The local Albanian Muslims encountered some negative feedback about their having burned an Orthodox church in Macedonia (see Muslims in Macedonia (FYROM) Riot over Satirical Burqa Dudes at Vevčani Carnival). Muslims elsewhere know how to deal with potential criticism: by staging a “false flag” operation in which they fake an attack on themselves as a play for sympathy. Why not “vandalize” a mosque to make it look as though the Muslims are the victims, and the Christians are the perpetrators?

This time, their plans went comically awry. Maybe they couldn’t read the memo: “Before you try to impersonate a Macedonian Orthodox Christian writing graffiti on a mosque wall, you might want to learn how to write in Macedonian.”

The Macedonian language is a Slavic language very much like Serbian or Bulgarian; it can be written either in the Latin alphabet with the correct accent marks, or in the Cyrillic alphabet, which more accurately represents the phonics, but never a mixture of both. The Albanian language uses the Latin alphabet only, and not many Albanian Muslims are literate in Macedonian, Serbian, or Bulgarian.

Albanians vandalize own mosque to counter negative publicity

Thursday, 02 February 2012

Many described as “uneducated” the individual who wrote several graffitis on a Bitola Mosque. The idea was for media to report a story of supposedly a Christian vandalizing a mosque!!

However, this orchestrated vandalism is almost certainly an act of ethnic Albanian muslims. The reason for this as both local population and police state the culprit wrote the graffitis in terrible Macedonian, mixing both the latin and cyrilic alphabets!

“A Macedonian won’t butcher both the language and the alphabet as this individual did, not a chance!” says a local who saw the graffiti.

It is well known most Albanians aren’t able to write in Cyrilic, however the individual sure made a valiant effort to do so.

Macedonians in Bitola laughed off the “incident” claiming Albanians were trying to portray the Christians as bad after being slammed by the international community (including official Tirana) for burning a Macedonian Church few days ago.

The Irony of it all

While ethnic Albanian muslims damage Christian churches, a group of Albanians in the village of Mala Rechica has been asking local officials to donate buildinig materials and money to rebuild the St George Church after they themselves burned it in 2001.

News has spread from the village that after the 13th century Church was burned, each child born to an ethnic Albanian muslim in Mala Rechica had physical and or mental defects.

Over the years, a total of 14 children in a row were born with severe physical disabilities. The local Albanian muslim families spooked that they may have been cursed for burning the Church, have been in a frantic mode to rebuild the Church as soon as possible, even willing to pay for it!

Some Albanians have learned their lessons it’s wrong to burn sacred places, MINA had found the first in line to put out the fire at the Macedonian Church in Labunista few days ago were ethnic Albanians.

Authorities believe the problems comes from radical extremists among the Albanian population who have been to and accepted the wahabis teachings from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Pakistan etc. The last protest in Struga was attended by veiled women and long bearded man holding signs written in Arabic?!

The question is who are these people and when is police going to make arrests?

Contrary to the story above, eyewitness reports portray the crowd of Muslims as predominantly hostile, with very few of them helping to contain the blaze:

TITLE: Merko lies, mob of Muslims applauded the blaze (31-I-2012, 14.30)

Father Riste Naumoski

I inform everybody that now I came back from the extinguishing of the fire in the Church of St. Nicholas in the village of Labunishta. As the elder of that church that with the help of God, the Church is not completely burned. Above the Church there was a crowd of Muslims who applauded the blaze, and none of them was involved in the localization of the fire, except the family of Demiš Demišoski and Dr. Aladdin, to whom I am grateful.

Do not be fooled by Mr. Mayor of Struga that the Macedonian Muslims participated in extinguishing the fire, while it burned they were chanting slogans against Orthodox [Christians].

Lord Jesus Christ and His great Grace may be with us now and through all eternity. Amen!

———-
Reference:
OhridON Portal:
-Article in original Serbo-Bulgarian: [LINK]
-Automated translation by “Google Translate” (Imprecise; Not recommended for final use): [LINK]

More here:

• Eurasia Review: Macedonia: Orthodox Church Saved from Blaze
• topix: 2012 Civil War in FYROM: News (Chronologically Organized)
• Australian Macedonian Advisory Council: Preliminary Breaking News: Low Level Inter-Ethnic Warfare Erupted in FYROM

In the past few days, a whole list of things have made me want to hold my nose. Just for starters:

Toilet texting on the rise

Neal Augenstein, wtop.com

WASHINGTON — With today’s smartphones, more people are taking their work and personal lives wherever they go — even to the toilet.

A new study of mobile phone habits shows 75 percent of people have texted, emailed, used apps or surfed the web while nature calls.

More than 90 percent of people between 28 and 35 will return a call or text while sitting on the toilet.

One in five men joined a conference call while sitting on the toilet, despite the possibility of people on the other end hearing noises or accidentally hitting the FaceTime video conferencing button…

How about leaving your cell phone in your pocket or, better yet, at your desk?
If you use your cell phone on the toilet, you will most likely contaminate the phone. (All the more so if you DROP the phone.) Suppose you wash your hands, then pick up that phone again. You’ve just gotten the germs back on your hands.

McDonald’s drops use of ‘pink slime’ ammonium hydroxide in hamburger meat

Kristin Annable  Jan 26, 2012 – 9:24 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 27, 2012 11:13 AM ET

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver can claim one more victory in his food revolution after McDonald’s stopped using what he called “pink slime” in its burgers.

On Thursday, McDonald’s USA announced it was discontinuing the use of ammonium hydroxide in its beef.

The Naked Chef had publicly denounced the use of the additive on his show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. He questioned how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could allow the compound to be used in foods.

Ammonium hydroxide is made of water and ammonia and is used to kill bacteria. Typically it is used in household cleaning products.

On one episode of his show, Mr. Oliver said that beef producers take beef “trimmings” that would normally go to dog food and wash it with the compound until it is fit for human consumption.

“Imagine how happy an accountant is, you just turned dog food into what can potentially be your kids’ food,” he said on the episode…

Yep, ammonium hydroxide is household ammonia – the stuff you use to clean windows, and janitors use to clean floors. It isn’t McDonald’s decision to stop using the ammonia “meat makeover” treatment that bothers me, but rather, the fact that they sold adulterated food to begin with. All of that nanny-state “nutritional labeling” has proven to be useless, when we aren’t even told the truth about what the ingredients are. How many people would buy a burger if the label disclosed that it contained meat scraps treated with ammonia?

More details from Yahoo News.

Breitbart: Hate Radio Host Berates And Belittles Black Republican

Memphis talk radio host Thaddeus Matthews insulted and humiliated Republican congressional candidate Charlotte Bergmann during a recent interview. He ended the interview by saying, “get your stupid, ignorant ass up out of my studio.” As Bergmann was leaving the studio she extended her hand to the host and Matthews refused to shake hands because he didn’t want the “whiteness” to “rub off” on him.

Note: The video of the incident was clearly made by someone who doesn’t favor Republicans or members of the Tea Party.

Commenter claspur links to Thaddeus Matthews’ rap sheet.

Further details at The Blaze. See comments for contact information. (h/t: Sara Dipindy)

Jesus said, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” (Matthew 15:11 KJV) Indeed, Thaddeus Matthews defiled not only himself and his talk show guest, but also the entire citizenry of Memphis. I question the judgment and common sense of anybody who would advertise on Matthews’ show or even listen to it more than once.

Why is this important?

It’s because of the 2012 elections, and if you are a voter, it should matter to you what the candidates believe.

Mitt Romney subscribes to the Mormon faith for two reasons:

1. He was raised in it, and is incapable of admitting he is wrong;
2. The Mormon faith promises him that he, Mitt Romney, will become a god and rule over his own planet if he goes along with their program.

That makes Mitt Romney seriously deluded, a malignant narcissist, or both. We have had too many narcissists in the White House already, but this takes it to a whole new level. I am repelled by the thought of voting for somebody who wants to be a god. I had hoped that civilized western governments were finished with that nonsense once Julian the Apostate died.

If you are a Christian and you assume that Mormonism is a branch of Christianity, then either you know little about Mormonism, or you have not been properly catechized in your own faith.

From Bethany Blankley at HuffPo:

(h/t: Mystagogy)

Reading the results of the Pew poll about Mormonism, reminds me of what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in “Strength to Love”: “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

The fact that two thirds of mainline Protestants and Catholics believe Mormonism is a Christian religion is an unfortunate example of both.

The Mormon faith is not the same as the Christian faith. Examples abound. Consider these few.

The Ministry of Jesus

In the 2 Nephi 5:21, in the Book of Mormon, in 600 B.C., Lehi, a Jewish prophet from the tribe of Manassah, left Jerusalem with several others, sailed east and landed in South America. Two of Lehi’s sons, Lamen and Lemuel, rebelled against God. God cursed them and gave them dark skin — birthing the Native American race. In 2 Nephi 12:3-12, in A.D. 34, Jesus Christ descended from heaven, baptized the Native Americans, called and commissioned 12 disciples, instituted sacraments, and taught the message of the Sermon on the Mount.

According to the first four gospels of the Bible, Jesus Christ lived and ministered in the region of modern-day Israel. He never appeared in the Americas.

The Virgin Birth

The Mormon Church teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, conceived Jesus through sexual relations with God the father. Brigham Young wrote in the Journal of Discourses 8:115, “The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood — was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.” Likewise, the Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote, “Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers” (Mormon Doctrine, 1966, pg. 547; Read also, The Seer, by Orsen Pratt; Doctrines of Salvation Vol. 1; or The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson).

The Bible teaches that Mary, a virgin, “was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). It is a miracle that is difficult for many to understand, but not one that occurred as a result of Mary having intercourse with a human or a spiritual being.

The Spirit World

Mormons believe that God, angels and humans are the same. BYU religion professor Robert Millet clarifies this concept in “The Mormon Faith: A New Look at Christianity” (1998, pg. 39): “Latter-day Saints believe that angels are men and women, human beings, sons and daughters of God, personages of the same type as we are. Parley P. Pratt, an early apostle wrote, ‘Gods, angels and men are all of one species, one race, one great family.’”

Additionally, angels are created through sexual relations, better known as “celestial exaltation” between God and his heavenly wife in the spirit world. In the LDS Church manual, Achieving a Celestial Marriage, celestial exaltation “includes the ability to procreate the family unit throughout eternity. This our Father in heaven has power to do. His marriage partner is our mother in heaven. We are their spirit children, born to them in the bonds of celestial marriage.”

Spirits are gender specific, immortal and eternal: “Each [male and female] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose” (“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” issued by the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, 1995).

Brigham Young stated:

Mankind are organized of element designed to endure to all eternity; it never had a beginning and never can have an end. There never was a time when this matter, of which you and I are composed, was not in existence, and there never can be a time when it will pass out of existence; it cannot be annihilated.It is brought together, organized, and capacitated to receive knowledge and intelligence, to be enthroned in glory, to be made angels, Gods — beings who will hold control over the elements, and have power by their word to command the creation and redemption of worlds, or to extinguish suns by their breath, and disorganize worlds, hurling them back into their chaotic state. This is what you and I are created for. (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 48; see also Doctrines and Covenants 93:29-33)

The Bible teaches that angels (immortals) and humans (mortals) are to worship God (the sole eternal being) their creator (Hebrews 1). Angels have taken on anthropomorphic characteristics but they are not human. They bore messages to humans from God (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:11, 26, 2:9; Acts 8:26) and assisted Jesus (Matthew 26:53; Luke 22:43) and his people (Psalm 91:11, 12; Acts 5:19; Hebrews 1:14).

