Electronic Control Panel for the Bells to be Installed in a Kuzbass Church

An electronic control panel for the bells is to be installed in the church dedicated to the Icon of Our Lady of Kazan in the village of Usinsky, Kemerovo Oblast. Yevgeny Kobyakov, a staff-member of the Kemerovo Diocese, told Interfax that this church would be the first in the Kuzbass {a mining region in Siberia: editor} where the tolling of the bells would be controlled by electronic means. “The usual belfry has a special cabin with mechanisms to connect the bell clappers and levers with ropes. Only a bell-ringer trained in a theological seminary knows the variants of ringing, which he performs by using the levers”, Mr Kobyakov said. However, when an electronic control panel is installed, every clergyman would be able to manage the bell ringing. “Various kinds of ringing are indicated on the panel, and they are reproduced by pressing a button. If a church-going bell is needed, you press one button, if a requiem service is to begin, you press another one”, he specified. Experts from the Novosibirsk casting plant will install the electronic control panel in the belfry a month from now.

6 December 2007

Interfax-Religion

www.interfax.ru

Benedict XVI Conveyed Greetings to Patriarch Aleksei

Benedict XVI Ratzinger, the Pope of Rome, wished good health and God’s help to Patriarch Aleksei Rediger of Moscow and all the Russias. The pope conveyed his greetings to the First Hierarch of the MP at a meeting with Metropolitan Kirill Gundyaev of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the head of the MP Department for External Church Relations, held in the Vatican on Friday. The pope was satisfied with the results of Patriarch Aleksei’s recent visit to Strasbourg and Paris, and noted that this visit was important both for the Christian witness to the secular world and to the bilateral relations between Catholics and Orthodox. A wide range of questions regarding Orthodox-Catholic dialogue and relations between the MP and Roman Catholics were discussed, the MP official website reported. The parties are convinced that they should use dialogue as a means to coordinate their positions on the agenda questions. The participants in the conversation approved of the efforts taken by both parties after the previous meeting between Metropolitan Kirill and Benedict XVI held right after the latter’s enthronement in April 2005. These bilateral efforts were aimed at working out joint positions on the most important problems that humanity faces today. As a result, a series of conferences and consultations on preserving Christian values in the life of modern Europe and all of humanity were held. The parties also discussed developing cooperation between representatives of the both Churches at international organisations and both churches’ participation in multilateral inter-religious dialogue.

7 December 2007

Interfax-Religion

www.interfax.ru

Editor’s note:

There was much media attention given to Metropolitan Kirill’s visit. Well, nothing of substance came of it. “Very positive” in diplomatese means, “We didn’t disagree openly”. Rome must bring the Galician Uniates to heel and stop supporting the uncanonical pretensions of Bartholomew before the MP shall agree to a visit to Moscow by Benedict. It’s quite that simple.

BMD

Video. Molitva (My Prayer) 2007 European Song Competition winner

There is an interesting wrinkle about this song. In Russian and Serbian, its title is Molitva (Prayer). In English, it appears as if it were deliberately mistranslated as “Destiny”. If the title were “Destiny”, it would be Sudba, not Molitva. Anyone can see that it’s impossible to confuse the two words, for they aren’t similar at all. You see, it changes the meaning of the song in an atheist direction (makes you wonder about other media translations from Russian, doesn’t it?). In short, PC strikes, and it strikes at the very meaning of this artist’s work. Who shall dare call it censorship? (No doubt, the singer was offered much money to agree to this. I don’t blame her. I do blame those who destroyed the song in English.)

I present the Russian version of the song here. It’s accompanied by the art of Fillip Moskvitin. If it was translated correctly, I would’ve used the English version, but I refuse to use a censored version of the song.

Actual text of the song:

It’s been a long way
I try hard not to fall apart
Every night I pray
And your voice is singing in my heart

I’ve been waiting
A long time for you to take my hand
Loving and hating
A desire that I don’t understand

I can’t breathe, I can’t sleep
Why can’t I get through to you?
I can’t think, I can’t speak
What am I to do?

My Prayer
I’ve been looking for something to guide me
My Prayer
Even though I’ve tried I can’t deny you
If I let you go, I’d betray my soul
I know that this is something more
Even though nothing’s spoken for,
a way that you will feel the same ‘bout me
My Prayer

Read the stars and see my scars
I feel so low when you’re away
So reach out, it’s not far
Listen to me pray

My Prayer
I’ve been looking for something to guide me
My Prayer
Even though I’ve tried I can’t deny you
If I let you go, I’d betray my soul
I know that this is something more
Even though nothing’s spoken for,
a way that you will feel the same
‘bout me

If I let you go, I’d betray my soul
I know that this is something more
Even though nothing’s spoken for,
a way that you will feel the same ‘bout me
My Prayer

Faith is within me
My Prayer

A Multimedia Presentation. The Legends of Russian Rock Music, Part 8

Grazhdanskaya Oborona (GrOb)

Egor Letov, frontman of the cult band GrOb… he died in Omsk in 2008

Can one conceal the fact that the songs of the cult rock band GrOb happen to serve as a philosophy for asocial teenagers? The song Vsyo Idyot po Planu (Everything Goes According to Plan) is a hymn of many drunken get-togethers. The dirty-sounding and fishy cynical lyrics of the band attract both many hoods and intellectuals (strange as it may seem!) of a certain age. Many minor Russian punk bands imitate the voice of GrOb’s frontman, songwriter, and vocalist Egor Letov.

Website: http://gr-oborona.ru/

14 February 2007

Vera Ivanova and Mikhail Manykin

Russia InfoCentre

http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/music/381/#r2