The Monks at St Catherine Monastery in the Sinai are Well

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Χριστός Ανέστη! Christ is risen!

In response to all the friends who’ve written asking after our brothers, the monks in Sinai, glory to God, they’re all well. Draconian security measures are in force throughout the area, but pilgrims are still able to come and go. There are already many checkpoints on the paved roads leading to the monastery. They’ve been there decades, mainly to check ID’s, watch for narcotics, etc. Now, there’s added security, and the local Bedouin, who are fervent supporters of the monks, are assisting. As the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness doesn’t overcome it, may the joy of this week of peace and brightness remain untouched in the hearts of the faithful!

Αληθώς Ανέστη! He is risen, indeed!

21 April 2017

Friends of Mount Sinai Monastery

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ISIS Gunmen Attack Police Checkpoint Near Historic St Catherine Monastery in Egypt

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One of the world’s most important Christian sites came under attack. The Monastery of St Catherine (formally, the Sacred Monastery of the God-Trodden Mt Sinai), built over 1,500 years ago, is one of Christianity’s holiest sites. Gunmen opened fire on an Egyptian police checkpoint near the monastery, killing one policeman and wounding four others. Then, the gunmen retreated; they didn’t reach the heavily-fortified monastery compound guarded by Egyptian police and security forces. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack via its news agency.

The attack on the monastery comes just over a week after suicide bombers attacked two Coptic Orthodox churches in the Nile Delta city of Tanta and the coastal city of Alexandria, killing 45 people on Palm Sunday. According to officials, the gunmen fired from an elevated hilltop overlooking the police checkpoint just outside the monastery, which is located in a remote mountainous desert area in the South Sinai Governate, where, according to scripture, God spoke to the prophet Moses from a burning bush. The Greek Orthodox monastery was a popular destination, primarily for Orthodox Christian pilgrims, but Egypt closed off public access to it for security reasons in 2015, leaving only the monks and clergy inside the compound.

According to Orthodox Christian history, in the early 4th century, St Eleni, mother of St Konstantinos the Great, built the Chapel of the Burning Bush at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the miracle. The fortified walls were built around the chapel by the Roman Emperor Justinian (who also commissioned the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom of God (Agia Sofia/St Sophia)) starting in 527. Justinian’s workers completed the Church of the Transfiguration in the 560s, around the time of his death. In 2002, UNESCO declared the area around St Catherine Monastery a World Heritage Site because of Mt Sinai’s importance to three major world religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), the natural environment of the area, and the historic architecture and art at St Catherine Monastery.

18 April 2017

Pappas Post

http://www.pappaspost.com/isis-gunmen-attack-historic-st-catherine-greek-orthodox-monastery-egypt/

16 April 2017. You Don’t Become Holy by Fighting Evil

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The ungrounded think that holiness resides in “purity” and fighting evil. It doesn’t. No way; no how. Holiness consists in overcoming our human inclination to do wrong to others. In short, to “love our neighbour as ourselves”. Until you’ve mastered that, I’d advise you to be silent on others’ faults… and to stop complaining to the bishops about those you consider “unclean”. I think that there are more than a few “logs” in the eyes of the konvertsy out there, wouldn’t you say?

BMD

Donetsk Greeks Celebrated Greek Independence Day with Dances and Concerts

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Today, members of the Donetsk Fyodor Stambulzhi Greek Society celebrated their past on the eve of the national holiday of their historical homeland… Greek Independence Day. Greek opera singer Medea Yasonidi, a Donbass native, attended the festive event. They held the festivities in the Electro-Technical School in Donetsk, beginning with a class in Greek dancing for all ages, with the Greek Folk Ensembles Panair and Terpsikhora taking part. Then, Yelena Prodan, the chairman of the Donetsk Greek Society, addressed the assembly, touching on the topic of the Greek War of Liberation against the Ottoman yoke in 1821-29:

Greeks around the world celebrate Independence Day, or Day of the Greek Revival, in honour of the heroes of the war of independence on 25 March.

Yasonidi added:

It pleases me that, in spite of the hostilities, the Donetsk Greek society carries on.

Yasonidi graduated conservatory in Donetsk, and now gives classes at the State Academic Philharmonic. She plans to give further classes at the Sergei Prokofiev Donetsk State Music Academy. Today’s celebration involved more than two hundred people, including those taking part in Greek and Russian musical numbers, as well as a large tea party.

The Donetsk Greek Society began in 1990, named after its first chairman, the prominent local Greek Fyodor Stambulzhi (1953-2003), and has about 1,200 members. The Society has Greek youth and women’s groups, along with sponsoring folk ensembles. It started a Greek Sunday School and helped start Greek language courses in a number of secondary schools. The Donetsk Greek Society maintains close ties with Greek associations in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Krasnodar, and participates in folk festivals in different parts of Russia. During the hostilities, they’ve received humanitarian assistance from other Greek Associations in Russia.

The history of the Greek community of the Azov region dates back to the 1770s, when more than 30,000 Greeks, Armenians, and Georgians emigrated from the Crimea. At the request of Metropolitan St Ignaty Gozadinos of Gothhia and Kafa, who feared the complete destruction of his flock in the Crimean Khanate, the Russian Empire gave the Crimean Christians resettlement assistance. The tsar allocated the Crimean Greeks land on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov near Pavlovsk, which became Mariupol in 1978. The Greek settlements in 1980 numbered about two dozen villages around the Sea of Azov. At the time of the DNR’s declaration of independence and the outbreak of war in the Donbass, there were more than 90,000 descendants of Greek immigrants, the vast majority of them living around the Sea of Azov.

26 March 2017

DAN Donetsk News Agency

https://dan-news.info/culture-ru/doneckie-greki-otmetili-nacionalnyj-prazdnik-tancami-i-koncertom-samodeyatelnyx-kollektivov.html