12 January 2013. A Photo Essay. It Happened on Orthodox Christmas in 2013…

Most Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on 7 January. Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos Giannopoulos of Jerusalem served on Christmas Eve in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in Palestine.

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Coptic Orthodox believers came to St Mark Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo for a service led by newly-elected Patriarch Tawadros Sulayman of Alexandria and all Africa.

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Ethiopian Orthodox believers celebrated the holiday.

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In Šabac, west of the Serbian capital of Belgrade in Mačva Okrug (Šumadija and Western Serbia Region), believers took part in the badnjak, a traditional Serb Christmas Eve custom.

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Believers in Verbovichi (Gomel Oblast. Narovlya Raion), a town south-east of the Belarusian capital of Minsk, at Christmas services. Most Orthodox Christians follow the Julian Calendar for calculating the feasts of the Church Year. There isn’t any such thing as the “Revised Julian Calendar”… that’s just a cobbled-together pseudo-intellectual abortion consisting of the Julian Calendar for calculating Easter and the Gregorian Calendar for fixed feasts… neither fish nor fowl, it isn’t defensible in scholarly terms, nor is it logically-sound in its argument or application, and it shows a lack of charity towards the faithful majority of Orthodox believers who continue to follow the Received Tradition.

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Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias served at Christmas at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (he visited Maternity Home nr 3 afterwards to bring holiday cheer to the mothers, families, and staff).

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Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev was amongst the believers that attended Christmas services at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

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Fireworks were part of the celebrations outside the newly-built Church of the Nativity of Christ in Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.

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In Gaza, Greek Orthodox believers attended Christmas service at St Porfirios Church.

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Over 80 percent of all Orthodox Christians celebrated Christmas on its traditional date. The rest should reconsider their position. Don’t you want to be in union with the rest of Christ’s Church? What the heterodox do is of no moment to us… they do what they do, and that’s that, and it has NO relevance to the Church. There are three midwinter holidays called “Christmas”:

• Xmas: C S Lewis used this term for the secular midwinter holiday… it’s a good distinction. When most people wish you “Merry Christmas”, this is what they refer to. Show them kindness and charity… say, “Thank you, and the same to you and yours”. Orthodox can keep this as a secular holiday… we keep all the rest of ‘em like the Fourth of July, Fête du Canada, Australia Day, and the May Day Bank Holiday, don’t we? In any case, to give your kids some gifts on this date is good, as it allows them not to feel out-of-place amongst their mates at school. It’s a secular bank-holiday… keep it as such.
• Catholic Christmas: This is the 25 December religious holiday. The Proddies keep this date, too, as they’re the bastard children of Rome. This is a heterodox celebration, and the Church enjoins us to show respect to other religions and their believers. If you’re wished “Merry Christmas” in this sense, again, show charity (for that’s what Christ’s Church COMMANDS you to do), and say, “Thank you, and the same to you and yours”. Many religious people will be hip to the fact that Orthodox Christmas is a different day. Be kind… show respect to their holy day. Oh… don’t forget to break the opłatek with the Soloniewiczs down the street and get the scungilli and calamari for Nona Sophia next-door (she’ll call ‘em scungil and calamad in Sicilian). You might get an invite to the feast… accept and show your gratitude… that’s what real true-blue down n’ dirty Christians do.
• Orthodox Christmas: This is on 7 January on the civil calendar for the rest of this century (it’ll be 8 January in 2100). Most Eastern and Oriental Orthodox believers keep this date; this is Orthosphere Christmas. Don’t you wish that all of us celebrated together on this day?

If you’re not keeping Orthodox Christmas… you should. Most Orthodox who follow Catholic Christmas are guiltless… they didn’t decide to do such… that was the work of notional and misguided heretics such as Meletios Metaxakis and Aleksandr Schmemann. All Russian Orthodox believers in the diaspora should follow the Mother Church… we should not only celebrate when she celebrates, we should be as one, and scrap all the foolish divisions that split us now. The OCA, Paris Exarchate, ROCOR, and MP Abroad are false and pernicious artificial constructs. We should be as one, under the omofor of our Mother Church. God willing, that day will be soon…

Христос раждается!

Славите его!