Jesus and Satan

The Mormon church explicitly teaches in the Pearl of Great Price in both the books of Moses (chapter 4) and Abraham (chapter 3) that Jesus Christ and Satan are both sons of God and are not only spirit brothers to each other but are spirit brothers to humans and angels as well. Brigham Young referred to “the Devil, the mighty Lucifer, the great prince of the angels, and the brother of Jesus” in the Journal of Discourses 6:207. In an Ensign magazine (a publication of the Mormon church) answer to a question from a reader, “How can Jesus and Lucifer be spirit brothers when their characters and purposes are so utterly opposed?” the magazine stated, “On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some–especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers….But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother” (1986, pg. 25).

The Bible teaches that God has only one son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16, 17) who came to destroy the work of the devil (I John 3:8).

Both Mormonism and Christianity make very different truth claims.

Christians must know what they say they believe otherwise their claim to faith is meaningless.

UKPA: Church set on fire after carnival

An Orthodox Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set alight in southern Macedonia overnight amid religious tension between Christians and minority Muslims over a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran.

Firefighters extinguished the fire on Monday night in the two century-old Sveti Nikola church, near the town of Struga. The church’s roof was destroyed but its icons were not damaged, the fire service said.

Hours before the fire, Muslim leaders had appealed for calm among community members.

The January 13 Vevčani festival prompted angry, sometimes violent demonstrations by Muslims, who are nearly all ethnic Albanian and make up 33% of the country’s 2.1 million population and accuse the majority of stoking hatred against them.

Ethnic tension has been simmering in this small Balkan country since the end of an armed rebellion in 2001, when ethnic Albanian rebels fought government forces for about eight months, seeking greater rights for their community. The conflict left 80 people dead, and ended with the intervention of Nato peacekeepers.

The Vevčani carnival, said to have been held for some 1,400 years, attracts thousands of visitors. Local residents traditionally wear elaborate, frequently sarcastic masks, with some of the most common costumes including devils and demons.

But this year’s perceived mockery of the Koran and the burka costumes caused outrage.

On Saturday, protesters attacked an inter-city bus heading from Struga to Vevčani, throwing rocks at the vehicle but injuring nobody. They also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga’s municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam. On the same day, perpetrators attacked a church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside.

Macedonian Muslim leaders called for restraint but also accused the government of promoting Islamophobia.

Deputy Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi said such incidents “create discord” and “violate mutual respect and trust.”

Read it here.

As always, Muslims blame someone else (in this case, the Macedonians) for their own lack of self-control.

Oh, and by the way, the term “Islamophobia” is an invention of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Seattle PI: Macedonia Muslims urge restraint over carnival

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Muslim leaders in Macedonia appealed for calm on Monday among community members outraged over a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men mocked Muslims by dressing as Burqa-clad women.

The incident at the Jan. 13 Vevčani festival has prompted angry, sometimes violent demonstrations by Muslims, who make up 33 percent of the country’s 2.1 million population and accuse the majority of stoking hatred against them.

On Saturday, some protesters attacked buses and defaced a Macedonian flag and replaced it with a green flag to represent Islam. On the same day, a church was attacked by unknown perpetrators in the nearby village of Labunista.

In a statement Monday, Macedonian Muslim leaders called for restraint but also accused the government of promoting Islamophobia.

“The behavior of Muslims should be restrained, but, unfortunately, we are concerned that Islamophobia in Macedonia is often combined with government propaganda,” they said. “Such is the case with this carnival that the government annually subsidizes with…the money of all citizens, including Muslims.”

The carnival, said to have been held for some 1,400 years, attracts thousands of visitors. Local resident traditionally wear elaborate, frequently sarcastic masks, with some of the most common costumes including devils and demons.

Muslims in Macedonia are almost all ethnic Albanians. Albanians, in Macedonia and elsewhere, have traditionally been secular, but conservative Islamic schools, especially Wahhabism, have taken a foothold in the years following a brief ethnic Albanian uprising in Macedonia in 2001. This spread has been mainly financed from Saudi Arabia.

Read it here.

Also see:

• MSNBC: Vevčani Carnival Photos
• Macedonian Cultural and Information Centre: Vevčani Carnival
• IDIVIDI: Vevčani carnival is a pearl of Macedonia’s tradition, says Kanceska-Milevska

From YouTube:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by SDAMatt2a on Jan 30, 2012

Father John Ramzy joins Michael Coren to discuss the never-ending violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt by the muslim majority.

Where is Canada’s Boat to Egypt?

Good question.

Wondering why 1389 is the monicker for our blog?

Today, we are batting against a rather stealthy jihad. When hijacked airplanes fly into American buildings, we feel the affects of jihad, but we let Muslim clerics explain it away as the work of “extremists.” When a terrorist in the Holy Land explodes a bomb killing himself and a number of people around him, we feel the affects of jihad, but we let the leftists explain that it is Israel’s fault for existing and we let them spout some historical revisionism that a “Palestinian” people are entitled to this land and have some sadistic right to act in this manner. When Islamic dictatorships take (or allow others to take) hostages, we feel the affects of jihad, but we quietly wait for their release. In Muslim countries, Islam and the political system become one and the same. They stone to death those accused of an impure act, behead hostages, persecute and slaughter Christians and Jews, and impose a horrible form of tyranny upon their people. Meanwhile, Islamic movements are hard at work infiltrating Western and non-Muslim societies, all too often aided and abetted by Western governments.

Throughout history, battles between jihadis and non-Muslims were not always so stealthy. Even though communications were slow and not always reliable, the non-Muslims knew the threat and understood what a bleak future lay ahead for those whom fell to Islamic conquest. Battles were fought with swords, arrows and the like. When the Muslims won, the vanquished suffered. When the Muslims lost, the victories peoples thanked God and prepared for the next Islamic attack.

Some of the victims reasoned, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” So, those of weak faith capitulated and converted. This was never an option for staunch Orthodox Christians, for whom Islam was a serious heresy and the work of Satan. If you look a modern map of the world’s religions, you will see that Islam seems to end where Orthodoxy begins and vice versa. You just don’t find too many Lutheran-Muslim borders, Methodist-Muslim borders, or even Roman Catholic-Muslim borders. Indeed, Roman Catholics and Protestants have fought Islam in past centuries; there are a number of locations where Islam clashed with non-Muslim forces that are famous to this day. Our esteemed blog colleagues at Gates of Vienna commemorate a location where Christian forces twice stopped Islamic terrorism. But it has always been Orthodox Christians who have most often fallen under the hammer of Islamic expansionism and have fought against Islam for their very survival.

The Battle

We commemorate a battle fought in 1389 A.D. in Kosovo, the very cradle of Serbian civilization and culture. It was a classic clash between Islamic terrorism and Christianity, and it was a real bloodbath. Both Prince Lazar, the leader of the Christian forces, and Sultan Murad, the leader of the Islamic forces, were killed. All of the high-ranking officers among the Christian forces were killed, as were most of the Muslim leaders.

But who won the Battle of Kosovo? Ironically, the Christian people of the area, the Serbs, consider that they lost the battle! Historians are divided. Many consider it a draw. However, some who study the technicalities of military battles deem that the Christan forces won.

However, one thing is certain: with Sultan Murad dead, the Muslim plans to conquer Eastern Europe were set back for a while. It was 70 years before the Muslims conquered Serbia. By the time that Islamic forces reached Vienna, those Christian forces were ready to fend them off.

Had it not been for the Battle of Kosovo, in 1389 A.D., the Muslims might have captured Central and/or Eastern Europe in the 1400s. Who knows, with several Muslim bases of operation in Central and Eastern Europe, the Reformation may have seen “Protestants” rejecting the Trinity and inserting Allah instead; the Thirty Years’ War may have ended with the Muslims taking charge; and the French Revolution might have been an Islamic takeover.

Note that I referred to Prince Lazar’s forces as Christian. Historical sources tend to refer to his forces as “Serbian.” Many of the Christian forces were not Serbs, in that other kings had sent whole armies to help. However, don’t consider the Serbs “ethnocentric” for calling those troops Serbs. The Serbian people are very inclusive. More than one Serb has called me a fellow “Serb,” sometimes offering and explanation, sometimes not. In the Serbian mindset, a fellow Orthodox Christian, bearing arms against a common foe, would seem like such an equal that I cannot imagine them viewing him as anything less than a countryman.

No, the world might be a bit different today had Murad survived and won that battle back on June 15, 1389. [Note: the date is according to the Julian Calendar then in effect, and still used for liturgical purposes by the Serbian Orthodox Church.] Six centuries on, not much has really changed. The same types of Islamic extremists are fighting the same battle against us today, albeit with different tools, different weapons, different tactics.

In a sense, everyone is either a Jihadi (as much so as Murad’s Turkish terrorists) fighting to impose Sharia law on the world, a bystander who is are more ignorant that innocent, or a “Serb” fighting the forces of the evil of Islamic expansionism. Hence, we are the 1389 blog. And we invite all those who are concerned about Islamic extremism to become Serbs, at least, in spirit.

Links:

• Kosovo (online book by 1389 Blog team member William Dorich)
• What Happened in 1389? – 1389 Blog
• Lazar of Serbia – OrthodoxWiki
• Lazar of Serbia – Wikipedia
• The Battle of Kosovo (Projekat Rastko: Serbian Epic Poems)

From Journey to Orthodoxy:

Posted by Fr. John on November 19, 2011

More and More People in Czechia and Slovakia Are Giving Preference to the Orthodox Church

An interview with Metropolitan Christopher, Archbishop of Prague and Metropolitan of the Czech and Slovakian lands.

Archbishop Christopher of Prague, Metropolitan of the Czech and Slovakian lands talks about the history and modern condition of the Orthodox Church in Czechia and Slovakia. The talk was recorded in June of 2011.

—Your Beatitude, you chose the path of a clergyman of the Orthodox Church during the time in Czechoslovakia after the famous events of 1968 (“Prague Spring”), and for a number of reasons thousands of parishioners were leaving the Orthodox Church. To be Orthodox at that time was at the least, not considered prestigious. What moved you to go against the current?

—Yes, that was when my fate was decided: I chose the Orthodox theological seminary. I have to admit that it was not my cherished dream to become a priest. I wanted to become a forest ranger, and I also wanted very much to paint icons. I studied iconography with Fr. Andrei (Kolomatsky), a very gifted Russian priest, architect, artist, and tireless man of prayer. At times I would try to paint, wanting my icons to be like his—alive. But it didn’t come out like that. I would complain to Fr. Andrei, and he would answer, “Are you praying?” He himself prayed without ceasing, and that was the most important thing I learned from him. I began my spiritual path with him, and I came to know the mighty power of prayer, the strength of Orthodoxy, which enables a man, hoping in God’s help, to overcome what would seem to be insurmountable. I came to know God’s mercy, how the Lord works miracles. Perhaps it was then that I first had the desire to become a priest, albeit not fully consciously.

I went to the seminary only because no other school of higher education would have accepted me. At the time, in order to be accepted at an institute, one had to fill in an application line about one’s agreement to enter the armed forces of the Warsaw convention on my country’s territory. I was not in agreement with violence. Never. When I heard that in the application for admission to the seminary at the Orthodox theological department of Charles University had no such requirement (but there is, as they told me, a more complicated question—on Holy Scripture), I applied there. This is how, by God’s will, I began my path as a clergyman.

—The Church of Czechoslovakia is currently preparing for the sixty-year anniversary of its autocephaly. Why did the Church of Czechoslovakia receive its autocephaly from the Russian Orthodox Church?

