“Family Reading”

from Portraits (Aleksandr Ivannikov, 2004)

The outgoing year, 2008, which was declared the Year of Family in Russia, came to a close with the publication of a 10-volume anthology entitled Family Reading. The ambitious project can well be regarded as a publishers’ response to a better demographic situation in the country. The outgoing Year of Family registered the birth-rate at 7 percent, which is the highest in the past 15 years. In addition, to encourage births, the anthology was designed as an alternative to television and the Internet.

from Portraits (Aleksandr Ivannikov, 2004)

One of its masterminds, Georgy Priakhin, described it as a worthy competitor. “This anthology contains literary and folk tales, from both Russia and other countries. It also provides valuable information on buried treasures, only our readers know where the treasures are buried, and it gives an extensive account of the battles of the past, God willing, there’ll be none in future. It presents travel and discovery maps and a world of wildlife with rare plants and animals. Children are thus taught to perceive both the artistic and the material”, Mr Priakhin said.

from Portraits (Aleksandr Ivannikov, 2004)

Each volume of the anthology has a title. For one, the Bremen Musicians comprises fairytales and fantasy stories by fairy tale authors from all over the world, Charles Perrault, the brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, Oscar Wilde, and George Sand. The little readers can learn to read from the anthology, for every volume is provided with an ABC. the cover and illustrations are just out of this world, featuring reproductions of works by famous artists and genre scenes, all classified into chapters such as “Your Picture Gallery” or “Round the World: from Century into Century”.

Annushka (Fr Vladimir Kolosov, 2008)

Each volume proceeds from the easy to the difficult, which comes particularly handy for parents, who find it a challenge to introduce their children into a world of literary knowledge slowly, step by step. To piece together a collection of this kind was no easy, Mr Priakhin said, but, it was worth the effort. A whole group of experts worked on it for several years. The editors of the Family Reading anthology now doubt that 10 volumes are enough to include a sufficient number of works by contemporary writers, so, the project may go on. New literary works for children may thus come to enlarge the anthology ad infinitum in future.

29 December 2008

Voice of Russia World Service

http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=37548&cid=59&p=29.12.2008

Editor’s Note:

The photos are from a wonderful site called Orthodoxy Foto. The images may be used to illustrate Orthodox or family articles, if an attribution and a mention of the photographer is given. A beautiful site from Russia (don’t listen to the nay-sayers who tell you that the Church in Russia in corrupt… be serious!).

BMD

Fr Vsevolod Chaplin says that the Lord shall Show Us His Will in the Local Council, as He Revealed It in the Time of the Renovationist Schism

Fr Vsevolod Chaplin (1968- ), Deputy Head of the MP DECR

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the Deputy Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, believed that the new Patriarch will be elected at the Local Council through the Will of God, and human plans and expectations are not all able to prejudge anything. “Now, of course, much has been said about the various candidates for the patriarchal office. The most important thing is to follow the revealed Will of God, which we always see in history, even on the most difficult questions”, he said, in response to listeners’ questions live on the radio  station Radonezh. Fr Vsevolod pointed up the dogmatic disputes of the first millennium of Christianity, saying, “The Will of God is always found through the conciliar mind of the Church, which sometimes does not find the right solution immediately, but, in the end, it eventually comes to one, moreover, precisely when a real choice stands before it”.

Fr Vsevolod is convinced that “the Lord Himself leads His Church. History teaches us the truth of this. Human wisdom, human plans, and human expectations are not able to define or solve the problems facing the Church”. It is a fact that “all who have a sense of church-consciousness and faith, such as bishops, priests, and grounded laity, understand that the Lord shall show us His Will and it is our affair to obey it and to understand that we do nothing in the Church without following the Will of God.

If it were not for the will of God, there would only be only human reasoning, planning, forecasting, and techniques… in other words, the Renovationist schism would have won. After all, they had the support of the government of the time! Its rule was brutal and inflexible, and all bowed before it with the sole exception of the believers. The intelligentsia, the military, scientists… all bowed down to the Bolsheviks, except for the Church, which did not do so”, he said. Fr Vsevolod went on to say that the Renovationist schism “included many very intelligent people, boasting prominent hierarchs who were considered amongst the leading-lights of the Church, along with the support of the secular leadership, which led to them grabbing the best church-buildings.

In human terms, one would expect them to win a complete victory, but, that did not happen. The Renovationists forgot the most important goal of church life, they did not struggle to acquire eternal salvation through the true Faith, they failed to act as Christians ought”, he said.  ”The true Church had far fewer famous people in its ranks, it was humbled, it was driven into prison or the labour camps, yet, it survived. Over the course of a few decades, this schism disappeared, and its surviving leaders begged forgiveness and repentance, living out the remainder of their days in obscurity and in a complete moral vacuum”, Fr Vsevolod concluded.

30 December 2008

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=28121

Editor’s Note:

It is interesting that Fr Vsevolod brings up the topic of the Renovationists. For those not familiar with the history, they believed in such things as a married episcopate, the possibility of remarriage for widowed priests, the abbreviation of the divine services, and the use of “lowest common denominator” modern Russian as the liturgical language. Sounds familiar, no? Indeed… it sounds EXACTLY like the tune played by SVS, Syosset, Basil Osborne, St Sergius in Paris, New Skete, Mark Stokoe, and “Orthodox Christian Laity”. This leads me to a bold statement.

