall men hope, but nothing obtain: they shall labour, but their ways shall not prosper. To show you such tokens I have permission; and if you will pray again, and weep as now, and fast even days, you shall hear yet greater things.”
This afternoon it just occurred to me that I learn more from other people and more about them by listening closely to what they don’t say rather than by listening to what they do. Of course, I don’t mean that that’s my starting point, or that I learn by listening to them when they’re not speaking at all—that would be absurd. They have to speak, or write, and it’s by hearing or reading their words that I also learn from what they don’t express. I suppose that’s the plain meaning of “reading between the lines,” and so I’m not claiming to have received some kind of revelation. But I just now realized how much of my thinking about other people and the world around me comes from this kind of listening, and I wonder if the same is true of me, that people learn more from me and about me in the same way.
Scenario. A young professional woman, an engineer, works overseas for two or three years to “get her feet wet,” really wet, after graduating from school. She is a Christian. She’s been brought up that way by church-going parents. She is a product of white, mainline Protestant America, did all the right things, and made a career for herself that she can fall back on when, after marriage and the kids past infancy, she can work again at a job that she likes and that pays well.
It's about time that some extra-terrestrial visitors took a peek at my unworthy blog!
Sarakostí, my family and I would visit Saint George's Antiochian Orthodox Christian church for mid-week service and the free supper afterwards. The service was on the main floor of their tiny Protestant missionary meeting hall, and the supper was served in the equally tiny church basement, where the tables were fitted so snuggly that the experience of being enveloped by an almost suffocating love followed us wherever we went. It was wonderful!
Then, the temple was "finished" being built. At least it had the shell completed, the windows put in, and the most essential interior parts in place, the iconostasis, the baptismal font. The congregation "took possession" and worship of the Lord began. The walls and pillars and ceiling were pure white, no icons anywhere except on the iconostasis and a few other places, small icons hanging in their frames. I used to bring people to Saint George's and tell them, "We are privileged to see a baby Orthodox church, just fresh and new in its white garments. Soon, the icons will begin to be painted on the walls and ceiling. But now, we see what a new-born temple looks like. Before long, generations of pious Christians will fill these white walls with images of the Lord and His saints. Remember how it all began."
That was some years ago. When you enter the temple now, it is beautiful to see how the walls have filled up with icons of the resurrection, the baptism of Christ, and the platytera "wider than the heavens" icon of Mary with Jesus in her lap. It is no longer a baby Orthodox church; it's growing up. There will be more years to fill the still empty walls here and there, but now the church just feels "new", not "newborn." I wish I had photos to share in this post of the church under construction, but I don't. So, I have used some images found on the internet of a new church under construction in Serbia.
This post is not really about a church under construction. It is about a soul under construction, an Orthodox soul. Rarely are we in a position to view the workings of God on the soul of a person being drawn to Christ and mentored by Him, but the internet window of blogging allows us sometimes to view a soul under construction. (Actually all of us are souls under construction, and our blogs reveal this!)
God is one, and God is sovereign. No one can dispute that. On that everyone who even thinks about God can agree. Those who know God as well as think about Him can add even more details. God is forgiving. God is merciful. Those who follow God as well as know Him can add yet more. God is among us. God has pitched His tent among us. God is love.
For all its other meanings, the account in Genesis 2 and 3 has this meaning. Our first parents Adam and Eve were given as food the fruit of every tree in the garden of paradise which God created, except for the fruit of one of two very special trees.
The tree of life, whose fruit they were permitted, of all the other trees in the garden, not only nourished them physically, but also spiritually—by eating the fruit of this tree, they would never die. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, its twin in being specially created, was the only tree in paradise the fruit of which was absolutely forbidden to them as food. They must not eat of its fruit. They could see it, they might touch it (though they probably dare not), but of its fruit they must not eat.
Though they might desire it, with or without the help of the tempter, they must not eat of it, else they would die. Something would change irreversibly forever. It was in the desiring of it, while not partaking of it—in the single-hearted obedience to the word spoken in their ears by their Creator—that resided the source of all the moral energy that they had, all the energy that was in them for good.
That was how He had created them. Nothing He created was meaningless or just for show. No word of His spoken to them, or to us, at any time, has ever been only to dominate us or to rule over us, to show us who is in charge. He does not need to do that. We know who we are, who He is, instinctively, just as we instinctively know wrong from right, darkness from light. We are not blind.