—The first contacts, which became the basis of the friendship between our Churches, go back to antiquity, in the tenth–eleventh centuries, when the recluse Procopius, like St. Sergius of Radonezh, founded a monastery in the forest wilderness not far from the Sázava river, which later became a large, famous monastery. During the time that the Sázava Monastery was active, the monks would go to Kiev, and the monks from Kievan Russia would visit the Sázava Monastery. Each time they would bring gifts of icons and manuscripts to each other… These gifts from the Sázava Monastery are still treasured in Kiev. The Kiev monks in their turn brought a piece of the relics of Sts. Boris and Gleb to the Sázava Monastery, where they were honored with great reverence. One of the monastery’s side altars was dedicated to these saints.

In the eighteenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church also aided our country’s renewal of our Church. For nearly three centuries, Czechia did not have its own government, and was subject to the Austrian Hapsburg Empire. The people were Germanized, and had no rights. No one in the West wanted or was able to help us. Russia was a light, hope, and refuge for the Czechs at that time. Russian Slavophiles supported the Czech and Slovak patriot-renewers both ideologically and materially. With their help, in 1848 the first Slavic conference was conducted in Prague, which placed a beginning of the renewal in Czechia of Slavic culture and language. In 1867, the Slavic conference took place in Moscow, and on the streets of Prague people were singing, “God save the Tsar!”

Russians helped the Czechs afterward, also. They sent money for the construction of Orthodox Churches, and Orthodox priests. One of these was, for example, the martyr for Orthodoxy and faithfulness to Slavicism Archpriest Nicholai Ryzhkov. The people of Czechia honor that man’s memory. The Czechs also received Russian refugees (during the years of the civil war in Russia and subsequent persecutions) as their own brothers. They helped them to establish themselves, to receive education… The young Czech government spent billions on that.

The first head of the Czechoslovakian government formed in 1918, Karel Kramář, was Orthodox. Together with his wife, Nadezhda Kramář Khludova (a Russian aristocrat), he organized the construction of a remarkable church dedicated to the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Olšany Cemetery, which became a haven for Orthodox Russians, and then during the war years, for Orthodox Czechs, who were earlier under the omophorion of the Holy Hieromartyr Gorazd, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia who was executed by the Nazis. The Russian priests, primarily Fr. Andrei (Kolomatsky) and Bishop Sergius of Prague, helped their Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, spiritually cared for them, risking their own lives…

The Russian Orthodox Church did much for the Orthodox in Czechia also after the war. During those years, on the territory of the Czech and Slovak lands their existed four jurisdictions. It was necessary to do away with this atomism of the Orthodox Church and place our reliance in the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Church. In 1946, the Czech Orthodox Church was accepted into the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church sent a talented organizer and missionary to Prague, a most honorable man who suffered much, Bishop Eleutherius. He had a gift of preaching from God, and drew to Orthodox tens, later hundreds of thousands of parishioners.

In 1950 the Church of Czechoslovakia already had a sufficient number of the faithful and bishops to receive independence. It even had a theology school. The Church could support and maintain itself, and needed no support from other sources. On November 23, 1951, a statement was signed in the Moscow Patriarchate granting autocephaly to the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church. From December 18, 1951, after the notification of the heads of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of Czechoslovakia, the Orthodox Church exists as an autocephaly.

—During the 1950′s, the Russian Orthodox Church endured a new round of persecutions (the Khrushchev era). In Czechoslovakia, upper echelons of the Communist Party aided the Orthodox Church in a victory over the Uniates. Is it true that this act of the Communists aided Orthodoxy in Czechia and Slovakia?

—The Communists, both yours (Russian) and ours were always enemies of the Church. That the Czechoslovakian party members supposedly helped the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia was only their cunning maneuver: to get rid of the Uniates as quickly as possible with the help of the Orthodox. In fact, the Communist only injured the work of Orthodoxy. They shouted about the victory over the Uniates. In fact, there was no victory, only liquidation. You see, the Unia was introduced into the Slavic lands during the seventeenth century, also by force. Therefore, a large part of the faithful in the Uniate churches, under the influence of Bishop Eleutherius’ sermons, joyfully returned to the bosom of the Church of their ancestors, to Orthodoxy. Undoubtedly, all the rest would have followed their example, with perhaps rare exceptions. But during the process of voluntary departure of parishioners from the Unia—it could be said, at its final stage—the Communist bosses inserted themselves, demanded speedy and total liquidation of the Unia. Their methods are well known: prison, exile…

Then, to the Northern Czech border were sent hundreds of Uniate families. Scores of Uniate priests who did not accept Orthodoxy were defrocked. The Uniate leaders, for example, Bishop Goidich, were held in prison cells, and then sent to a concentration camp designated for particularly dangerous criminals. There Goidich died. Of course, all of this had a negative effect on Orthodoxy. We Orthodox know that no such force is a victory. Goidich became a holy martyr for the Uniates, their standard. Unfortunately, we still have not been victorious over the Unia. They call people to their churches through deception. Those who come to them see Orthodox icons, and thinking that they are being baptized into Orthodoxy, they end up in the Unia…

—What was the real reason for the mass exit of parishioners from the Orthodox Church after the events of 1968?

—The aforementioned was the reason, in any case, the main reason, for the mass exit of parishioners from the Orthodox Church. The arrival of Soviet tanks on our streets completed this process. Orthodoxy was always associated with Russia. And those who invaded our country in tanks spoke Russian. As a sign of protest, our people “forgot” the Russian language. It cost the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia, Vladyka Doretheus, an enormous effort to save the Church from total disintegration…

—Is it true that at the present time, only the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia is increasing in the number of parishioners, while all other confessions are decreasing? What is the reason for this, in your opinion?

—Yes, this is true. The number of Orthodox in Czechia is growing. Many people have come to us from the former Soviet Union. They want to live here. And they bring their homeland with them—the Orthodox Church. But Czechs are also coming to be baptized into Orthodoxy. Our Church attracts people by the absence of negative phenomena in its history—that is, the inquisition and persecution of those of different convictions. To the contrary, the Orthodox Church is a refuge for all the persecuted. That there are many more Orthodox can be seen: all the Orthodox churches are full. On feast days we even have to serve outdoors, next to the church. Meanwhile, the many Catholic churches are empty; at best, concerts are given in them. The Uniate churches are also not at all full. Less than a tenth of the original number of parishioners (in the 1920′s there were 900,000!) are left in the Hussite Church. Around three million parishioners have left the Catholic Church.

—Why is this happening? Why is Czechia the most atheistic country in Europe?

—People ask me about this often. I then answer by telling the history of my much-suffering country, which joyfully received Baptism from the saintly brothers Cyril and Methodius, but later, after many centuries, suffered persecution from the aggressive (at that time) Roman popes and cardinals… Catholicism was instituted by force, by almost the same methods as fascists or communists used. For disobedience—requisition of property and land, exile from the country, and even execution… “Let every father, mother, and child who does not receive Catholicism in fourteen years be exiled from the country!” Such were the orders from the Pope of Rome after the Catholic League’s victory over the Czechs.

At that time, nearly half of the population of Czechia was exiled. Out of 150,000 families, there remained only 30,000. It is apparently understandable, why Czechs did not like Catholicism. Therefore, as soon as Czechoslovakia became an independent country, nearly a million people left the Catholic Church and created the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church. And our country would have been Orthodox then, had not, as the Russians say, a mess occurred. Essentially, a tragedy: When the Primate of the newly created Orthodox Church, Holy Hieromartry Gorazd, went to America in order to obtain some needed financial means with the help of wealthy Czechs, another pretender to the bishopric, the talented orator Karel Farsky led nearly all the parishioners into his modernist Church, where Jesus Christ was honored not as the Son of God, but as the First Saint, born of marital union. And people believed him… I think that the name of this modernist Church, called Hussite, worked on people’s psychology. Although, Jan Hus himself was not a modernist, but rather went to be burned at the stake for the sake of Original Church of Christ. As years passed, people have figured everything out. That is the answer to why people leave not only the Catholic Church, but also the Hussite Church.

—Czechia is considered to be the most atheist country. It would seem that without faith, all the vices of society should appear. But in fact Czechia is a peaceful country, people are well-wishing, without aggression. One can be out on the streets without fear at any time of the day or night. Everything in Czechia—the construction of houses, the public transportation, the stores, and other places—is designed to be of maximum convenience for people. I remember how amazed I was at the transfer system of the trains… Everywhere, you feel that in everything having to do with relationships to people there is cordiality, warmth, and kind wisdom… Does this mean that it is possible to do without religion, without faith? What is your opinion on this?

—Yes, our citizens’ peace-loving nature and absence, or more precisely, near absence of aggression, you have correctly noticed. That the majority of the population does not number itself amongst any one of the religious confessions is also true. However, the main mass of our people, the Czechs, cannot be called godless. Take, for example, the Church holidays: Christmas, Christ’s Resurrection, and other great feasts. People try to observe the traditions that have taken root in Czechia since long ago, and which were passed down from generation to generation…

Yes, it is very unfortunate that the majority of our citizens do not attend Church services. But does that mean that we can do without the Church entirely? No, of course not. It is precisely thanks to the Church that our people had the happiness of receiving Christianity originally from the very Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius; in place of barbaric cruelty, they began to cultivate such qualities as love of neighbor, gentleness, and readiness to forgive offenses; loyalty and dedication to family and Fatherland, honor of parents, and all the other virtues. It is precisely thanks to the Church, to our great patriots, such as the first president of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, such as the historian and Russophile František Palacký, who were deeply religious men, that our people acquired Christian morals, a Christian view of life. One could say that this very culture instilled by the Church became the Czechs’ second nature. This can also be seen in the mass pilgrimages to holy places and in part through the reverence for Orthodox saints—Martyr Liudmila, Princess of Czechia, and the Holy Passion-Bearer Prince Václav (Wenceslaus).

Thus, in answer to your question, I would again like to repeat that it is precisely due to the Christian religion, the Church, which was Orthodox in our country from the beginning, our people have the traditions of their fathers, and became the people you know, and the whole world knows—hard working and peace-loving, with God in their hearts. And, of course, the Czechs need the Church.

More and more people in Czechia and Slovakia are giving preference to the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, it is not our task to increase the number of parishioners from for example, former Catholics. Right now it is necessary to unite our efforts to morally strengthen the people, first of all the young people, in order to teach them how to oppose evil, so that, as they say, the sheep would not become goats.

—Will Czechia and Slovakia return to the faith of their fathers, that is, to Orthodoxy? How do you see the future of your Church in the country?

—Return to the original Church of St. Methodius? It is possible. Theoretically. But I don’t normally talk aloud about it. Although I dream of it and pray. I also believe that I am not alone. With the Lord all is possible, and we need to work. After all, the majority of the population is not in the Church. We need to work with them in particular. Our efforts need to be directed against abortions, same sex marriages (although we are against any persecution of such people). We need to explain what the Lord said to us in His commandments: about life, love, friendship, help of neighbor, and about everything good. We need to struggle against evil and violence, against the deception of people…

I am for the one Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Then it will be possible to restore moral values, and raise the peoples’ spirituality. And in this was, is, and always will be the strength of the people and the nation.

—Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague died a martyr’s death for Christ’s truth. Their memory lives on not only in Czechia. Your Beatitude, why have they not been canonized as saints?

