NATIVITY OF THE VENERABLE GLORIOUS PROPHET, FORERUNNER AND BAPTIST OF THE LORD, JOHN

Many years to my son, John! The following is from Fr. Patrick Reardon’s Daily Reflections concerning St. John the Forerunner’s nativity.

The Birth of John the Baptist: Although our Lord said that “among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11), only Luke thought to provide us with the name of the woman who gave John birth.

In fact, Luke went into some detail to tell of that lady named Elizabeth and the circumstances surrounding her unexpected conception of a son in her advanced years. The Angel Gabriel, who had been somewhat quiet in Israel after the days of Daniel, appeared to Elizabeth’s husband and predicted the pregnancy (Luke 1:13).

Moreover, God clearly intended to leave a special mark on John even before his birth. Six months into the gestation, Elizabeth received another visitor, this one a human visitor: her young kinswoman from Galilee named Mary. At Mary’s greeting, John’s mother sensed another Presence, as “the babe leaped in her womb” (1:41). Mary, in fact, like a new Ark of the Covenant, bore within her body God’s newly incarnate Son, whose Father chose her greeting at that moment as the occasion to sanctify the unborn John the Baptist. This event fulfilled an earlier prediction of Gabriel with respect to John: “He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb” (1:15). In drawing our attention to John’s prophetic consecration before his birth, Luke portrays him in the likeness of the Prophet Jeremiah, to whom God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; / Before you were born I sanctified you; / I ordained you a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

If John resembled Jeremiah, however, his resemblance to the Prophet Elijah was even more pronounced. Once again, it was the Angel Gabriel, who used of John the very words with which the Prophet Malachi foretold the return of Elijah: “And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1:16–17; Malachi 4:5–6).

Since Elijah’s return had been predicted in the last of the Old Testament’s prophetic books, there was considerable expectation on the matter, even among the Lord’s Apostles (Matthew 17:10). Although John himself denied that he really was Elijah in a literal sense (John 1:21), he surely felt some affinity to that earlier prophet; he even dressed like him (Matthew 3:4 [and 11:8]; 2 Kings 1:8).

Whatever John felt about the matter, nonetheless, Jesus Himself asserted that “Elijah has come already,” and, when He asserted this, “the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:12–13). John’s affinity to Elijah was more than haberdashery, however, for his appearance in this world introduced the days in which “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come” (11:12–14).

The Apostles’ Fast

The rule for this variable-length fast is more lenient than for Great Lent.
Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Strict fast.
Tuesday, Thursday: Oil and wine permitted.
Saturday, Sunday: Fish, oil and wine permitted.
This is the rule kept by many monasteries during non-fasting seasons
From abbamoses.com

You Started Another Blog?

Yes , I have started another blog concerning the Liberal Arts. This summer I started another graduate program in the Liberal Arts at Faulkner University so I have decided to start another blog in order to share some of the things I will be learning with those interested in such matters. The blog is Scholium. Click and see!

A History of Orthodox Missions Among the Muslims

It is widely believed that Muslims do not abandon Islam. This widespread opinion is, however, only partly true. It is true that it is difficult to convert Muslims, but it is not so much the difficulty of converting Muslims as it is the scarcity of Christian missions among them that leads us to believe they are hard to convert. Still, if many think that Muslims are difficult to convert to Protestantism or Roman Catholicism, even more would think it impossible to convert Muslims to the Orthodox Faith. This later opinion has its basis in a general lack of knowledge about the missionary labors of the Orthodox throughout the ages and the world in places as diverse and far apart as Africa, India, Siberia, China, Japan, and Alaska. Indeed, the history of Orthodox missions among the Muslims is a particularly important and fascinating part of the overall mission of the Orthodox Church. As it is impossible to fully cover the history of Orthodox missions among the Muslims here I have only attempted to highlight some of its facets to give those interested a better idea about this part of the Orthodox Church’s missions.

Although it is generally known that many of Muhammad’s followers found refuge in Ethiopia during the early years of Islam, it is not well known that one of his followers, Ubaidallah ibn Jahiz, became a Christian while in Ethiopia and was baptized there. He was the first Muslim, but certainly not the last, to discover and embrace the truth. Here are two stories from the early history of Islam, both set in the reign of the fourth ‘righteous’ caliph, Muhammad’s nephew and son-in-law Ali: “One Muslim converted to Christianity. Ali ordered him to return to Islam, but he refused. Ali killed him and would not give his body to his relatives, though they offered much money. Ali burnt the body. “Another man from the tribe Bani-Ijl became a Christian. He was brought shackled to Ali, who spoke at length with the convert. In response to Ali’s questions the man said, “I know that Isa [Jesus] is the Son of God.” Then Ali stood up and stamped on him. When the others saw it they also started to trample the man down. And Ali said: “Kill him.” He was killed and Ali ordered that the body be burnt.”

