The Local Church of Greece asks Russia to Provide Financial Assistance to Orthodox Camp near Levadia in Greece

Livadia in Greece near Mount Parnassus… the site of an international Orthodox camp…

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The Local Church of Greece appealed to the Russian community to help pay the debt of the international Orthodox camp near the Greek town of Livadia. “Today, our debt is 200,000 Euros (8.226 million Roubles 267,809 USD 168,747 UK Pounds). We’re asking you to help us pay off the existing debt, and to sponsor our 2011 programme for kids from Russia, the Ukraine, and Belarus”, according to an open letter of Archimandrite Nektarios Antonopoulos, the abbot of the monastery of the Transfiguration, to the Russian authorities, Russian business circles, public organisations, religious associations, and cultural and scientific groups, passed on to Interfax-Religion.

Fr Nektarios wrote that the camp was established in 1971 with the support of the Metropolia of Thebes and Livadia, and has lasted for 40 years “due to the involvement of the ruling bishops, the personal contributions of the clergy, and sacrifices on the part of many devout lay Christians, as well as the care of the Monastery of the Transfiguration of the Lord. We would continue to assume all costs for the children who come to our camp from foreign countries, but, unfortunately, the economic crisis in Greece has shaken the economic stability of our people, so, therefore, private donations have decreased to a mere trickle. In 2010, when we held the traditional three sessions for orphans from Russia and the Ukraine, we had to resort to loans to make ends meet”, Fr Nektarios said.

There are several sessions held in the camp each summer, with campers coming from all over Europe. In season, thousands of kids from Greece, Serbia, Poland, Romania, Jordan, Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan come here for camp. “According to experts, our camp can be considered one of the largest Orthodox camps in the world. In contrast to conventional summer camps, where the children come from stable families, we try to invite kids who are down on their luck, children without parents, kids from shelters, orphanages and boarding schools”, Fr Nektarios wrote in his letter.

Since 2002, under the aegis of the programme Мост любви (Bridge of Love), the camp invites children from all over the former USSR. Over the past eight years, kids came from Moscow, Tambov, Krasnoyarsk, Yugorsk, Nyagan, Perm, Kerch, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Alushta, Evpatoria, Yalta, Alyabzevsk, and Chernopole. Each camp session is in two parts… a guided pilgrimage tour and a stay at the camp at the foot of Mount Parnassus. Another feature of the camp is its charity programme. All costs associated with airfare, hotels and meals, for both children and adults (teachers, health workers, and other accompanying persons), as well as local transportation (bus fares and boat trips on the ferries), are covered by voluntary donations from Orthodox Greeks.

13 December 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=38661

Advertisement

It’s Time to Declare War on the Republican Atheist Scummers!

President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) laying the Bank of the United States low… President Obama must do the same to these arrogant, lawless, and atheist Republican judges… Do it, sir! History and the American people will praise you!

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Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking, and go in.

Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and, by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!

US President Andrew Jackson (1829-37)

Read this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101214/pl_nm/us_usa_healthcare_virginia;_ylt=Ajf1wBQaN6lOxr8.n5Iaa5h34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTMwbzRuMmFhBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTAxMjE0L3VzX3VzYV9oZWFsdGhjYXJlX3ZpcmdpbmlhBHBvcwMyNgRzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA2p1ZGdlcmVqZWN0cw–

President Obama has to take the same attitude to this slimeball GOP judge as Andrew Jackson did to the US Supreme Court when it tried ramming the Bank of the United States down his throat… President Obama has to say, “Judge Hudson has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” I would say to our president, “Mr President, act like President Jackson! Don’t cave in to this hireling of the oligarchs! Tell him to ‘enforce his verdict’… he can’t, sir… fight these greedy grasping bastards with every ounce of your powers. Do you wish to be re-elected, sir? Then, fight this viper with all your might… just like Harry Truman in ’48!” That would be my advice. The Republican Party of today is a set of grasping pseudo-religious poseurs. The fact that the GOP allows Newt Gingrich to sit as one of its faction nullifies any claims it makes to morality… he’s a man who served divorce papers to his wife when she was deathly ill with cancer… that’s lower than dirt.