—Czechs began to venerate Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague as saints immediately after they were burned at the stake. Jerome of Prague was the first to call Jan Hus a saint—at the very Council of Constance, which condemned Jan Hus and which awaited a “statement of repentance” and condemnation from Jerome of Jan Hus. They were venerated for two hundred years. However, after the defeat by the Catholic Leagues at the fatal battle on White Hill in 1620 and the forced Catholicization of the Czech people, the names of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague were basically outlawed. In 1918, when Czechoslovakia became an independent state, the modernist Church took the name of Jan Hus. The communists called him something of a revolutionary. In fact, he never called for modernism in his sermons, but spoke only about the undistorted, original teaching of Jesus Christ, which was in fact Orthodoxy.

—Does that mean that Jan Hus’s and Jerome’s martyric deaths could be considered martyrdom for Orthodoxy?

—It was precisely of Orthodoxy that they were accused. This was one of the points of accusation of their heresy. However, they considered themselves Catholics and officially were so. Only at the end of the twentieth century did the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II, express his deep regret over their burning at the stake. But he did not go beyond regret. And they both, Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, died for the undistorted faith, for the pure faith of Christ—that is, for Orthodoxy. Therefore we are completely justified in canonizing them as saints. This has already been confirmed by the Church of Cyprus and the Greek Church. Other Orthodox Churches also support us.

—Your Beatitude, what are the greatest problems facing your Church right now?

—The greatest problem is the lack of space. Did you see what is going on in the Churches? People can barely squeeze in. Many stand outside. We have nowhere to gather, nowhere to receive pilgrims—and they would come to us. Many people would come from Russia, to the relics of St. Liudmila and St. Wenceslaus; they would come to the place where the first Slavic desert dweller, St. John of Czechia, lived.

—It seems you also had a problem with the Sunday school, and with your office? Were you able to resolve them?

—Yes, there were problems. Big ones. We have a very good Sunday school for children. It is attended by several tens of students. But do you know what the children, parents, and we experienced? The owners of the building (the Czech military offices) refused to extend the lease of the building the school occupied. This is after we, the clergy, and the children’s parents had spent so much time and energy fixing up a building that was given to us in a far from optimal condition. We had even set up a house church for the children, which was beautiful, and the children loved it. They didn’t even let us finish the school year…

We had to finish the Sunday school sessions in the Metropolitan’s office. And it is not so easy to get there…

—Is that your office, Vladyka?

—Yes, it was once, and not only mine. Since 1950 this building served as the Metropolitan’s office of all of my predecessors, the Primates of the our Orthodox Church. However, soon after the refusal to extend the lease of the Sunday school, the owner of the building where the Metropolitan’s office is located also refused to extend the lease. The two refusals coincided like that… So during the new school year, the children had to go from place to place. In part, they used the building of a pre-school.

—And you yourself remained, as they say, without a roof?

—Yes. It was a difficult situation. I am grateful to the Russian Orthodox Church, and in part to His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and also to Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department of External Church Relations, and the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church here, Archpriest Nicholai Lischeniuk—they helped us very much. Our Sunday school received a non-terminating lease of the building that housed an exhibition complex. True, only part of it; the rest will come in two years. But the Sunday school is already active there. And do you know what is remarkable? The Sunday school is, by God’s will, very near the new Metropolitan’s office.

—So, that means that the problem with your office was also resolved? Are you also renting?

—We received it as our own property. We purchased it. Again I thank the Russian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Kirill for his material assistance and support.

—Your Beatitude, how is it going with the parcel of land that the government of Prague promised to give you for the construction of such a needed Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia, and a Cathedral church?

—They have been promising for a long time now, ten years. They are always on the verge of placing the last dot. We have already prepared the blueprints for the building. The last time, they asked us to wait for the elections. The mayor’s election has passed… But nothing went forward. They are completely silent. They don’t even promise, but they don’t refuse. We will make it happen. It is a pity—because of insufficient space we are losing potential parishioners. Especially young people, who often out of their ignorance end up in sects. Our space is overfilled, while they (the sectarians) have all they need. So the young, inexperienced people think that God is there, in the sect. But have only an appearance, only talk. Sects in Czechia are strong right now. They have money, buildings…

—Tell us, please, about your prospects for the future. About the most important thing.

—Our prospects are the young people—they are what is most important. Look at the children in the Sunday school, what bright faces they have. What will they become? Engineers, doctors, teachers, and perhaps priests? We do not know. But undoubtedly they will be people who are able to tell right from wrong, to become citizens who live according to the laws of God. And that is the most important thing.

—Finally, one last question concerning the interdependence of Czechs and Russians. You, Your Beatitude, well know what true friendship there was between our peoples. Czechs and Russians have considered each other brothers for many centuries. We loved each other. You also know the reasons for the abrupt cooling, even phobia of the Czechs toward Russians, which, alas, still go on. I know that you for your part try very hard to renew the former friendship. Tell us, please, what specifically do you do in this regard, and what, in your opinion, do Russians need to do in order to make this renewal happen?

—Yes, truly, the friendship between Czechs and Russians continued many centuries. [One testimony of this are the huge number of Liudmilas and Viacheslavs (Wenceslaus) found in Russia. —OC.] The events of August 1968 were especially a blow—the Russian invasion in tanks was taken as a crude disregard for our country’s independence. Czechs are particularly sensitive to that.

A friends’ betrayal is the bitterest betrayal there can be. Czechs were dumbfounded, and “forgot” the Russian language. I remember myself at that time, and I was only fifteen. It was very bitter to recognize that our very best friends, the Russians, had betrayed us.

In August, 1968, on vacation in Hungary, I was arrested for the first time: I had written in Hungarian, “Long live Dubček”. The young Hungarians who told me how to write it in Hungarian gave me away. They were strict about that. They held me and then released me, saying that had I been an adult and Hungarian, I would be sitting in prison for twenty-five years.

—Your Beatitude, you said, “the first time.” Was there a second?

—There was a second time, and a third… The second time was in 1969, after a hockey match between Czechs and Russians, that is the Czechoslovakian team and the Soviet Union’s team. We won, and our boyish heads were spinning. I don’t remember what we did, but we found ourselves in a prison cell. We were again released because we were underage. The third time was when I was twenty-seven. I was getting ready to go to Greece for study. They arrested me due to slander that I wanted to flee the country! In those days, they gave five years for that. Vladyka Dorotheus saved me from prison; he quickly collected the documents and sent me to a monastery in Greece… There I learned Greek and graduated from the university. The slander, of course, was unfair—I never wanted to leave, for I love my country very much…

Well, and as for the “Russian occupation”, I quickly understood that the Russians had nothing to do with it. They did not send Russians to us in tanks, but Soviet Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Uzbeks… And there were also Germans, Hungarians, Poles… Some Russians, too. But I saw the faces of those Russian boys, “invaders”, and they looked the most miserable. From that time on I always said, and still say that the Russians are just like us—sufferers, and Russia, like Czechia, was under oppression, enslaved…

Now many understand this and relations with Russians have changed for the better. I and the Orthodox priests never tire of repeating that the Russians were and are our brothers. I have been consecrating more and more Russian (Ukrainian)-Czech marriages and baptizing the offspring of these unions—infants born from these bonds of love, and bearing within themselves love for both of our peoples and nations.

Source

Translation by OrthoChristian.com

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Read more: Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague and Orthodoxy in Czechia & Slovakia : Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian ‘Welcome Home’ Network for Converts

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• Never Knew that the Church was Orthodox

Orthodox Christians take high-visibility role in the March for Life

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 25, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – At a religious event often dominated by massive presence of Roman Catholics, members of the Eastern Orthodox Church played a more visible role in this year’s March for Life than ever before. For the first time, the opening prayer in front of the Supreme Court was offered by His Eminence Jonah (Paffhausen), Metropolitan of All America and Canada for the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), as well as Roman Catholic prelates Daniel Cardinal DiNardo and Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan.

“We are of one heart and one purpose,” he said as he chanted a litany of life before hundreds of thousands of marchers.

Metropolitan Jonah, primate of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA),
participates in Monday’s March for Life in Washington D.C.

 
The Metropolitan was joined by several of his brother bishops, including Bp. Melchizedek of Pittsburgh, Bp. Matthias of Chicago, and Bp. Michael of New York. At least 15 priests were in his company alone. Several individual representatives of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, and Antiochian Orthodox Churches also participated.

Fr. Chad Hatfield, chancellor of St. Vladimir Orthodox Theological Seminary in Syosset, New York, estimated more than 100 Orthodox Christians came with his group. St. Tikhon’s Seminary in Pennsylvania also brought students to participate in the church’s public ministry.

“The nation should respect life from conception until the moment the person naturally takes his last breath,” Met. Jonah told LifeSiteNews.com. The Orthodox Christian Church, the world’s second largest Christian denomination, dogmatically teaches that life begins at conception and that abortion is a grave sin.

He said throughout the year the faithful should remind women who have had an abortion “that forgiveness and healing are available to them. They should support ministries that care for pregnant women by, for instance, founding crisis pregnancy centers. That is the kind of ministry that will bring an end to abortion in this nation,” he said.

He instructed parishes of the OCA to insert prayers for the end of abortion into one of the church’s litanies on January 22, which the OCA proclaimed “Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.”
[...]
Read it all here.

Abortionist Turned Pro-Life Apostle

The Mission of Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy | 12.01.03 | Grzegorz Gorny
Posted on Thursday, November 13, 2008 4:18:29 PM by Coleus
Stojan Adasevic will never forget the day he was organizing the filing cabinet in the doctors’ room. He was a medical student at the time. A number of gynecologists entered the room. Paying no attention to the student crouched over a pile of papers in the corner, they began swapping stories about their medical practice.   Dr. Rado Ignatovic recalled a patient who had come to him for an abortion. The procedure failed because the doctor had been unable to align the cervix. As the gynecologists went on discussing the woman’s history, Stojan, who had been listening in, suddenly stiffened. He realized that the woman under discussion — a former dentist at the nearby clinic — was his mother.

“She’s dead now” — observed one of the doctors — but I wonder what happened to the unwanted child?” Stojan couldn’t resist. “I’m the child!” he said, getting up. Silence fell over the room. Seconds later the doctors were walking out.

Over the years Dr. Adasevic would have cause to recall that event many times. It was perfectly clear to him: he owed his life to the fact of a failed abortion. He would never make such a blunder himself. Many women were referred to him because of difficulty in aligning the cervix. This was never a problem for Stojan. He became the best abortionist in Belgrade. Before long he had surpassed his master in the profession — Dr. Ignatovic, to whose incompetence he owed his life.  “The secret lies in training the hand through frequent procedures” he would say, citing the German proverb: Übung macht Meister (practice makes perfect). Faithful to this maxim, he would perform from twenty to thirty abortions a day. His record was thirty-five abortions in one day. Today he has difficulty reckoning up the abortions he performed in his twenty-six years of practice. He estimates anywhere between 48,000 and 62,000.

For years he remained convinced that abortion, as taught in the medical faculties and textbooks, was a surgical procedure not unlike that of removing an appendix. The only difference was in the organ removed: a piece of intestine in the one case, and embryonic tissue in the other. Doubts began to arise during the 1980s when ultrasound technology came to Yugoslavian hospitals. It was then that Adasevic first saw on the USG monitor what had until then been invisible to him — the inside of a woman’s womb, a live child, sucking its thumb, moving its arms and legs. As often as not, fragments of that child would soon be lying on the table beside him. “I saw without seeing — he recalls today. — Everything changed after I started having the dreams”.

