Tag: Christianity

Donnelly, who was raised in the Catholic Church and received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Notre Dame, said upon assuming his role as ambassador that “my family and I are proud to be members of the Catholic faith.” He added that “the Catholic Church has been a core part of my life and my values.”

As ambassador, Donnelly worked with the Holy See on a variety of foreign policy priorities for the United States, which included dialogue with the Vatican about the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza. Less than a month after becoming ambassador, Donnelly met with Ukrainian families who sought refuge in Italy.

On May 5, Donnelly met with a mother who had given birth to her child in a bomb shelter in Ukraine before coming to Italy. He said after the meeting that this is “the situation that the Russians created by attacking Ukraine.”

“Think about bringing a newborn child first, bringing a newborn child into this world, in a bomb shelter underneath a hospital, then a one-month bus ride to a country where you have never been before,” Donnelly said at the time. “And you are at Sant’Egidio now, to try to have the opportunity to have a place to sleep, to be able to make sure that your child is safe and that you can have something to eat.”

In a May 2023 interview with EWTN — about one year after becoming the ambassador — Donnelly said that religious freedom, particularly in China, was another issue on which he was focused.

“It is actually core to our work,” Donnelly said. “We’ve had a number of representatives from our government come over here to talk to the Vatican about various religious freedom subjects. One in particular met with the Vatican on the situation for the Uyghurs, where they’re in concentration camps in China because of their religious beliefs.”

Nea Makri, Attica, Greece, May 31, 2024

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

Gerondissa Makaria (Desipri), former abbess of the Holy Annunciation Monastery in Nea Makri, who was vouchsafed to uncover the relics of St. Ephraim of Nea Makri in 1950, has been formally proposed for canonization.

The joyous news was announced by Metropolitan Kirill of Kifissia while serving at the monastery yesterday. The hierarch has already turned over the relevant file and documents to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, which will then pass it on to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

Gerondissa Theodosia, who governed the monastery after Gerondissa Makaria was also a holy woman. When she reposed on the feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos in 2022 at the age of 103, the whole monastery was Greek monastery fills with light as abbess reposes at 103 years oldThe departure of her soul was accompanied by signs from God.

“>filled with a bright light.

***

Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr     

Gerondissa Makaria was born on March 12, 1911, in Tinos. At the age of 19, she decided she wanted to become a nun. During the occupation, she lovingly cared for the children of prisoners. In 1945, she visited the then-men’s monastery on Mount Amomon, where she lived for several years under difficult conditions. Her health was greatly tested during this time. She slept in the ruins of the monastery, without windows and coverings, enduring every hardship.

Moved by Divine inspiration, she set up a small cell there and began clearing the ruins of the old church to reconstruct it. She often pondered that monks had lived there over the centuries and prayed to meet or be revealed one of them. A voice, initially faint but growing stronger in her soul over time, told her: “Dig and you will find what you desire,” until a spot in the monastery courtyard was revealed to her.

On January 3, 1950, she instructed a worker to dig at the specific spot her soul had indicated. Despite the worker’s initial reluctance and preference to dig elsewhere, he was persuaded by her pleas and prayers to start digging. The spot contained a half-ruined fireplace, wall, and remnants indicating it was once a monk’s cell. The first discovery was a head, and the area emitted a fragrance.

“I knelt reverently and kissed the relic of the saint, deeply feeling the extent of his martyrdom. My soul was filled with joy, and I had acquired a great treasure. Carefully removing the soil, I saw the harmony of his relic, which, despite centuries in the ground, had not decayed,” wrote Mother Makaria, describing the profound events.

With care, Abbess Makaria removed the entire relic and placed it in a niche above the grave. It was evident that he was a cleric, as his cassock remained intact.

That night, while reading Vespers, Mother Makaria heard footsteps coming from the grave, echoing to the church door. There she first saw him. He was tall with small round eyes, long black beard reaching his neck, dressed in monastic garb. In one hand, he held a flame and blessed with the other. He asked to be removed from the niche where he was placed. The next day, the Abbess cleaned the bones and placed them in a niche in the church sanctuary.