Missions within the East Roman or Byzantine Empire
From history we know that after the Arab Muslims’ early conquest of Antioch the East Roman or Byzantine Empire regained that great city, together with northern and central Syria, during the 10th century. During the ensuing period of Byzantine rule the entire Arab Muslim population voluntarily converted to Orthodoxy, including the Arab nobility. The same happened in the district of Laodicea and the town of Melitene, which returned to the Byzantine Empire during the same time period. Most notable, however, is the conversion of the Bedouin tribe of the Banu Khabib in 935, who “[numbered] 12,000 horsemen with full armament, with families, clients (people who were not members of the tribe, but who enjoyed its protection - Y.M.), and slaves joined the Greeks, accepted Christ and started to fight against their former fellow believers. A history in Arabic by Ibn Safir, who wrote in the 13th century, said that the Banu Khabib remained Christians “till today.”

Several examples of more ‘concentrated’ missions among the Muslims can be found in Byzantine hagiographical works. In the middle of the 9th century St. Theodore of Edessa converted the “Saracen king”, Muawid, one of the three sons of the Umayyad caliph Mutawakkil (847-861), to Orthodoxy, baptizing him with the name John together with his three confidants. St. Ilya the New, when staying in Palestine at the end of the 9th century, healed and baptized many Muslims. Later, while traveling to Persia, the Saint met twelve Muslims whom he converted to Christianity and baptized. At the opening of the 9th century St. Gregory Dekapolites wrote about the conversion of the Umayyad caliph’s nephew, which was followed by the conversion of many other Muslims.

There are other vivid stories that can be recalled. At the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th century a Spanish Muslim, Omar ibn Khaphsun, converted to Christianity with his sons and ruled over several mountain valleys for nearly fifty years, having the castle Bobastro as his residence. During the same period of time the Kurdish prince Ibn-ad-Dahhak, who possessed the fortress of al-Jafary, abandoned Islam for Orthodoxy. Additionally, the contemporaries of the Muslim theologian Abdallah ibn Kullaib (who died in 955) write that he secretly converted to Christianity. It is also known that Bunei ibn Nefis, a military commander and confidant of caliph al-Muktadir, became an Orthodox Christian and fought with the Byzantines against arabs.

Looking at all of these sources we can say that as many as 100,000 Muslims converted to Christianity during the 9th and 10th centuries. It is also interesting to note that in the 15th century the great Muslim city of Baghdad and some regions of Asia Minor ruled by the Turkish Kara-Kiunglu dynasty adopted Christianity, they having been condemned by Egyptian historians for apostasy.” -Yurij Maximov

Read the entire article here.

Cappadocia

A Saying of Dorotheos of Gaza

“I heard of one person that when he came to one of his friends and found the room in disarray and even dirty, he would say to himself: “Blessed is this person, because having deferred his concerns for earthly cares, he has concentrated his mind that much toward Heaven, that he doesn’t even have time to tidy up his room.” But when he came to another friend’s place and found his room tidy and neat, he would say to himself; “The soul of this person is as clean as his room, and the condition of the room speaks of his soul.” And he never judged another that he was negligent or proud, but through his kind disposition, saw good in everyone and received benefits from everyone. May the good Lord grant us the same kind disposition, so that we too may receive benefits from everyone and so that we never notice the failings of others.”- Dorotheos of Gaza

“Atheism is the Denial, the Negation of an Evil God”

Following yesterdays post I thought I would quote and mention Dr. Kalomiros’ well known lecture River of Fire which critiques a certain western view of God that has lead to the growth of Atheism and other misfortunes.

“Reverend fathers, dear brothers and sisters:

There is no doubt that we are living in the age of apostasy predicted for the last days. In practice, most people are atheists, although many of them theoretically still believe. Indifference and the spirit of this world prevail everywhere.

What is the reason for this state?

The reason is the cooling of love. Love for God no more burns in human hearts, and in consequence, love between us is dead, too.