Dr. Adasevic’s dreams

Actually, it was the same recurring dream. It haunted him every night, day after day, week after week, month after month. He dreamed he was walking in a sunlit meadow. Beautiful flowers grew all around. The air was thick with colored butterflies. It was warm and pleasant, yet, despite this, some anxious feeling oppressed him. Suddenly the meadow was filled with laughing and running children. They were playing ball. In age, they ranged from three or four to about twenty years. All were strikingly beautiful. One boy in particular, and two of the girls, seemed strangely familiar, but he could not recall where he had seen them. When he tried to speak to them, they ran off in terror, screaming. The entire scene was presided over by a man in a black habit who watched intently in silence.

Every night Adasevic would wake in terror and stay awake till morning. Herbal remedies and pills were useless. One night, he became distraught in his dream and began chasing the fleeing children. He caught one of them, but the child cried out in terror: “Help! Murderer! Save me from the murderer!” At that moment the man dressed in black, turned into an eagle, swept down, and pulled the child away. The doctor woke up, his heart thumping like a hammer in his ribs. The room was cold, yet he was hot, drenched in sweat. In the morning he decided to see a psychiatrist. Since there were no immediate openings, he booked an appointment. That night he decided he would ask the man in his dreams to identify himself. This he did. The stranger said: “Even if I told you, my name would mean nothing to you”. When the doctor persisted, the man finally replied: “I am called Thomas Aquinas”. Indeed, the name meant nothing to Adasevic. It was the first time he had heard it. The man in black continued: “Why don’t you ask who the children are. Don’t you recognize them?” When the doctor said he didn’t, he replied: “Not true. You know them very well. These are the children you killed while performing abortions”. “How is that possible?” countered Adasevic. “These are grown children. I have never killed born children”. Thomas replied: “Do you not know that here, on this side of the eschaton, children continue to grow?” The Doctor refused to yield: “But I have never killed a twenty-year-old boy”. “You killed him twenty years ago” replied the monk, “when he was three months old”.

It was then that Adasevic recognized the faces of the twenty-year-old boy and the two girls. They resembled people he knew well, for whom he had performed abortions over the years. The boy looked like a close friend of Adasevic’s. Stojan had performed the abortion on his wife twenty years ago. In the two girls the doctor recognized their mothers, one of whom happened to be Stojan’s cousin. Upon awaking, he decided he would never perform another abortion in his life.

I held a beating heart in my hand

Waiting for him upon his arrival at the hospital that morning was a cousin along with his girlfriend. They had booked an abortion with him. Four months pregnant, the woman was about to do away with her ninth consecutive child. Adasevic refused, but his cousin was so importunate that he gave in: OK, but this was the very last time.  On the USG monitor he clearly saw the child with its thumb in its mouth. Stretching the uterus, he inserted the forceps, took hold of something, and pulled. In the jaws of the forceps was a little arm. He placed it on the table, but in such a way that one of the limbs’ nerve endings touched a drop of spilled iodine. Suddenly, the arm began to twitch. The nurse standing beside him almost screamed out. Just like frogs’ legs in a physiology lab!  Adasevic shuddered, but went on with the abortion. Again he inserted the forceps, gripped, and pulled. This time it was a leg. Just as he was thinking: “Better not let it touch that drop of alcohol”, a nurse standing behind him dropped a tray of surgical instruments. Startled by the crash, the doctor released the forceps, and the leg landed right beside the arm. It too began to move.

The staff had never seen anything like it: human limbs twitching on the table. Adasevic decided to mash up what was left in the womb, and pull it out in a formless mass. He began mashing, squashing, crushing. Upon withdrawing the forceps, now certain that he had reduced everything to a pulp, he produced a human heart! The organ was still beating. Weaker and weaker it beat, until it stopped altogether. It was then that he realized he had killed a human being.  The world turned dark around him. He cannot recall how long this lasted. Suddenly he felt a tug on his arm. A nurse’s terrified voice called out: Doctor Adasevic! Doctor Adasevic! The patient was bleeding. For the first time in years, the doctor began praying earnestly: “Lord! Save not me, but this woman”.   Normally it could take up to ten minutes to clean the womb of all remaining embryonic matter. This time two insertions of the instrument through the vagina were enough to complete the task. When Adasevic removed his gloves, he knew this was the last abortion he would ever perform.

The pail: instrument of abortion

When Stojan informed the head of the hospital of his decision, there was a considerable stir. Never before in a Belgrade hospital had a gynecologist refused to perform abortions. Pressure was brought to bear on him. They cut his salary in half. His daughter was fired from her job. His son “failed” his university entrance examinations. He was attacked in the press and on television. The Socialist State — they said — had provided him with an education so that he could perform abortions, and now he was carrying out sabotage against the State.   Two years of persecution brought him to the brink of nervous exhaustion. He was on the point of asking the hospital administrator to reassign him to abortion duty, when Thomas Aquinas appeared to him in a dream. Patting him on his shoulder, Thomas said: “You are my good friend. Continue your struggle”. Adasevic did not go to the administrator. He decided to fight on.

He got involved in the pro-life movement. He traveled throughout Serbia, lecturing and giving talks on abortion. Twice he succeeded in airing on Yugoslav state television Bernard Nathanson’s The Silent Scream, a USG recording of an actual abortion. In the early 1990s, thanks largely to Adasevic’s activism, the Yugoslav parliament passed a decree protecting the rights of the unborn. The decree went to President Slobodan Milosevic, who refused to sign it. Then the war broke out, and the decree fell into abeyance.   As for the war, Adasevic wonders: “To what else can we attribute the slaughter that took place here in the Balkans if not our alienation from God and lack of respect for human life”. And to make his point he describes what is common practice in Serbia: “Since our laws protect the life of the child only from the moment of its first breath, that is, from the instant it utters its first cry, abortions are legal in the seventh, eighth, and even ninth month of pregnancy. Actually the word “abortion” has no place here, since it applies more to miscarriages. Beside the birthing seat stands a bucket of water. Before the child has a chance to utter a cry, you stop up its mouth and plunge it under water. Officially this is an abortion, and it is all perfectly legal, since the child never draws a breath”.

Here Adasevic likes to cite Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “if a mother can kill her own child, what is there to prevent you and me from killing one another?”  Today, most abortions are performed in private clinics, which do not release figures on aborted pregnancies. Adasevic estimates that for every twenty-five children conceived barely one live birth results. Twenty-four beings are destroyed.  “What further complicates statistical analysis in this area — he observes — is the use of abortifacients such as the IUD  and the RU-486 pill, which are officially classified as contraceptives. The IUD is an abortifacient; for the coil acts as a sword, which severs the tiny human being from its source of food in the womb. It is a terrible death. A human being dies of starvation in a place that is filled with nourishment.

“This is a real war, waged by the born upon the unborn — he adds. — In this war I have crossed the front several times: first as an unborn child condemned to die, then as an abortionist myself, and now as a pro-life apostle.  “I have also become interested in the life of Thomas Aquinas, about whom I knew nothing before. I have often wondered why he appeared in my dream, and not other saints, especially since he is a Catholic saint, and I am Orthodox. To explain this, I started studying Thomas’ writings.  Guess what I found? According to Aquinas, human life begins 40 days after fertilization in the case of men, and 80 days in the case of women. So what is a child in those preceding days? Nothing? I think what Thomas said gives him no peace in the eschaton. Mind you, it should be stated that Thomas accepted this view from Aristotle. Aristotle was the great authority then. Thomas allowed himself to be influenced by his view, and committed an error.

“It was a long time before I grasped the fact that a child in the mother’s womb is a living person, that it is a living person not from the time it draws its first breath, as the communist professors taught us, but from the instant the human embryo is formed, that is, from the moment the spermatozoon joins with the egg cell”.

Grzegorz Gorny

Originally published in Love One Another Catholic Magazine, No. 1/2004 dedicated to the New Evangelization.  An abbreviated form of this article appeared in the Polish secular daily Rzeczpospolita (1 December 2003).  Used with Permission.

Abortion – The First Hour Trailer

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by CatholicRadioTVNet on Aug 5, 2010

This trailer presents the first 10:20 minutes of the CRTN – documentary “Abortion – The First Hour”.

Production Date: 2009
Duration: 27′

Copyright : CRTN
Language: English
Executive Producer: Grzegorz Gorny & Lech Dokowicz
Director: Grzegorz Gorny

Over one billion abortions have been carried out in the last 30 years. Approximately 53 million abortions are carried out every year. In many countries over 70% of women have terminated a pregnancy.

Drawing on interviews with doctors who have performed abortions (Doctor Stojan Adasevic from Belgrade in Serbia has carried out nearly 55000 abortions and Doctor Bleslaw Piecha from Poland has carried out over 1000 abortions) as well as women who have undergone an abortion, the film seeks to show the deep wound abortion commits on humanity – as well as the hope offered by those who try to stop abortion.

Stojan Adasevic

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by catholicnewsagency on Nov 12, 2008

Otro “rey del aborto” convertido en líder pro-vida: Stojan Adasevic

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Uploaded by Acitv on Nov 12, 2008

El diario La Razón de España ha dado a conocer el caso de un nuevo “rey del aborto” converso: Stojan Adasevic. Este ginecólogo que es ahora uno de los principales líderes pro-vida de Serbia, realizó 48 mil abortos durante 26 años y hasta 35 en un solo día en la Yugoslavia comunista.

Serbian abortion rate ‘at epidemic proportions’

by Thaddeus Baklinski – Fri Jan 20, 2012 17:32 EST

BELGRADE, January 20, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – According to the Belgrade Institute of Public Health, 23,000 abortions are committed in Serbia annually. However, a report by the Southeast European Times states that unofficial data suggest that as many as 150,000 abortions are committed every year in the country of just over 7 million inhabitants, giving Serbia the highest abortion rate in Europe.

The current Serbian birth rate is 1.44 children per woman, compared to a European average of 1.6, which is still well below the 2.1 children per woman needed to maintain a static population.

Since 1969, the year when complete liberalization of abortion came into effect, abortion has been available on-demand until the 10th week of pregnancy, and in cases of rape, incest, psychological trauma and socioeconomic reasons until the twentieth week.

However, according to the SETimes, enforcement of the law is lax, most abortions are conducted in unregulated private clinics, and abortion has become the cultural norm for birth control.

“For many women in Serbia who already gave birth, abortion is considered a regular means of contraception; they do not apply prevention, but undergo an abortion,” gynecologist Jovanka Carevic told SETimes.
[...]
“The large number of abortions could partly be explained by the early liberalization of abortion,” Rašević wrote. “Socio-medical indications were accepted as grounds for abortion from 1952 onwards. In 1969 the law was further liberalized. Abortion was then permitted, without any ‘waiting period’, at the woman’s request up to ten weeks’ gestation and, beyond ten weeks, with the approval of a medical commission.”

“Since 1995 abortion is available, on request, for women aged 16 or over, instead of 18 years and over as was previously the case. To obtain an abortion, women go directly to a gynaecologist who has a legal obligation to carry out this procedure,” the report states.
[...]
Serbian sociologist Dragutin Vasic observed that high unemployment, divorce, a low level of general health education, and lack of direction by health, educational and other institutions have all contributed to high abortion rates.
[...]
The research report by Mirjana Rašević titled “The abortion issue in Serbia” is available here.

Read the complete article here.

Margaret MacDonald is nearly 83 years old and suffers from lung damage (as do I). Standing outside in the cold at night could have killed her. Though she could not muster enough lung power to activate a breathalyzer, her blood alcohol level proved to be zero.

Unless we all want to capitulate to shari’a law, it’s time to put a stop to the moral panic about alcohol in Canada and the US.