No, He created Adam and Eve this way, and paradise with its two special trees, and spoke the one commandment, to reveal to them and to us how reality works, and what our part in reality is. It’s not merely a story, but the revelation of the nature of all that is, against the learning of all that is not.
In the children’s book by C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, there is a parallel story that alludes to this very same idea, that which I am trying to describe here. There is no need to recount the story from this book, but perhaps to quote a short poem from it will add some hint of meaning that I have may have missed.
Come in by the gold gates or not at all.
Take of my fruit for others or forbear,
for those who steal or those who climb my wall
shall find their heart’s desire, and find despair.
* * *
“…the source of all the moral energy that they had, all the energy that was in them for good,” I wrote a few paragraphs above. What brought on all the foregoing thoughts, culminating in this line, was an experience I had last Saturday.
I accompanied my best friend to a presentation at a local college of therapeutic massage, open to the public to introduce potential students to the institution and its curriculum. We had a suspicion that, this being the West Coast, there might be a lot of “New Age” influences at this college. What we weren’t prepared for was the fact that we were the only two males in the audience of about four times as many females (the group wasn’t large). Needless to say, the presentation was very feminist oriented. All but one of the women in the audience seemed to be the typical Oregonian goddess-worshipper type, and the one who wasn’t was from Washington state. One of the presenters was a current female student who was quite outspoken in flattering the college and flaunting her special relationship with a Tibetan shaman who was teaching her some nameless discipline. One of the young women in the audience was persistent in wanting to know who this was, and the student told her to get her phone number from the registrar (who was in the room) so she could get her “connected.” I wasn’t really surprised by any of this, once I realised into what a coven we had fallen. The only other man in the room was the main presenter, who was emasculated after years of catering to this kind of student clientele.
At one point in the presentation (which we surmised was supposed to be a sample simulation of the kind of instruction and philosophy available at the school), we were paired up, and each had a turn at being a practitioner and a client. The room was darkened, except for two dim, floor lamps. The presenter guided us “practitioners” in getting into the right frame of mind to “connect” with our “clients.” Unfortunately I can’t quote exactly what he said, but the drift of it was something like this.
Focus on that which is your energy source, that force inside you that is for good, for wholeness, whatever it is, maybe it’s your love for nature, or music, or the fun times you have with your kids, whatever it is that is the source of your personal power to act. Now, let that source of power release energy into your body, let it descend into your hands. When you feel the energy in your hands, place your hands above your client’s shoulders but do not touch them. Let that energy descend to your client and when you feel it connecting, let your hands drop down onto your client’s shoulders. Let that energy speak “gratitude” to your client. Let your hands let the client know how grateful you are for them being there… on and on the presenter spoke almost as an incantation. Then after two or three minutes of this, he told us to begin withdrawing our energy back into ourselves and to disconnect from the client. Then when the energy was pulled back into its mysterious source, we should raise our hands off our clients and totally withdraw. Afterwards we were told to exchange with our clients what each of us felt during the experience.
When it was my turn to be the “practitioner” and heard the presenter’s instructions, I was startled, and tried to translate them into my reality in Christ, who is the only source of power, though not of personal power in the way he seemed to be implying. Luckily, my “client” was my best friend, and we are already “connected” in the only way possible, by sharing in the same mind of Christ. Instinctively, I knew what the presenter was trying to have happen, because it’s what happens when a Christian truly ministers to another human being. The problem was, as usual in the world, the right and real way of doing what he was trying to do, he would not even consider. Instead of turning to Christ, whom he doesn’t accept, he substitutes “whatever it is that is the source of your personal power to act,” that is, anything but Christ. Of course, if he were to actually ask what our “source” was, and we told him, “Christ,” political correctness would have forced him to patronize us with some neutral words of appreciation, and then hurry on to a less dangerous topic.
My friend and I concluded afterward that this was just how things are out here, and that if a person wants to learn this practice and be certified, he has to endure the “New Age” and feminist environment that has captured it. As for being the only men present, we were ourselves and spoke and acted as men and not as emasculates, and this was an obvious irritation to some in the audience. Had they known we were followers of “that Man,” their scorn for us would probably have reached a flashing point.
This post probably seems like two separate posts, but really it isn’t. Both parts of it are about the mystery and the problem of what empowers us for good as human beings.