BMD

Vandals Spray Hate Graffiti on Jerusalem Church

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Vandals spray-painted “Death to Christianity” and “Jesus, son of a whore” on a Greek Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem. The overnight attack on the Monastery of the Cross was the latest in a series of vandalisms of Christian holy sites. Extremist Jews sympathetic to Israel’s settlement movement are suspected. On Wednesday, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the vandals also sprayed “price tag” on the monastery’s outer wall… a form of retribution settlers and their sympathisers use in retaliation for acts they consider pro-Palestinian. Extremists carried out similar “price tag” attacks on other churches, mosques, and Israeli military bases. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the defacing of the church. Israel has 155,000 Christian citizens, less than 2 percent of its nearly 8 million people {according to friends who know the region that’s an undercount… they say that the actual figure is closer to 400,000 (5 percent of the population), mostly concentrated amongst immigrants from the former Soviet Union: editor}.

12 December 2012

Washington Examiner

http://washingtonexaminer.com/vandals-spray-hate-graffiti-on-jerusalem-church/article/feed/2055567#.UM4kh-THcZY

30 November 2012. Another View of Konvertsy Hubris

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Editor’s Foreword:

I’m running the below without commentary. It stands on all fours all by itself…

BMD

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I slightly disagree with you. The konvertsy I know (and plenty of ‘em!) don’t quote the Fathers or Canons as much as they:

• Feel the Orthodox Church owes them something because they converted. Eternal Life ain’t enough?
• Dispense with anything they perceive as “ethnic” even though its actually rock-solid Universal. For one, take the Plashchanitsa of the Mother of God at the Assumption. I was “informed” that it’s just an unnecessary Russian custom from Polish Catholic influence. Umm…  then, why is it mentioned in the 8th Century in Palestine?
• New Pascha! GOTTA have the NEW PASCHA! Or, we’re not “with” the Fathers.
• Married Bishops. That’s supposed to end episcopal sex scandals. How’s that working out for Lutherans?
• Altar Girls. Gotta have ‘em. Otherwise the sky will fall. Women running Parish Councils and all the finances ain’t enough to show “equality”.
• NO GREEK OR SLAVONIC OR KJV ENGLISH! Don’t even GO there. Jesus talked just like the characters in American TV shows.

There’s more but you get my drift. NO Fathers or Canons here. Just American self-will, hubris, and pride…

Editor’s Afterword:

Amen. I don’t have the key to everything…

BMD

 

UN Upgrades Palestinian Status to Non-Member Observer State

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On Thursday, the UN General Assembly recognised the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a non-member observer state. 138 UN members approved the Palestinian bid, submitted by President Mahmoud Abbas, nine voted against it, and 41 abstained from voting. The move amounts to an implicit recognition of Palestinian statehood and increases the PA’s chances of joining other UN bodies. It also allows the Palestinian Authority to challenge the continuing construction of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land in the International Criminal Court. Before the historic vote, Abbas urged the General Assembly “to issue the birth certificate of Palestine”. He also reiterated that Palestinians would continue their efforts to achieve fully-recognised statehood.

Abbas submitted Palestine’s official application for recognition as an independent state in the UN in September 2011. An American veto in the Security Council blocked that bid. Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip greeted the Thursday vote with great jubilation, as it formally gives them global recognition. Now, the PA, which earlier had “permanent observer” status at the UN, joins the Vatican as the only other entity with non-member observer state status.

Exactly 65 years ago, on 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948. The Palestinians rejected that partition plan, and decades of tension and violence followed. The Palestinians demand the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, as a precondition for peace talks with Tel Aviv.

30 November 2012 (MSK)

RIA-Novosti

http://en.rian.ru/world/20121130/177829129.html

Editor’s Note:

This is a good step. The Church supports the Palestinians… not the violent Zionists and their American sugar-daddies. If it wasn’t for American support, Israel would be forced to have serious peace talks with the Palestinians. As more than one Arab has told me, “So-called ‘terrorism’ will end when the USA ends its support of Zionist terrorism“. Amen.

However, to be clear… I oppose Zionism and all its works… I also oppose anti-Semitism and all its works. That’s part and parcel of a unified world view… to be against anti-Semitism, but to support Zionism, is a logical impossibility. Zionism is racism… anti-Semitism is racism… both are evil and all decent people must fight both.

BMD