Ezra Levant on Canada neo-Prohibitionist fascists

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by SDAMatt2a on Jan 12, 2012

To bully and berate an innocent senior then punish her without a trial for a crime she clearly didn’t commit.

This, apparently, is what Alberta has to look forward to under draconian drunk-driving laws inspired by our neighbouring province, where suspected motorists are guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

Fortunately for 82-year-old Margaret MacDonald, tears brought on by allegedly obnoxious B.C. RCMP officers didn’t blind her to protecting herself.

“I came into the house and burst into tears — then I stood here at three o’clock in the morning and thought ‘my word means nothing,’” said MacDonald.

“Three officers don’t believe me, so I phoned the hospital and took a taxi over to have a blood test.

“I’m not going to let the Mounties get away with saying I was drunk.”

At the Cranbrook Hospital, she obtained a laboratory document proving what she’d desperately been trying to tell police a few minutes before.

There was no alcohol in her system — not a drop — and yet MacDonald’s failure to provide a proper breath sample meant her car was taken away for a month and her licence suspended for 90 days.

Now, $6,000 out-of-pocket and in fear of losing her home, the Cranbrook senior will wait another six months for a ruling on her case, as the B.C. government tweaks legislation to comply with a court order.

It was May 21 when MacDonald was approached by an off-duty RCMP officer, just outside her home.

MacDonald, a near-teetotaler, was returning from an engagement party at a friend’s house when she mistakenly turned into the wrong lane. She assumed that’s why the police officer was there.

Even when the off-duty cop told MacDonald a breathalyzer was coming to test her for drinking and driving, she didn’t worry — her last serious drink was 60 years ago: “I really don’t drink,” she said.

What she didn’t count on was the lung power needed to properly blow into a police breathalyzer. Having suffered from serious pneumonia a few years ago, she couldn’t manage.

That didn’t stop RCMP from making her try — over the next two hours, MacDonald says she was forced to stand in the chill and told to blow 15 times by increasingly snotty RCMP officers.

“He pounded on the hood of his car and shouted at me to blow. He shoved this thing in my mouth and it fell on the ground, and he picked it up and put in back in again,” said MacDonald.

“I said ‘I don’t drink, I haven’t been drinking,’ and he said, ‘you’re sticking your tongue in there because you don’t want do this — you’re slurring, you’re drunk and you stink of alcohol.’”

RCMP officials are now reviewing the conduct of officers that night, but try as they might, the Mounties couldn’t get a sample from the shivering, teary-eyed senior, who was wearing only sandals and a thin dress.

Thus, MacDonald was cited for failing to provide a breath sample, given a Notice of Driving Prohibition for three months, fined $500 and told her car was to be towed.

MacDonald wept, but she was sharp enough to obtain proof of her innocence, because in Canada that used to be enough to make those in power see sense.

Not anymore. Under a system about to be adopted in Alberta, drivers suspected of driving drunk, even under .05%, can lose their licences and cars without a trial.

Even after MacDonald took her blood test to the RCMP station, she was told nothing could be done.

A helpful corporal on duty provided her with a letter, stating: “I believe it is only fair that this Driving Prohibition and Vehicle Impound be terminated and removed from your driving record as soon as possible.”

But it didn’t end there.

Despite proof of alcohol-free blood, B.C.’s superintendent of motor vehicles adjudicator still found her guilty — a decision now under review by direct order of B.C. Solicitor General Shirley Bond.

“Obviously, I am concerned with this circumstance but it is important that we get all the facts of the case,” Bond said in a statement to QMI Agency.

“As soon as I became aware of this, I directed the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles to review the case and that work is currently underway.”

The ordeal took a massive toll on MacDonald — a few days later, she suffered what doctors in Calgary told her was a mild, stress-related heart attack, leaving her bed-ridden in hospital.

Back in Cranbrook, all she can do is wait.

“I’m nearly 83 and you have to cope with life, but through my years I’ve never been this traumatized over anything,” she said.

“Especially when I’m totally innocent.”

- Calgary Sun

Piss off, MADD, you pathetic prohibitionists

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by SDAMatt2a on Jan 18, 2012

In Ontario the legal BAC limit is 0.08 per cent, but the blithering idiots at MADD have seen to it that your car can be impounded if you blow at the * legal * limit of 0.05. The cop has been made judge and jury. Your papers, please.

And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. – Psalm 104:15, KJV

NineMSN: Convert feared kidnapped by Muslim hardliners

The husband and friends of an Iranian refugee missing since last month fear she has been kidnapped by Islamic extremists because of her efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity.

Melbourne woman Mandy Ahmadi disappeared from her Dandenong home on December 16, leaving behind her handbag, money and credit cards, The Age reported.

Moving to Australia in 1999, Mrs Ahmadi became a Christian five years ago, and her husband Nathan converted from Islam a year later.

Mrs Ahmadi became active in the migrant community, helping Muslims leaving detention centres through an agency she co-founded at a local church.

“It is so painful. My heart and my brain are frozen,” Mr Ahmadi was quoted as saying.

Pastor Daniel Nalliah expressed his concerns in an email sent out yesterday.

“I was able to give some very important insight as to how under Islamic Sharia law, Muslims converts are sentenced to long terms in jail, torture and in places like Iran and some other Muslim countries, they are executed,” Mr Nalliah wrote.

“If this is an abduction, then we are really fighting against time, as to whether Mandy is still alive is a very big question.”

Under a hardline interpretation of Sharia law, Muslims who leave the religion can be sentenced to death.

Mr Nalliah, who worked as a missionary in Saudi Arabia before founding the controversial Catch the Fire Ministries, successfully defended a lawsuit from the Islamic Council of Victoria after being accused of religious vilification in 2002.

Photo here.

Update:

Husband charged with wife’s murder

With thanks to видовдан.орг

Patriarchal Nativity Encyclical 2011

5. January 2012 – 12:46

The Serbian Orthodox Church
to her spiritual children at Christmas, 2011

+IRINEJ

By the Grace of God
Orthodox Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade Karlovci and Serbian Patriarch, with all the Hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox Church to all the clergy, monastics, and all the sons and daughters of our Holy Church: grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, with the joyous Christmas greeting:

Peace from God! Christ is Born!

“But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son…”

Gal. 4:4

With the genealogy of Jesus Christ, “the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1), dear brothers and sisters, begins the Gospel of Christ, God’s blessed and joyous news to mankind.

On this day of the joyous Feast of the Nativity of Christ all Christian hearts throughout the world are filled with the song of the angels of God, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men”. (Luke 2:14) This Day is a great joy for the entire world “for there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”. (Luke 2:11)

The birth of the Son of God is a great mystery of God’s love. One is never closer to another than today, on Christmas day. Adults and children are never closer to each other than on this day. A person never feels a greater need to reconcile and become closer to others than on this day. From this comes the need and custom of our people to forgive and exchange “God’s-peace” on this day, to forget personal quarrels with a wish that all those around us may come together in brotherly unity and in the spirit of love and God’s peace.

The angelic song in honor of Christ’s birth is a truth-filled song which fully tells the essence of His message, the content of His Gospel and the mission of the Holy Church which He, the Incarnate Son of God, has established. The glorification of God, peace and good will among men represent the most holy triptych of the Christmas message. In glorifying God, man lifts up and glorifies himself at the same time. By preaching God’s peace, Christ’s peace, peace without fear and violence, man contributes to the building up of God’s Kingdom here on earth. It is only with good will, in the unselfish giving of oneself to God and to those around us, that it is possible to attain true human solidarity and true unity in solving all problems and in achieving moral and material progress.

With His coming, Christ witnesses an essential Union, a new union of heaven and earth, of Creator and creation, and with His mouth He reveals a great Mystery which God incorporated into man as a pledge from the moment of his creation, and this mystery comes down to one truth: that man is the most important creation under the sun. Of course, man is the most important, precisely because God in Christ became Man. According to Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, man is called to be the reflection, the glory, the light of God on earth. We can understand this only if we take the God-Man, the Lord Christ, as the proper and true measure of all beings and all events on our planet.

Each day, we meet temptations, misfortunes and suffering, caused by others or by ourselves. Afflictions in our homes, suffering in schools, cities and villages, suffering in different countries and between nations, attest to a deep division in the world, a division which cannot be overcome with human efforts. These divisions have such a deep effect that even our God-reflecting personhood is split into soul and body, conscious and unconscious, and on and on.

Oftentimes it seems that chaos is the originator and basis of our society. However, chaos is actually present only where a consciousness about the true measure of everything and everybody is lost, and that measure is love. Actually, Christ attests with His coming to this world that love has conquered the world of evil and hate, and that love always conquers it. Love is from God. God is the source of all-encompassing love. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”. (1 John 4:8)

Born in a manger in Bethlehem, Christ has stopped time in His Person and around Himself, or more exactly: in Himself He has gathered all those who long for love and eternity. Manifesting Himself in the world, He is the only One who brings true and eternal joy.

Christ’s birth has brought peace into the world and has connected time with eternity. Peace and eternity will never again leave the world, regardless of all temptations and tribulations that might come along. As a bearer of His peace and eternity Christ has established His Church. The Church is the Pillar and a Bulwark of truth, a ship by which we safely sail into the peaceful harbor of our salvation.

Through the Church God heals every sickness and every human infirmity. In the Church harmony is established between heaven and earth, between the created and the uncreated, between the eternal and the temporal, between the spirit and the body. The healing which the Lord grants in the Church is not understandable if it is not comprehended and experienced as God’s love which is manifested in Christ Born, Crucified, Resurrected and Glorified for us and for our salvation. The Lord loves everyone and desires that all should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He calls us to participate in the work of our salvation by coming to know Him in the Church, that is, by being gathered and united in the Church and as the Church, by living in her and by her. The measure of spiritual life on earth is the Church because she is the body of Christ. Through her the Lord heals us, for He wishes that all will become participants in eternal life and eternal love.

We call all our spiritual children throughout the world to never forget that the Lord entrusted salvation to the Church, and that in her is given the only true way and direction by which we should go. The measure of spiritual life is not given to individuals, but rather it is given by the Holy Spirit to the Church as a whole, so that all may grow into perfection in harmony and peace.

The Eternal God on that long-ago, first historic Christmas, was born as a poor Child so that we might be enriched by Him, by His divine perfection as by eternal wealth. With this He teaches us and all human generations not to separate ourselves from each other, but to bear each other’s burdens, to love each other, to help the weak and the poor, to share as brothers and sisters the blessings which God has bestowed upon us, and so fulfill the Law of Christ and in a Christian way fulfill our human calling.

Every separation, dissension, animosity and tearing down of unity is in opposition to the Holy Spirit and to the spirit of the Church, or we cannot at the same time “drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons,” and we cannot “partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons”. ( I Cor. 10:21)

Christmas is the Feast Day when we feel the fullness of goodness and the mercy of God, shown towards mankind by God sending His Only-Begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God’s love, manifested mysteriously in Bethlehem’s cave, touches all of us on this great Day.

The celebration of Christmas is not simply a custom, a tradition, a habit, or a day of receiving and giving gifts. Christmas is the gift above all gifts, the day in which is revealed the only new thing under the sun, the day in which eternal divine youth flows into the very being of heaven and earth and into our limited, transient human nature and brings eternal youth to all.

Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we must admit that our spiritual peace has been disquieted, and as a result our joy is not complete. It is overshadowed with fear and worry about everyday events in the world, and especially because of the tragic events in our crucified Kosovo and Metohija. These events cloud the harmonious singing of angelic song and they threaten to change peace and patience into unrest and intolerance.