If one were to look at the OCA today, if one were to read the oca.org website, one would think that Vladyki Jonas was hand-in-glove with the above-named currents. The Rossiskaya Gazeta interview is being kept from the faithful. There is no English translation on the OCA or SVS sites, and I shall say this is culpable. I translated it within hours, and they were just as capable of doing likewise. It was carried by two major Russian websites, Interfax-Religion and Pravoslavie.ru.

BMD

A year on…:

I fear that Jonas Paffhausen has fallen completely in with the band of thieves at SVS and Syosset. God spare us all, and may his reign prove short.

President Medvedev Urges US President-elect Obama to Work with Russia on Global Problems

US President-elect Barack Obama (1961- ), God willing, he shall end the disastrous neocon foreign policy of Clinton and Bush II. Time shall give us his measure.

President Dmitri Medvedev invited US President-elect Barack Obama to launch a joint effort to deal with global problems. In a seasonal message to Mr Obama released by the Kremlin press service on Tuesday, Mr Medvedev said that Russia and the United States had accumulated valuable experience in cooperating on current international problems. “I am sure that, at the present time, it will be in special demand. I act on the assumption that we will, without delay, start working together along all major lines, taking into consideration the situation in the world and our countries’ interests”, Mr Medvedev said.

Mr Obama is to be inaugurated in Washington on 20 January. “You are assuming the post of the President of the United States at a trying moment. But, I am sure that despite the scale and complexity of outstanding problems, you will meet with success”, Mr Medvedev said. He added that he was sure that Russia and the United States would manage to “augment the positive experience in cooperation on the basis of pragmatism and a balance of interests”.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in mid-December that President Medvedev would meet with President Obama, shortly after his inauguration. Russia-US relations have been frayed by Washington’s plans to deploy elements of a missile shield to Central Europe, Russia’s five-day war with Georgia over South Ossetia in August, and NATO’s eastward expansion. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently said that he expected Russia’s relations with the United States to improve after Mr Obama takes office in January. His words were echoed by Mr Medvedev.

Mr Obama said earlier this month that he wanted to “reset” relations between Washington and an “increasingly assertive” Moscow. “We want to cooperate with them where we can, and there are a whole host of areas, particularly around non-proliferation of weapons and terrorism, where we can cooperate, but, we also have to send a clear message that they have to act in ways that are not bullying their neighbours”, Mr Obama said.

30 December 2008

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081230/119234336.html

Space Year Crisis-Free

Russia’s space industry is ending the year without mishaps. Although old headaches and problems are still there, things have not changed for the worse, and, in our troubled times, that is quite an achievement. Despite the crisis, Russia is leading the world in rocket launches. On 25 December, the last launch this year was carried out, a heavy Proton carrier-rocket orbited three satellites of the Glonass (Global Navigation Satellite System). The Russians made 27 launches in 2008, one more than in 2007. This is a post-Soviet record. The Americans dropped markedly behind, with 14 launches, including one unsuccessful attempt, the Falcon-1. China carried out seven space launches, including one manned. Five French Ariane-5 launch vehicles lifted off from the Kourou space centre in French Guiana. As many Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-3SL rockets blasted off from the Odyssey sea-based platform in the equatorial Pacific, operated by the Sea Launch Company. India and Japan made their space debuts, 3 to 1, respectively. Iran tried to become a space power, but, there is no proof that it put a spacecraft into Earth orbit.

In January to October, 85 satellites were injected into space, with the largest number, 35, launched by Russia. In this case, however, it acted as a traditional freighter and orbited more foreign satellites than its own. Russia leads the world in rocket launches, but, it is still using technology created fifty years ago. Its rockets are robust, but, there is a limit to everything. It seems it is time to roll out new launch vehicles. But, there is none. Let us hope we’ll see them in future. At the same time, it is hard to disagree with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) that launch services require high technologies, of the same type that are used to develop nano-products, and Roscosmos is determined to stay ahead despite the global crisis. It is common wisdom that most efforts are needed where success is assured.

Russia’s Glonass system is a nice example of that. Its 17 satellites were joined this year by three more, launched by a Proton. There is hope that Glonass satellites will soon cover all of Russia. Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, commenting on the successful 25 December launch, said, “Personally, I do not think the space end of Glonass has any major problems left. In the next two years, we should focus on the ground framework”. Good progress was reported on the ground. The terrestrial infrastructure for space monitoring has been improved and space findings are being used with greater effectiveness. It is also gratifying that college and university students are actively joining the effort. In 2008, three Russian universities, the Siberian and Southern Federal universities and Tyumen State University, set up space monitoring centres. The technologies they are using were developed in Russia by the ScanX Engineering Technology Centre. The centres serve to observe the environment in Russia’s regions from space.

But, to be effective, they need a large number of remote-sensing satellites, which are unfortunately lacking. However, next year’s plans include launching more Earth and weather satellites. If everything goes well, Russia will acquire its own constellation of weather satellites by 2013. Given a large and upgraded fleet of rockets and spacecraft of all types, Russia may become the absolute space leader at the beginning of the next decade.

30 December 2008

Andrei Kislyakov

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20081230/119232238.html