What is the cause of this waning of men’s love for God? The answer, certainly, is sin. Sin is the dark cloud which does not permit God’s light to reach our eyes.

But sin always did exist. So how did we arrive at the point of not simply ignoring God, but of actually hating Him? Man’s attitude toward God today is not really ignorance, or really indifference. If you examine men carefully you will notice that their ignorance or indifference is tainted by a deep hate. But nobody hates anything that does not exist.

I have the suspicion that men today believe in God more than at any other time in human history. Men know the gospel, the teaching of the Church, and God’s creation better than at any other time. They have a profound consciousness of His existence. Their atheism is not a real disbelief. It is rather an aversion toward somebody we know very well but whom we hate with all our heart, exactly as the demons do.

We hate God, that is why we ignore Him, overlooking Him as if we did not see Him, and pretending to be atheists. In reality we consider Him our enemy par excellence. Our negation is our vengeance, our atheism is our revenge.

But why do men hate God? They hate Him not only because their deeds are dark while God is light, but also because they consider Him as a menace, as an imminent and eternal danger, as an adversary in court, as an opponent at law, as a public prosecutor and an eternal persecutor. To them, God is no more the almighty physician who came to save them from illness and death, but rather a cruel judge and a vengeful inquisitor.

You see, the devil managed to make men believe that God does not really love us, that He really only loves Himself, and that He accepts us only if we behave as He wants us to behave; that He hates us if we do not behave as He ordered us to behave, and is offended by our insubordination to such a degree that we must pay for it by eternal tortures, created by Him for that purpose.

Who can love a torturer? Even those who try hard to save themselves from the wrath of God cannot really love Him. They love only themselves, trying to escape God’s vengeance and to achieve eternal bliss by managing to please this fearsome and extremely dangerous Creator.

Do you perceive the devil’s slander of our all loving, all kind, and absolutely good God? That is why in Greek the devil was given the name DIABOLOS, “the slanderer”.

II

But what was the instrument of the devil’s slandering of God? What means did he use in order to convince humanity, in order to pervert human thought?

He used “theology”. He first introduced a slight alteration in theology which, once it was accepted, he managed to increase more and more to the degree that Christianity became completely unrecognizable. This is what we call “Western theology”.

Did you ever try to pinpoint what is the principal characteristic of Western theology? Well, its principal characteristic is that it considers God as the real cause of all evil.

What is evil? Is it not the estrangement from God Who is Life? 1 Is it not death? What does Western theology teach about death? All Roman Catholics and most Protestants consider death as a punishment from God. God considered all men guilty of Adam’s sin and punished them by death, that is by cutting them away from Himself; depriving them of His live giving energy, and so killing them spiritually at first and later bodily, by some sort of spiritual starvation. Augustine interprets the passage in Genesis “If you eat of the fruit of this tree, you will die the death” as “If you eat of the fruit of this tree, I will kill you”.

Some Protestants consider death not as a punishment but as something natural. But. is not God the creator of all natural things? So in both cases, God — for them — is the real cause of death.

And this is true not only for the death of the body. It is equally true for the death of the soul. Do not Western theologians consider hell, the eternal spiritual death of man, as a punishment from God? And do they not consider the devil as a minister of God for the eternal punishment of men in hell?

The “God” of the West is an offended and angry God, full of wrath for the disobedience of men, who desires in His destructive passion to torment all humanity unto eternity for their sins, unless He receives an infinite satisfaction for His offended pride.

What is the Western dogma of salvation? Did not God kill God in order to satisfy His pride, which the Westerners euphemistically call justice? And is it not by this infinite satisfaction that He deigns to accept the salvation of some of us?

What is salvation for Western theology? Is it not salvation from the wrath of God? 2

Do you see, then, that Western theology teaches that our real danger and our real enemy is our Creator and God? Salvation, for Westerners, is to be saved from the hands of God!

How can one love such a God? How can we have faith in someone we detest? Faith in its deeper essence is a product of love, therefore, it would be our desire that one who threatens us not even exist, especially when this threat is eternal.