Well, of course I know the simple, pat answer from most Christians would simply be “God” or “Christ” empowers us, but that’s the obvious answer. I wanted to know how does He empower us?
What is the spiritual mechanism of this empowerment?
I believe this mechanism to be our deepest desire, not what we admit to others or even to ourselves is our deepest desire, for that is often the answer that’s expected. Instead, it’s the deepest desire which may not seem to have a direct bearing on “religion” or even on “spirituality,” and yet it is the thing we were born desiring.
It is the thing we were born desiring but know, by the light of Christ when we accept Him, that it is impossible to obtain in this life without forfeiting Him.
This seems so unfair when we first encounter it in all its dreadful majesty. We are not forbidden to desire, but we are to obey the one commandment that prevents its fulfillment, and by that obedience become instruments of God in this world, and finally fit rulers of the next.
The ban will be lifted. The Throne of God and of the Lamb will be in its place in the City; His servants will worship Him, they will see Him face to face, and His Name will be written on their foreheads. It will never be night again and they will not need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will be shining on them. They will reign for ever and ever.
Revelation 22:3-5 Jerusalem Bible
I wrote about martyrdom some time ago in a post entitled Martyrdom, in which I compared Christian and Muslim views about it. Essentially, Christians suffer martyrdom, and Muslims commit it.NOTE: My sincere apologies to anyone who viewed the link to the original article on Infidel Bloggers Alliance and was subjected to inappropriate imagery in the side panel of that blog. My mistake! I thought that by linking only to the single post, only that post would appear. Unfortunately it appeared inside the IBA frame, which I would NOT want any of my visitors to have to look at. Again, my sincere apologies to all! Forgive me, brethren!
Today I read the story of an Egyptian (Coptic) Orthodox priest who is being wrongfully imprisoned in Egypt. This martyr has not been put to death, but he is being imprisoned wrongfully. If there is anything you can do to contribute to his release, by prayer, by writing in protest, whatever God leads you to do, then do it. Here is the story…
Father Mattaos did not commit a crime.
He is paying a price for being a faithful Christian in Egypt's present-day policy of denying religious freedom.
GEZA, Egypt (Christian Newswire) - Father Mattaos Wahba, is the priest of Archangel Michael Church at Kerdasa, Geza, Egypt. He is a pious man of God who encourages his congregation with Jesus' message of loving one's enemy, blessing those who curse you; doing good to those who hate you; and praying for those who despitefully use and persecute you. (Mathew 5:44) Fr. Mattaos is a model Egyptian citizen that has not ever committed a crime or seen the inside of a prison other than in the context of ministering to inmates.
Recently Father Mattaos' life abruptly changed overnight. He was arrested, charged and tried for aiding a young Muslim woman in getting an ID card that had falsified data indicating her religion as Christian rather than Muslim. The ID card was said to enable her to marry a Christian man and to flee the country. On October, 2008, the court found him guilty and sentenced him to 5 years at hard labor.
However, the facts dictate entirely a different story. The young woman, named Reham Abdel Aziz Rady, was born to a Muslim family. She converted to Christianity and underwent unbearable degrees of torturous harassments from her family and Egypt's Secret Police. She was subsequently released from custody without an ID card. Such prevents her rightful privileges of citizenship. She cannot get employment, rent living quarter, apply for a passport; much less apply for a marriage license.
Even, if she still possessed her old Muslim ID, it would prevent her from marrying a Christian. There is no legal way to change the religion of a Muslim in an ID card.
In 2004, a well-intentioned person attempted to help her. They allowed Reham to use an ID card belonging to a recently deceased young Christian woman of approximately the same age, named Mariam Nabil. Two years later, Reham, now called Mariam, and a Christian man fell in love and decided to marry. The couple contacted Fr. Mattaos to conduct the marriage ceremonies. The priest knew nothing of the false ID and Mariam's former Muslim background. In good faith he conducted the ceremony and the newly wed couple fled the country.
On April 24, 2009, Mariam appeared with Brother Rasheed on the popular Arabic Al Hayat TV program "A Daring Question". She testified, "Father Mattaos did not have any role in getting my ID card. I did not know him then, as this took place in 2004 and I got married in 2006." Mariam added, "I have the right to have an ID card that reflects my true religious affiliation. The Egyptian government does not give Muslims who convert to Christianity a legal alternative to get these papers. Had I been a Christian who wanted to convert to Islam, I would have had all the help I needed. But, because I am leaving Islam they put hurdles in my way."