Orthodox Christians and Catholics alike should be aware that the Tea Party’s politico-economic ideology is condemned by both His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and by Benedict the Pope of Rome. Real Christians believe that the optimal system of government is a Social Democratic Monarchy (on the Scandinavian pattern… these countries have the highest living standards in the world, by the way, and there’s a much lesser gap between rich and poor). The Church CONDEMNS laissez faire capitalism… it condemns the untrammelled “free” market… it condemns the ripping up of the social safety net.  No… you shall not wrap around yourselves the raiment of Christ… all that you really have are the filthy rags of religiosity and pietism… you’re out of step with Christ’s Church, and that’s all that needs to be said.

You hear much bleating about Christianity from Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. The former is a Pentecostalist sectarian, an American Khlyst… she has no resemblance to a real Christian. Anyone who believes in “spirit baptism” is no Christian. The latter is an apostate, as he was raised Catholic, but rejected Christ to become a Mormon sectarian. Anyone who believes in multiple gods on multiple worlds is no Christian. By the way, neither of these characters believe in free speech… Beck’s goons tried to rough up a RT TV crew and Joe Miller (Palin’s sock-puppet in the Alaska US Senate race) had his toughs handcuff a reporter… way to go! I thought that you believed in “free speech”… especially after Citizens United!

In short… oppose anyone who spouts the godless line of the Tea Party/GOP… but especially oppose those who are of the clergy, for they are spouting “foreign doctrine”… What concord hath Christ with Belial? What concord hath the Church with Holy Rollers and Magical Spectacles (and Magic Underoos)? Step up and tell the world what the Church REALLY believes… that’s what God expects of us… it’s time to shout down the Whitefords and Nelsons and all those like them… it’s time to listen to our REAL leaders. Wouldn’t you agree?

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Monday 13 December 2010

Albany NY

MP Collects Christmas Gifts for Kids in Need

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (1952- ) with Ded Moroz… the holidays are on their way.

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Today, the MP Synodal Department for Church Charity and Social Service began collecting Christmas gifts for underprivileged children. In Moscow, the main collection point for gifts is the Marfo-Mariinskaya Convent, as a part of its active social service ministry, a spokesman for the MP Charity Department told Interfax-Religion on Monday. Every day, from 08.00 to 20.30, Muscovites can bring packages of sweets, new toys (in their original packaging), and educational games. Sisters of Mercy and Orthodox lay volunteers will sort and distribute the gifts. Gifts will be accepted until 31 December. Our informant told us that, every year, Orthodox volunteers seek out and help orphans and sick and lonely people in hospitals, children’s shelters, and other social institutions in Moscow. This year, gifts will be collected not only for the needy in Moscow, but also for those in other regions, as well. In particular, the Charity Department has already contacted representatives of the Orthodox Centre of Tula, which is going to convey gifts to its wards.

13 December 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=38651

A Photo Essay. Look at the REAL Iran… They DON’T Look “Dangerous” to Me!

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A friend of mine took these snaps in an orphanage for girls in Natanz… it was founded by the mullah in the third photo. The girls are cared for until they go off to university or to job training. By the way… if Netanyahu gets his way, these girls would be vaporised in any attack on the nuclear research facility… their orphanage is only a few klicks away. My friend reports that they had their most bounteous meal in Iran at this facility, and that the hospitality of the staff and the girls was openhanded and without guile or fault.

I should mention that the Church is friendly with Muslims in Iran, and Fr Vsevolod Chaplin made an official visit there on behalf of His Holiness. I would note that the Church in Russia and Muslims in Iran hold similar social and moral viewpoints… we’re far closer to Iranian Muslims than we are to such sectarian trash such as Mormons and Pentecostalists.

Whenever you hear lunatic Tea Party/Neocon/GOP propaganda about Iran, remember these girls and remember the kind mullah… they would suffer in any Western strike on their country. They all have faces… they all have names… keep that in mind the next time you hear a rant from Limbaugh, Beck, or Palin. You’ll know what to do… stand proud and give ’em all you’ve got… don’t let the ignoramuses take over our country or our Church… that’s what God expects of us!

BMD

Editor’s Postscript:

An MP priest sent me the following:

You said it! We’ve got far more in common with these human beings than with we do with Western sectarian trash. The American Black phrase “white trash” comes to mind!

Don’t forget that our coreligionists abroad see what goes on in the USA… and they don’t like it one bit. Of course not… they’re in step with the Church and His Nibs… as we should be!

BMD