Even if there exists a means of escaping the eternal wrath of this omnipotent but wicked Being (the death of His Son in our stead), it would be much better if this Being did not exist. This was the most logical conclusion of the mind and of the heart of the Western peoples, because even eternal Paradise would be abhorrent with such a cruel God. Thus was atheisrn born, and this is why the West was its birthplace. Atheism was unknown in Eastern Christianity until Western theology was introduced there, too. Atheism is the consequence of Western theology. 3 Atheism is the denial, the negation of an evil God. Men became atheists in order to be saved from God, hiding their head and closing their eyes like an ostrich. Atheism, my brothers, is the negation of the Roman Catholic and Protestant God. Atheism is not our real enemy. The real enemy is that falsified and distorted “Christianity”.” Read the entire lecture here .

God as Light and Fire

“Some people in the West believe in a sadistic god who perpetually tortures people in hell. But the Orthodox Christians in the East always knew what the Bible’s references to Heaven and Hell meant. They never believed in a sadistic god. The Holy Fathers teach that God is both Heaven and Hell, according to each person’s righteousness. He loves everyone and He will embrace everyone. But not everyone will see Him as light. Some people will be unable to tolerate His Love and they will suffer, because they had learned only to hate…
When we say that God is both light and fire, Protestants often ask us: “Where did you find that in the Bible?” Even though they know that it’s irrational to believe that God tortures people, they need quotes from the Bible to be convinced.

Of course we Christians don’t need to see something written in the Bible in order to believe it. But we are going to present a few biblical passages that support our opinion. Thus, the Protestants will be able to abandon the western, blasphemous notion of a sadistic God, and they will see that the teachings of the Lord’s Orthodox Church are always true.

Let’s start with Isaiah:

“The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings? He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil. He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.” (Isaiah 33:14-16)

Notice who will dwell with the everlasting burnings!!! Not only the unjust, but the righteous as well! Do you see that they are the same? What is feared by sinners is considered “high” by the righteous.
And what is the “devouring fire”?

“For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29)

This “fiery” God is “light” for other people. According to Isaiah:

“For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron: I will also make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness. Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”(Isaiah 60:17-20)

The word “glory” (Greek: doxa) means “brightness”. Paul writes:

“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.” (1 Corinthians 15:41)

But the passage from Isaiah mentions materials. It is obvious that God will replace the lesser materials with materials that are more valuable and more able to endure fire. What does this mean? The apostle Paul explains:

“Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15)

It is important that in this passage various materials symbolise each person’s actions. Good actions are like valuable materials that can’t be harmed by fire. On the other hand, evil actions are mentioned as materials that can be burned. Then, the fire of God’s grace will burn the unworthy deeds and he who committed them shall be damaged because he won’t have anything valuable to show. Both good and evil actions, both righteous and unjust men will go through this fire…

The prophet Zechariah says that the fire purifies valuable metals. The fire doesn’t burn them, but it cleans them and it illuminates them. When a metal stays in the fire, it too becomes bright as fire. But the fire also makes wood black and burns it:

“And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”(Zechariah 13:9)

The next passage also shows us that the righteous and the unjust will go through the same flame. Although the sinners will feel burned by the fire, the just shall rest in the fire of the presence and the glory (brightness) of the Lord:

“And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”(2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

In the Revelation to John, we read about the river of the Grace of God that springs from His throne. This river is the river of life for the righteous:

“And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”(Revelation 22:1-2)

But this river is also described as “fire”:

“A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him…”(Daniel 7:10)

We see the difference between how the righteous and how the unjust perceive the Grace of God.

This is because, according to the author of the Psalms, the fire of the Lord is divided by Him into illuminating and burning energy:

“The voice of the LORD divideth the flames of fire.”(Psalm 29:7, Massoretic Text)

When that day comes, are we going to feel God’s grace as “fire” or as “light”? The decision is ours…”

From OODE

Imagination and Memory

“Imagination and memory are one inner sense. Sometimes a memory of former events hits us on the head like a hammer. At such a time concentrated prayer is needed, and patience too. Our memory must be filled by reading the Holy Gospel and the writings of the Holy Fathers; in other words, the mind should not be idle. Former events must be replaced by other thoughts, and gradually the former recollections will be crowded out and the melancholy will pass. In one heart two masters cannot live together.” From Christ is in our Midst:Letters From a Russian Monk by Fr. John

A Miracle of Christ

“Once a certain old man who was practiced in this virtue surrounded by crowds of infidels when he was in Alexandria. He was pressed upon not only with reviling but even with the most grievous insults by those who were jostling him, and his mockers said to him: What miracle has your Christ, whom you worship, performed? He said: That I not be disturbed or offended by these or by greater insults, if you offer them.”- Abba Chaeremon in The Conferences by St. John Cassian