We counsel our dear faithful flock, the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, to be persistent and to stay in their homesteads, with their Church and their holy shrines, in the land of their ancestors. The Church, as a caring Mother, is always with them and always will be with them. Without suffering there is no resurrection. May our Lord be our measure even in our suffering!

We appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, to safeguard the sanctity of marriage, to care for and look after your children, especially to care for their religious and moral upbringing and their education. Religious classes in our public school system are a great help, but they are not the only way of educating our youth and by themselves they are not enough. This is why parents and a warm family home are a holy community and a place of growth into the stature of Christ, growth into the fullness of the Divine-Child’s love. Faith and love are taught in parents’ homes first, in the family environment. They are taught imperceptibly, just as the mother tongue is learned. God gave parents an exalted role that through the birth and raising of children they may ennoble the world and so make it better and more beautiful.

Unfortunately, many marriages are still entered into without the blessing of the Church, and there are also divorces, which are a true calamity for our Church and for our nation. Marriage is a vow before God, and it is a Holy Mystery of our Church. Man has no right to separate that which God has brought together, says Christ the Lord (Matthew 19:6).

Christ’s Birth has shown upon the world the light of knowledge and of divine knowledge. With His entry into the world a new beginning of time has dawned, the end of the pagan era and the beginning of the era of the knowledge of Christ through the Church which He founded with His precious blood.

This Day is celebrated by experiencing everything that is most beautiful and most exalted. This Day reminds man of his dual origin, heavenly and earthly. It teaches man his duties toward both his heavenly and earthly family. This Day reminds us that it is necessary to give back to our Heavenly Father and to our heavenly family in order to achieve blessings and happiness in our earthly family.

Open your hearts, you, our dear spiritual children, who are gone to far away countries, and celebrate with joy the Divine Infant, for the earth is the Lord’s everywhere, and God is everywhere and in every place. In the Church of Christ, in this holy Divine-Human community, we celebrate together with you all these joy-filled Christmas Holy Days, and we are not far away from each other.

Let us lift up our hearts, all without exception, dear brothers and sisters! This is the day which the Lord has given us that we too may be spiritually born and reborn through Christ the Lord. May the Light of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit of the Divine Child Christ, the Spirit of God, shine in our souls and our homes!

To live a spiritual life means to work out our salvation, to be healed, to run away from sin and to seek after love. A love which is of this world does not lead anywhere but to death; only the love of the Divine-Child Christ brings life and leads to life eternal. That is why we need to love all those around us and to witness our Hope to all, as the Holy Apostle Peter says (I Peter 1:3; 3:15). Without love everything in this world of ours is condemned to sorrow, and without the Love of God Incarnate, Who is the New-Born Christ, everything is condemned to nothingness.

Worshiping the Young Child, the Eternal God, in this and all the days of our life, let us, dear brothers and sisters, forgive each other and with brotherly and sisterly love greet each other with the holy greeting:

PEACE FROM GOD – CHRIST IS BORN!
INDEED HE IS BORN!
A BLESSED AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!

Given at the Serbian Patriarchate in Belgrade at Christmas, 2011.

Your intercessors before the cradle of the divine Christ-Child:
Archbishop of Pec,
Metropolitan of Belgrade-Karlovci and
Serbian Patriarch IRINEJ
Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana JOVAN
Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Coastlands AMPHILOHIJE
Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosna NIKOLAJ

Bishop of Sabac LAVRENTIJE
Bishop of Zvornik-Tuzla VASILIJE
Bishop of Srem VASILIJE
Bishop of Banja Luka JEFREM
Bishop of Budim LUKIJAN
Bishop of Canada GEORGIJE
Bishop of Banat NIKANOR
Bishop of New Gracanica-Midwestern America LONGIN
Bishop of Eastern America MITROPHAN
Bishop of Zica CHRYSOSTOM
Bishop of Backa IRINEJ
Bishop of Great Britain and Scandinavia DOSITEJ
Bishop of Bihac and Petrovac CHRYSOSTOM
Bishop of Osijek and Baranja LUKIJAN
Bishop of Central Europe CONSTANTINE
Bishop of Western Europe LUKA
Bishop of Timok JUSTIN
Bishop of Vranje PAHOMIJE
Bishop of Sumadija JOVAN
Bishop of Slavonia SAVA
Bishop of Branicevo IGNATIJE
Bishop of Milesevo FILARET
Bishop of Dalmatia FOTIJE
Bishop of Budimlje and Niksic JOANIKIJE
Bishop of Zahumlje and Hercegovina GRIGORIJE
Bishop of Valjevo MILUTIN
Bishop of Ras and Prizren TEODOSIJE
Bishop of Western America MAXIM
Bishop of Gornji Karlovac GERASIM
Bishop of Australia and New Zealand IRINEJ
Bishop of Krusevac DAVID
Retired Bishop of Zahumlje and Hercegovina ATANASIJE
Vicar Bishop of Hvostno ATANASIJE
Vicar Bishop of Jegar PORFIRIJE
Vicar Bishop of Moravica ANTONIJE
Vicar Bishop of Lipljan JOVAN
Vicar Bishop of Remezijan ANDREJ
THE ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF OCHRID:
Archbishop of Ochrid and Metropolitan of Skoplje JOVAN
Bishop of Polos and Kumanovo JOAKIM
Bishop of Bregal and locum tenens of the Diocese of Bitolj MARKO
Bishop of Stobija DAVID

[Path of Orthodoxy translation]

Божићна посланица Српске Православне Цркве

5. Јануар 2012 – 12:43

СРПСКА ПРАВОСЛАВНА ЦРКВА СВОЈОЈ ДУХОВНОЈ ДЕЦИ
О БОЖИЋУ 2011. ГОДИНЕ

И Р И Н Е Ј
МИЛОШЋУ БОЖЈОМ ПРАВОСЛАВНИ АРХИЕПИСКОП ПЕЋКИ, МИТРОПОЛИТ БЕОГРАДСКО-КАРЛОВАЧКИ И ПАТРИЈАРХ СРПСКИ, СА СВИМА АРХИЈЕРЕЈИМА СРПСКЕ ПРАВОСЛАВНЕ ЦРКВЕ – СВЕШТЕНСТВУ МОНАШТВУ И СВИМА СИНОВИМА И КЋЕРИМА НАШЕ СВЕТЕ ЦРКВЕ: БЛАГОДАТ, МИЛОСТ И МИР ОД БОГА ОЦА, И ГОСПОДА НАШЕГ ИСУСА ХРИСТА, И ДУХА СВЕТОГА, УЗ РАДОСНИ БОЖИЋНИ ПОЗДРАВ:

МИР БОЖЈИ – ХРИСТОС СЕ РОДИ!

A када дође пуноћа времена, посла Бог Сина својега…
(Гал 4, 4).

Родословом Исуса Христа, „сина Давидова, Авраамова сина” (Мт 1, 1), почиње, драга браћо и сестре, Јеванђеље о Христу, Блага и радосна вест Божја роду људском.

Песмом анђела Божјих – „Слава на висини Богу, и на земљи мир, међу људима добра воља” (Лк 2, 14) – на данашњи дан радосног празника Рођења Христовог испуњена су широм света сва хришћанска срца. Овај Дан je за цео свет велика радост „јер вам се данас роди Спас, који je Христос Господ, у граду Давидову” (Лк 2, 11).

Рођење Сина Божјег јесте велика тајна љубави Божје. Никада човек није тако близак човеку као данас, на Божић. Никада одрасли и деца нису толико блиски једни другима као данас. Никада човек не осећа тако снажно потребу да се мири и зближава са другим људима као данас. Отуда је у нашем народу потреба и обичај да се на данашњи дан прашта и „мирбожи”, да се заборављају личне размирице, са жељом да се све око нас зближи и збратими у духу љубави и мира Божјег.

Анђелска песма у част Рођења Христовог јесте истинска песма која нам језгровито исказује суштину Христове поруке, садржај Његовог Јеванђеља и мисију свете Цркве, коју је Он, Оваплоћени Син Божји, основао. Слављење Бога, мир и добра воља међу људима представљају најсветији триптих божићне поруке. Славећи Бога, човек уједно уздиже и прославља себе. Проповедајући мир Божји, – мир Христов, мир без страха и насиља, – човек доприноси изградњи Царства Божјег на земљи. Једино добром вољом, у несебичном давању себе Богу и ближњима, може се постићи истинска људска солидарност и право заједништво у решавању свих проблема и остварити морални и материјални напредак.

Својим доласком Христос сведочи о суштинској Заједници, новој заједници неба и земље, Творца и творевине, и Својим устима открива велику Тајну коју је Бог као залог унео у човека од самога његова стварања, а она се своди на истину да најважније створење под сунцем јесте управо човек. Наравно, човек је најважнији зато што је Бог у Христу постао човек. По речима Светог Иринеја Лионског, човек је позван да буде одсјај, слава, светлост Божја на земљи. То можемо схватити једино уколико Богочовека Господа Христа узмемо за право и истинско мерило свих бића и свих збивања на нашој планети.

Свакодневно се сусрећемо са искушењима, недаћама и патњама, изазваним од стране других или од нас самих. Патње у нашим домовима, патње у школама, патње у градовима и селима, патње у државама и међу народима сведоче о дубокој подељености у свету, подељености која се не може превазићи људским напорима. При том поделе иду тако дубоко да се и сама наша боголика личност дели – на душу и тело, на свесно и несвесно, и тако у недоглед.

Често се учини да је неред покретач и носилац нашег друштва. Неред је, међутим, присутан само онде где је изгубљена свест о истинској мери свега и свих, а то је љубав. Управо Христос сведочи, Својим доласком у овај свет, да је љубав победила свет зла и мржње и да га увек побеђуј e. Љубав је од Бога. Бог је извор свеколике љубави. „Који не љуби, не познаде Бога; јер Бог је љубав” (1. Јн 4, 8).

Рођен у јаслама у Витлејему, Христос је зауставио време у Својој Личности и око Себе – још тачније: у Себи – сабрао све оне који су жељни љубави и вечности. Јавивши се у свету, Он нам једини доноси истинску и непролазну радост.

Рођење Христово је унело мир Божји у свет, а време повезало са вечношћу. Мир и вечност неће више никада напустити свет, без обзира на сва искушења и недаће које га могу задесити. Као носиоца Свога мира и вечности Христос је установио Цркву Своју. Она је Стуб и Тврђава истине, брод којим сигурно пловимо у тихо пристаниште нашега спасења.

Господ кроз Цркву исцељује сваку болест и сваку немоћ људску. У њој се васпоставља склад између неба и земље, између створеног и нествореног, између вечног и временог, између духа и тела. Исцељење које Господ у Цркви даје није разумљиво уколико се не схвати и не доживи као љубав Божја која се пројавила у Христу, Рођеном, Распетом, Васкрслом и Прослављеном нас ради и нашега спасења ради. Господ љуби свакога човека и жели да се сви људи спасу и дођу у познање истине. Он и нас позива да учествујемо у делу нашега спасења тако што ћемо Њега познати у Цркви, то јест бити сабрани и уједињени у Цркви и као Црква, живети у њој и њоме. Мерило духовног живота на земљи јесте Црква јер је она Тело Христово. Кроз њу нас Господ исцељује јер жели да сви буду причасници вечнога живота и вечне љубави.