Father Mattaos did not commit a crime. He does not deserve to be imprisoned. He is paying a price of Egypt's present-day policy of denying religious freedom. Ironically, their policy is against the Egyptian constitution and standard human rights laws to which Egypt is a signatory. Make no mistake about it. Father Mattaos' imprisonment is designed to send a message to Coptic Egyptian priests and Protestant pastors: The Egyptian government will deal harshly with any clergyman who is suspected in aiding Muslims converting to Christianity.
We call upon officials in the US State Department; Human Rights organizations; the global community of Christian believers; and all freedom loving people to join us in our outcry. We urge you to contact the Egyptian Embassy demanding the immediate release of Father Mattaos. Insist in strong tones that every Egyptian citizen be granted the basic human right to follow the religion of his/her choice.
EMBASSY OF THE ARAB REPUBLIC OF EGYPT
3521 International Ct. NW Washington DC 20008
TEL: 202.895.5400 FAX: 202.244.4319
E-mail: Embassy@egyptembassy.net
Here is one more article, from the U. S. Copts Association that gives an insider's view of the situation. (Don't worry, no offensive images!)
which was borrowed from its original source and posted by a Christian brother in Indonesia, whom I have recently met, on his wonderful blog Heart Beat.
I am a doorkeeper of the Lord's temple, that's my job, 24/7. At festival time, it takes on a literal meaning.
This is the Orthodoxy that I adhere to. Everything about it is paradox and irony. People ask, "How can you stand for so long in those services? They're hours long!" and "How do you put up with all that repetition?" and "Why do people seem to be crossing themselves all over the place, and not just once, but three times?" The list of questions goes on, interminably. While I'm on duty, the Lord gives me infinite patience in dealing with them all—and their questions, what's more ironic, are just as long and repetitive and spontaneously ceremonial to me as our Orthodoxy seems to them.
It's not arcane and secret doctrines or impossibly complex ("byzantine") theological dogmas. It's not the apparent rigidity of ceremonial which, for unsympathetic (or too grown-up) outsiders, seems empty and meaningless. It's not even (what appears to some as) the pomp and fussyness of worship, which combined with the Oriental chanting and the fragrant frankincense smoke filling the sanctuary, creates an almost psychedelic experience (a living, moving three-dimensional hieroglyphic, it's been called).
It takes a child's heart, simple enough to trust that the Father is so totally caring and careful, that it doesn't just believe, it knows that nothing happens without Him knowing, and therefore, all will be well. That's also one reason why we immerse our young in every aspect of the faith, even giving communion to unknowing infants. It is this foundation that every Orthodox can fall back on, rebuilding, if need be, after suffering the damage that the world is sure to inflict.
"Suffer the little children to come unto Me…" is a much wider invitation than most people realize, and that too is the invitation of true Orthodoxy, wherever it exists.
The problem with this rosy picture is that the “peace of the Church” is rapidly vanishing before our eyes (which in most cases are looking the other way). Where many of us live it is already entirely gone, except in worn-out ceremonial.
Let the world legislate against the Truth. That makes it all the more visible when the Truth appears in the form of its witnesses. Can the Christ-bearers escape the judgment that Christ Himself chose not to escape? No, and neither do we choose to escape.
Then, there is the reason behind this all. The reason being the divine Word, through whom the world was made, and in whom we live and move and have our being. Though He is God, He entered into our time and assumed our flesh, living secretly, that is, unknown to the world, just as we live. No one will remember us after we’ve left this world, at least not for long, but the world remembers Him.
There certainly is a cost of discipleship to Jesus Christ. Recently this was made very evident when in the Miss America pageant, a beautiful finalist, Miss California, was asked the question she feared most, what she thought of the legalization of gay “marriage.” I don’t watch television, and what I know of this incident comes from my monitoring the internet, so there may be parts of the story I am not aware of. I did see, however, that one of the judges in this beauty contest was an openly and militantly gay celebrity (although I’d never heard of him before, living in my cave as I do). What was most disturbing was what this gay man said and did after the pageant to vilify and mock this young woman who, for the whole world to see, testified to the truth that men keep imprisoned in their wickedness (Romans 1:18 JB). Anyone who saw or even heard of what he said and did to dishonor this brave young woman should be able to tell that there is something very wrong here. Yet the world looks the other way, and sides with the man of sin.
