US foreign policy needs to be more than bombs and bullion

(CBN) - In Egypt, thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters gathered in Cairo to demand that President Mohammed Morsi cleanse the judiciary.

The judges say Morsi has worked to weaken their independence and authority. But Morsi's supporters say the president is just trying to rid the judiciary of corruption.

Meanwhile, in Washington D.C., American Coptics gathered in front of the White House Thursday to demand justice for Egyptian Christians.

"We need justice! Obama, Obama, where are you?" said one demonstrator.

The protestors say the United States should do more to pressure the Egyptian government to protect the Christian minority from attacks.

They also urged Christians around the world need to pray and stand with them.

"We don't want to see what happened in other countries in the Middle East also happen in Egypt," one protestor said. "We need to come together as one and push to allow Coptic Christians to remain in Egypt. Again, they are the indigenous people of Egypt and they have a right to remain there."

Tens of thousands of Coptic Christians have fled Egypt in the past two years.

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Your thoughts

If a parish uses chairs in the exact same way one might use pews, does it make any sense for the parishioners actively disparage pews? This seems to be a trend I've experienced in my travels in North America. Are pews fraught with a special, onerous symbolism that interlocking chairs aren't?

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The serpentine staff of the Orthodox bishop

I've covered this topic before, but the Orthodox Arts Journal has done a better job of it.

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(Orthodox Arts Journal) - One of the most surprising images one is faced with considering Orthodox liturgical symbolism is the bishop’s staff sporting two snakes flanking a small cross atop it. Especially in a Protestant North American context, this image seems to hark back to ancient chthonian cults, more a wizard’s magic staff than anything Christian. As I have been doing for other subjects, I would like to take a trip through iconography, through the Bible and other traditions to show how this symbol is all at once thoughtful, powerful and perfectly orthodox in the broadest sense. It also happens to fit nicely with all I have been writing for the OAJ up till now.

The first hurdle we must overcome is the perception that the Western bishop’s staff, the crosier, is really a shepherd’s staff, whereas the Orthodox have this strange snake bearing object. In fact, for a millennia at least, the western crosier was also identified with a serpent as medieval crosiers attest. We could say that there are two basic shapes, the crosier and the “tau” shaped staff which were present in the Church before the Schism, both of these shapes have been interpreted with serpents. The current Orthodox version of the staff with serpents (as seen above with Bishop Vladimir Sokolovsky) is a variation of these models.

We wonder though, how can such an image of serpents, both in the East and West be appropriate for the very symbol of a Bishop’s authority? Many will point to the Biblical story of the bronze serpent, somehow prefiguring Christ, as the basis for this use of serpents on the bishop’s staff. This is a perfectly sound explanation, though it is insufficient to create a complete picture. If we are to look a Moses as the origin of this image, we should look earlier. The very first time we encounter a staff in the Bible, at least a staff that is related to divine authority, is at the burning bush. When Moses doubts the Pharaoh will listen to him, God tells him...

Complete article here.

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Kh. Krista West on the sartorial needs of parish life

(SVOTS) - Meetings of the St. Juliana Society for St. Vladimir's future clergy wives are often punctuated by laughter and animated conversation, and Monday evening's gathering at the residence of Fr. Chad and Mat. Thekla Hatfield was no exception. Lively guest Khouria Krista West, host of "The Opinionated Tailor" podcast, offered a mini-seminar on both the care, and the spiritual symbolism, of clergy garments. I certainly hope this becomes a future podcast.

Krista has worked as an ecclesiastical tailor for over fifteen years and has created nearly 1000 sets of vestments through her Portland-based business. Her interest in the history and traditions of Eastern Orthodox liturgical vesture led her to Greece in 2004 to participate in a museum conservation course hosted by the Greek Ministry of Culture, and Lenten vestments at St. Vladimir's since then she has continued to research multiple aspects of this field, including natural dyestuffs and early Byzantine textile history. I can't recommend her work highly enough (see here). The price of going with the wrong tailor ends up being higher than going with the right (often more expensive) tailor the first time.

"I'm here to tell you eleven things about vestments," announced Kh. Krista. "It was originally a nice, tidy list of ten, but then there was one I just had to add, so eleven it is!" Khouria noted that as a fellow clergy wife (her husband Fr. Alban is rector of St. George Antiochian Church in Portland, OR), she understood that there were some very practical issues related to vestments and as such, she offered this list:

• Know what your husband's vestment needs are and be willing to share them with people in the parish. My last parish had a list of needed/desirable icons and vestments. People donate more readily if it's targeted giving.
• Flowers aren't "girly" so get used to them!
• Know the "hierarchy of vestments" and which are most important, so if the budget is limited, you can decide where it's appropriate to spend the most money. Does someone have a chart of this laying around? I'd gladly repost it here.
• Get to be friends with a very good dry cleaner.
• Learn the right names of your husband's vestments.
• Take vestments seriously; your children shouldn't play with them.
• Monochromatic fabric isn't common in the Orthodox tradition—gold will always be shot through with red, for instance.
• Vestments don't have a Jewish origin, they came from Roman civil dress and were subsequently standardized in the Byzantine era.
• Don't let your husband throw his vestments in the back of the car and make sure he does grubby work in his spare grubby cassock.
• Don't try to make vestments yourself! It is tricky business and is even difficult for professionals who've been highly trained. I've purchased vestments from supposed professionals. The buttons might as well have come in a separate bag for as often as they fell off my garment.
• Enjoy vestments and notice them.