Позивамо и сву нашу духовну децу широм света да никада не забораве да је Господ Цркви поверио спасење и да је у њој дат једини истинити пут и правац којим треба да идемо. Мерило духовног живота није дато појединцима већ се Духом Светим дај e Цркви у целини, тако да се све складно и у миру Божјем усавршава.

Превечни Бог се на онај давни, први историјски Божић родио као пуки сиромашак да би нас обогатио Собом, Својим божанским савршенством као вечним богатством. Тиме Он и нас и сва људска покољења учи да се не одвајамо једни од других него да једни другима бремена носимо, да љубимо једни друге, да помажемо слабе и сиромашне, да братски делимо добра којима нас je Бог обдарио и да тако испунимо Закон Христов и на хришћански начин остваримо cвoje људско призвaњe.

Cвaкa деоба, раздор, нeприjaтeљcтвo и разарање заједништва супротни су Духу Божјем и духу Црквe. Jep, не можемо иcтoврeмeнo „пити чашу Господњу и чашу демонску”, не можемо „учествовати у трпези Господњој и у трпези демонској” (1. Kop 10, 21).

Божић је Празник кад осећамо пуноћу доброте и милости Божјe, показане према роду људском тиме што је Бог послао у свет Сина Cвoга Јединороднога, Господа нашега Исуса Христа. Божанска љyбaв, која се чудесно показала у витлејемској пећини, прожима и све нас на oвaj вeлики Дан.

Прaзнoвaњe Божића није просто обичај, традиција, нaвикa, дан примања и дaвaњa дaрoвa. Божић je дар над дaрoвимa, дан у којем ce открило оно што je jeдинo ново под cyнцeм, дан у којем ce вeчнa божанска младост улила у биће нeбa и зeмљe и у oгрaничeнy, пролазну људску природу и cвe подмладила вeчном младошћу.

Нажалост, браћо и cecтpe, морамо признати да je наш духoвни мир прилично помућен, тe ни радост наша ниje потпуна. Она je oceнчeнa страхом и бригом због cвaкoднeвниx збивања у cвeтy, a пoceбнo због трагичних збивaњa на нaшeм распетом Kocoвy и Meтoxиjи. Ta збивања мyтe складни пој aнђeлcкe пеcмe и прeтe да мир и cтрпљeњe прeтвoрe у нecпoкojcтвo и нетрпeљивocт.

Нашим драгим верницимa, Србима на Kocoвy и Метохији, прeпoрyчyjeмo да буду истрајни и да остану на својим огњиштима, уз cвojy Цркву и уз cвoje cвeтињe, на зeмљи cвojиx дeдoвa и прaдeдoвa. Црквa, као брижна Мати, yвeк je са њима и yвeк ћe бити са њима. Бeз страдања нeмa ни вacкрceњa. Господ тека нам cвимa бyдe мерило и у страдањима!

Молимо вac, браћо и cecтpe, да светињу брака oчyвaтe, да ce бринeтe и cтapaтe о cвojoj дeци, a нарочито о њиxoвoм верском и моралном вacпитaњy и oбрaзoвaњy. Beрoнayкa у oбрaзoвнoм cиcтeмy у нашим школама јесте вeликa помоћ, али ниje jeдинa и ниje дoвoљнa; зато су рoдитeљи и топли породични дом cвeтa зajeдницa и мecтo узрастања у меру раста виcинe Хриcтoвe, у пуноћу љyбaви Бoгoмлaдeнцa. Jep, вepa и морал ce yчe нajпрe у рoдитeљcкoм дому, у породици. Учe ce нeoceтнo, исто онако како ce учи и мaтeрњи jeзик.

Бог je рoдитeљимa дао yзвишeнy улогу да кроз рађање и васпитавање дeцe oплeмeњyjy cвeт и да га чине бољим и лeпшим.

Нажалост, још je yвeк много брaкoвa cклoпљeниx бeз благocлoвa cвeтe Црквe, a и рaзвeдeниx брaкoвa, који су прaвa несрећа и за нашу Цркву и за наш народ. Брак је завет пред Богом и у исто време црквена Света Тајна. Човек нема право да раставља оно што је Бог саставио, каже Христос Господ (Мт 19, 6).

Христово Рођење је обасјало свет светлошћу знања и богопознања. Његовим уласком у свет настаје почетак новог доба, крај незнабожачке ере и почетак ере христопознања, кроз Цркву коју је Он основао Својом часном крвљу.
Овај Дан се прославља доживљавањем свега што је најлепше и најузвишеније. Он човека подсећа на његово двоструко порекло – небеско и земаљско. Он учи човека дужностима и према небеској и према земаљској породици. Овај Дан нас опомиње да је потребно претходно се одужити Оцу небеском и нашој небеској породици да бисмо могли стећи благослов и срећу у земаљској породици.

Отворите срца и ви, децо наша духовна, који сте отишли у даљину и туђину и прославите у радости Богомладенца, јер је свуда земља Господња, а Бог је свуда и на свакоме месту. У Цркви Христовој, у овој светој богочовечанској заједници, славимо, са свима вама заједно, радосне божићне празнике и нисмо далеко једни од других.

Подигнимо горе срца, сви без разлике, драга браћо и сестре! Ово је Дан који је дао Бог да се и ми духовно рађамо и препорађамо кроз Христа Господа. Нека светлост Духа Светога, Духа Христа Богомладенца, Духа Божјег, засија у душама нашим и у домовима нашим!

Живети духовним животом значи спасавати се, исцељивати се, бежати од греха и трагати за љубављу. Љубав која је од овога света не води нас никуда до у смрт; једино нас љубав Богомладенца Христа оживљава и води у живот вечни. Зато треба да љубимо све око себе и свима да сведочимо Наду нашу, како каже Свети Апостол Петар (1. Пет 1, 3 и 3, 15). Без љубави, у овом нашем свету све је осуђено на тугу, а без Оваплоћене Љубави Божје, Која је Христос Новорођени, све је осуђено на ништавило.

Клањајући се Детету младом, Превечном Богу, ових и свих других дана нашега живота, опростимо, браћо и сестре, једни другима и са братском, односно сестринском љубављу поздрављајмо једни друге светим поздравом:

Мир Божји, Христос ce роди!
Ваистину ce роди!
Благословена нова 2012. година!

Дано у Патријаршији српској у Београду, о Божићу 2011. године

Ваши молитвеници пред колевком Богомладенца Христа

АРХИЕПИСКОП ПЕЋКИ, МИТРОПОЛИТ БЕОГРАДСКО-КАРЛОВАЧКИ
И ПАТРИЈАРХ СРПСКИ ИРИНЕЈ

Митрополит загребачко-љубљански ЈОВАН
Митрополит црногорско-приморски АМФИЛОХИЈЕ
Митрополит дабробосански НИКОЛАЈ
Епископ шабачки ЛАВРЕНТИЈЕ
Епископ зворничко-тузлански ВАСИЛИЈЕ
Епископ сремски ВАСИЛИЈЕ
Епископ бањалучки ЈЕФРЕМ
Епископ будимски ЛУКИЈАН
Епископ канадски ГЕОРГИЈЕ
Епископ банатски НИКАНОР
Епископ новограчаничко-средњезападноамерички ЛОНГИН
Епископ источноамерички МИТРОФАН
Епископ жички ХРИЗОСТОМ
Епископ бачки ИРИНЕЈ
Епископ британско-скандинавски ДОСИТЕЈ
Епископ бихаћко-петровачки ХРИЗОСТОМ
Епископ осечкопољски и барањски ЛУКИЈАН
Епископ средњоевропски КОНСТАНТИН
Епископ западноевропски ЛУКА
Епископ тимочки ЈУСТИН
Епископ врањски ПАХОМИЈЕ
Епископ шумадијски ЈОВАН
Епископ славонски САВА
Епископ браничевски ИГЊАТИЈЕ
Епископ милешевски ФИЛАРЕТ
Епископ далматински ФОТИЈЕ
Епископ будимљанско-никшићки ЈОАНИКИЈЕ
Епископ захумско-херцеговачки ГРИГОРИЈЕ
Епископ ваљевски МИЛУТИН
Епископ рашко-призренски ТЕОДОСИЈЕ
Епископ нишки ЈОВАН
Епископ западноамерички МАКСИМ
Епископ горњокарловачки ГЕРАСИМ
Епископ аустралијско-новозеландски ИРИНЕЈ
Епископ крушевачки ДАВИД
Епископ умировљени захумско-херцеговачки АТАНАСИЈЕ
Викарни Епископ хвостански АТАНАСИЈЕ
Викарни Епископ јегарски ПОРФИРИЈЕ
Викарни Епископ моравички АНТОНИЈЕ
Викарни Епископ липљански ЈОВАН
Викарни Епископ ремезијански АНДРЕЈ

ОХРИДСКА АРХИЕПИСКОПИЈА:
Архиепископ охридски и Митрополит скопски ЈОВАН
Епископ полошко-кумановски ЈОАКИМ
Епископ брегалнички, местобљуститељ Епархије битољске МАРКО
Епископ стобијски ДАВИД

Also see:

• Enjoy a Beautiful Serbian Christmas (January 7, New Calendar)
• Orthodox Christmas Music for the Nativity of Our Lord
• Serbian Royal Family Visits Pennsylvania for Christmas (January 7, 2011)

What the mainstream media doesn’t want to tell you…

Muslim Father Aziz Yazdanpanah Honor-Massacres Entire Family . . . in Texas

I watched this story more than a dozen times on the news over the past couple of days. I didn’t see a single program that noted the obvious honor-killing elements of this massacre. Yazdanpanah had lost control of his family. His wife had left him. His daughter was dating a non-Muslim. And he killed them all.

Just as the Ft. Hood Massacre was attributed to “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” and “Workplace Violence,” you can expect this massacre to be attributed to “Holiday Blues,” “Depression,” “Stress,” etc.

GRAPEVINE — Aziz Yazdanpanah seemed to be losing control of his life in recent months — his wife left him, his house was in foreclosure, and his 19-year-old daughter was dating a young man he didn’t like.

Even so, the 58-year-old former real estate agent from Colleyville seemed to be holding it together. Neighbors say he would smile and wave as he drove through his middle-class neighborhood. Recently, he was seen raking leaves in his yard.

“He was very friendly, a very good neighbor,” said Carrie Stewart, who lives across the street. “He was out here often doing yard work and he even watched our house for us when we went to Colorado.”

Yazdanpanah, a volunteer high school debate coach described as a doting father, is the focus of suspicion a day after a Christmas morning massacre in which a man dressed as Santa Claus killed six relatives and then committed suicide.

Grapevine police arrived at the Lincoln Vineyard Apartment Homes a few minutes before noon and discovered bodies sprawled among opened presents and wrapping paper. The victims were ages 15 to 58. . . .

Read it all.

The only point of agreement between Occupy and the Tea Party is that both consider bailouts to be politically unwise and morally corrupt.

Occupy Protesters Fight On Christmas Day Nashville NewsChannel5.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by mikebeaulieu96 on Dec 26, 2011

I don’t recall ever having gotten into any knock-down, drag-out brawls on Christmas Day. Or even witnessing fisticuffs at holiday gatherings. But then, I’m with the Tea Party, not Occupy.

For the sake of the next generation, shouldn’t a pregnant woman avoid situations that might devolve into violence? Just askin’.

You probably won’t see the Tea Party out in the streets at the moment. Right now, Tea Party organizations are busy helping to get voters informed and motivated for the 2012 US elections. Some contact information is on our blogroll page.

More here:

• Gateway Pundit
• Jawa Report
• Breitbart

Please go here and read the article.

Also, please read the comments.