It’s nice, isn’t it, when the weather is just right for the season or for a special holiday?
For one, He lived as a real man in a country and time we know with reliable certainty. Not only that, but the stories about Him are not folk tales and myths full of imaginary exploits. He really did do the things the bible says He did. Moreover, His dying and rising again to life, though it seems at shallow glance to be just another example of the dying and rising gods of folklore, also really did happen, and it’s attested to by a multitude of witnesses who agree in all but minor details. That’s the history lesson part of it…
This is the risen Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come, the Pantokrator.
Check out Fr Stephen's excellent post, Relative to Pascha. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts…
I picked up my Jerusalem Bible and began to read again the 1st book of Maccabees, just because I like to read history sometimes. I’ve read this book a dozen times or more cover to cover. It’s the book that underlies the Jewish feast of Chanukah.
Something that the Father did not deny us, He could not deny His only-begotten Son, and that is free will. Christ was not secretly arrested, falsely accused and unjustly tried as if He could not have saved Himself, but He went freely and voluntarily to His life-giving death. He permitted Himself to be captured and killed—even secular text books are forced to describe it in these terms—of His own free will, and following Him we still have free will also.
The following was stolen in its entirety from Fr Milovan's worthy blog, Again and Again, which you should visit anyway, in which case I wouldn't have to steal quite as much…
How can I be living my life as though the resurrection didn’t really happen?
“Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours.’…”
Those who don’t die quickly have their legs broken. They feel it. It’s excruciating, literally, it crosses them out. They’re finished, and fast, but they still feel the pain, and they don’t die willingly, but by force.
A true story, retold. What would you do if faced with this situation?
Here I go stealing again! And on Great and Holy Friday to boot! But reading Fr Stephen's excellent post this afternoon, I couldn't help flying the flag of my admiration for at least one part of it. So, like the wise thief whom Christ let steal paradise in a single moment,
It was not through Moses's first forty years of training in the palace and the military academies of Egypt that he became a spiritual leader. No. It was through God breaking the strength of his 'Self', when Moses spent the next forty years looking after sheep in the wilderness.
In the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness, we read one phrase repeated eighteen times in Exodus chapters 39 and 40 - the phrase, "just as the Lord had commanded Moses". The pattern of the tabernacle given by the Lord was a very simple and modest-looking affair. It was a far cry from the fantastic pyramids that Moses had seen built in Egypt.
tabernacle at the age of 40, when the strength of his 'Self' was in full bloom, he would certainly have modified it and made it look more attractive. But at the age of 80, Self had so died out, that he did exactly as the Lord commanded him. And that is what brought the glory of the Lord into the tabernacle.
The apostle Paul had studied for three years at the feet of Gamaliel, the great professor of theology at the Jerusalem Bible school. That's why he had to spend three years after his conversion, in the wilderness of Arabia to have the wisdom of Gamaliel removed from his system and replaced with Divine wisdom. Paul refers to this period in Galatians 1:17,18: "I went away to Arabia… Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem."
How is it with us in what we do and build for the Lord? Is it exactly according to the pattern found in the Scriptures? Or have we modified it with some of the wisdom of this world? If so, then that must certainly be one reason why the glory of the Lord is not found in our lives.
I looked up at the majestic icon of the Ascension of Christ that completely fills the wall above the main altar (where in an Orthodox church would be the image of the Theotokos with Christ in her lap). As I have done many times in the past, I prayed to the Lord while gazing up at that huge painting. Strangely, I don’t usually pray with my eyes open before icons, but I have always felt different about this one, and always pray looking up, eyes open. “Lord, descend on this house of worship and restore it to the glory it had before, when You filled it with Your glory!” And the rest is between me and the Lord, but our God is faithful, and He will accomplish His purposes in us.
Whenever I return to a stint of reading the early fathers, that is, those before and just after the peace of the Church wrought by Constantine, I’m always struck by their modernity and the freshness that leaps out at me as I read. It makes me wonder just what “modern” means.
Eusebius’ History of the Church was my leisure reading matter this morning. His text reads as fluently and frankly as if it were written just yesterday, and the events he recounts are both easy to picture and believe as accurate. What a far cry from the miracle stories of Christian piety, always avid to believe anything as long as it’s monstrous—like Nicholas of Myra reassembling and revivifying the bodies of some boys who were hacked to pieces and then hidden in some barrels of pickles, or was it wine?