Khouria Krista ended her talk with a quote from St. John Chrysostom, who said that sight is the "queen of the senses." In Orthodoxy, she concluded, there is a richness that can be a source of joy and celebration throughout our lives, and in this, vestments play an important part.

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Met. Hilarion visits the University of Thessaloniki

(mospat.ru) - On April 16, 2013, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk in his capacity of rector of the Ss Cyril and Methodius School of Post-Graduate and Doctoral Studies, while on a visit to Greece with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, visited the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

At the university main entrance, Metropolitan Hilarion was welcomed by rector Prof Yoannis Mylopoulos, pro-rector Despina Lioliou and dean of the Faculty of Theology Prof Michael Tritos. During a friendly talk, they discussed prospects for academic cooperation between the university and the ROC post-graduate school, especially the need to establish regular exchanges of students and doctoral candidates. They also considered a possibility for lectures to be given to the ROC post-graduate students by leading professors from the Faculty of Theology in Thessaloniki.

After the talk, Metropolitan Hilarion was taken to the university amphitheatre where professors and over 150 theological students had gathered. Prof Tritos introduced Metropolitan Hilarion to the audience, saying in particular, ‘With special joy we welcome to our faculty His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations and rector of Ss Cyril and Methodius School of Post-Graduate and Doctoral Studies. His Eminence is a hierarch of the level of not only the Russian Orthodox but also the Universal Church. His special interests lie in the sphere of human rights and religious freedom. He is an expert in the Greek language, a friend of Greece and ardent proponent of peace, social justice and human rights’.

In his welcoming speech, the dean emphasized that ‘since the Russian people embraced Orthodoxy, they have showed amazing examples of faith and virtue. They produced great saints and great monastic ascetics, and the Russian Church carried out active missionary work in Alaska, Siberia and in remote Japan. The Russian people are known for their profound devotion rare in other nations’.

After the dean, Metropolitan Hilarion was welcomed by Prof. Archpriest Basil Kalyakmanis. Father Basil spoke about the metropolitan’s life and works, noting that ‘His Eminence is widely known in Greece. Particularly, last year in Athens and Thessaloniki, His Eminence presented the Greek version of Patriarch Kirill’s book ‘Freedom and Responsibility. That same year, the Orthodox music composed by His Eminence and compositions by the great Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis were performed at the amphitheatre over the Acropolis for the audience of over five thousand people’.

After the speeches, Metropolitan Hilarion read a lecture in Greek on Theological Education in the Russian Orthodox Church.

In conclusion of his lecture, Metropolitan Hilarion answered numerous questions from the audience, in particular, about MA course and Doctoral programs offered by the ROC post-graduate school, a possibility for young men and women to receive education in theology, church singing and iconography in higher education institutes of the Russian Orthodox Church. There were also questions about prospects for religious education in schools and about the history and the present situation of the Orthodox Church in China.

One of the questions concerned the miserable situation of Christians in Syria. ‘What is going on now in Syria’, the DECR chairman said, ‘is a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe. I keep in close contact with hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Antioch, and they tell me that in the places taken over by rebellious groups, Christianity is exterminated to the last man. Christians are either driven out or eliminated physically. The very existence of Christianity in Syria is threatened. Regrettably, most of the Western politicians and mass media have ignored these glaring facts. The Russian Orthodox Church, on her part, is doing all that is possible to help Syrian Christians by regular supplies of humanitarian aid and attempts to persuade the world community that any support of the civil war in Syria is inadmissible’.

Metropolitan Hilarion gave special attention to students exchange between Russia and Greece. ‘The students exchange draws our Churches closer together. The psychological and linguistic barriers should be overcome. What other ways are there for us but vising each other and learning from each other? Indeed, Greek Orthodox students have something to see in the Russian Church, such as a vivid example of the revival of church life in our monasteries. For the last 25 years, the number of monasteries restored in Russia, Ukraine and other countries in the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate has grown to reach almost 800, while they were only 21 in the Soviet time. In Western Europe today, many say that we live in a post-Christian era. But for our Church it is an era of church revival unprecedented in its scale’, he stressed.

On the same day, Metropolitan Hilarion visited the church of the Holy Spirit in the Prochoma village built by Russian sponsor I. Savvidi, a man of Greek origin.

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Boston community gathers at HCHC for Trisagion prayers

(YouTube) - At the request of many of our young adults and OCF college students, the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston, Hellenic College Holy Cross, International Orthodox Christian Charities, and Orthodox Christian Fellowship invited young people around Boston to gather at HCHC.

• 5:00 pm - Vespers with Trisagion
• 6:00 pm - Dinner
• 7:00-9:00 pm - Discussion in the Library Reading Room with His Grace Bishop John (Abdalah), Fr. Peter Preble of the IOCC, Dr. Philip Mamalakis, and members of the OCF staff.

The Service of Paraklesis followed.

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Where is true beauty to be found?

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—
For these things in themselves, Belovëd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIV

The beautiful is identical with the good, for all things seek the beautiful and good at every opportunity, and there is no being which does not participate in them. They extend to all that is, being what is truly admirable, sought for, desired pleasing, chosen and loved. Observe how the divine force of love — the erotic power preexisting in the good - has given birth to the same blessed force within us, through which we long for the beautiful and good in accordance with the words, "I became a lover of her beauty" (Wisdom. 8:2), and "Love her and she will sustain you; fortify her and she will exalt you (Proverbs. 4:6, 8).

- St. Maximus the Confessor

The Philokalia, Volume 2

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