That same night, the saint appeared in her dream, thanked her, and revealed his name: Ephraim. The relic of St. Ephraim has been kept there since, with hundreds of faithful visiting daily to seek his blessing and assistance. By God’s grace, the saint has performed thousands of miracles. In the monastery courtyard, protected by a structure built around it, stands the mulberry tree where St. Ephraim took his last breath.

Without financial resources, she maintained an orphanage until 1980 with about 70 school-aged children, providing them with shelter, food, clothing, and elementary education. Those who excelled academically were supported through higher education, and today they testify that she “nourished them from nothing.”

Though lacking a university education, she published Patristic texts, Ascetic Words of Saint Basil the Great, and composed a Supplicatory Canon and Akathist Hymn to her beloved St. Ephraim, recording and gradually publishing his miracles in 16 volumes to support and strengthen the faithful.

The Lord of Glory allowed Mother Makaria, in her old age, to bear a great cross. She bore it with patience and silence, facing her trial as a blessing from God. Her passing was peaceful and saintly, as she had predicted more than 20 years prior.

Her holy soul, surely guided by her great martyr St. Ephraim, ascended to the Heavens after receiving the Holy Mysteries. It was Friday, the feast of St. George the Trophy-Bearer, April 23, 1999.

Today, her much-suffered venerable body lies in the remote grave she had dug years earlier in the courtyard of the monastery, where by God’s grace, she was the foundress and abbess for half a century, “to hear the hymns and witness the glorious and wondrous deeds the saint performs for those who come to his holy monastery with faith.”

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Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was found guilty on all 34 felony counts by a Manhattan jury agreeing unanimously that he falsified business records in paying hush money to an adult film actress in the closing days of the 2016 campaign.

Various Catholic legal and political experts noted the conviction is historic, marking the first time in American history that a current or former president has been convicted on criminal charges, with potential ramifications for the U.S.

Trump took no questions from reporters after the verdict was delivered, but told them that the trial was “rigged” and “disgraceful” and alleged it was a scheme by a political opponent to hurt his election prospects.

“But the real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people,” he said in reference to the election.

The case concerned a $130,000 hush money payment made by Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed she slept with the married Trump in 2006, in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election. Trump characterized his reimbursement of the payout by Cohen as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax fraud, campaign finance violations and making false statements to Congress in connection to that payment.

John White, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, told OSV News that the conviction marked “a historic day in American history.”

“For the first time, a former president is a convicted felon,” White said. “Twelve ordinary citizens of diverse backgrounds reached a verdict. Trump has every right to appeal and will do so. But in a legal system where unanimity was required and a single juror could have resulted in a hung jury, Trump was convicted.”

But while Trump’s conviction is historic, the difference it makes in the presidential election is less certain.

White said the outcome also marks “a day of reckoning for the Republican Party.”

“Time and again, Republicans empowered Trump,” White said. “It’s certainly possible to continue to believe in a populism that believes in low tax rates, high tariffs, tough on crime laws, and immigration reform. But Republicans didn’t need Trump to lead that charge — and still don’t. Their current dilemma is of their own making.”

James Patterson, chair of the politics department at Ave Maria University in Florida, told OSV News that the verdict “likely makes no difference in the likely outcome of the election.”

“President Joe Biden is unpopular, and this verdict does not somehow make him more popular,” Patterson said. “It might make Trump less popular on the margins, but my sense is that already likely voters knew of this case and its likely outcome. The American voter of 2024 is not as likely to punish a presidential candidate for paying hush money to an adult entertainer as voters past. Such a development in the American moral sensibility seems regrettable, but here we are all the same.”

Robert P. George, a Catholic American legal scholar and McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, told OSV News that despite his criticisms of the former president, he also had concerns about the process of the trial.

“I have never voted for Donald Trump,” George said. “Indeed, the record will show that I am, and have long been, one of his harshest critics. I must, however, say that the ‘lawfare’ waged against him for transparently political reasons, leading now to a criminal conviction, constitutes a serious threat to our constitutional order, as serious as any threat posed by the former president’s own behavior.”

“We in the United States do not confect pretexts to prosecute our political opponents and put them in jail,” he said. “We do not use the legal system to interfere in elections. But that is now what is happening. The fact that the Trump conviction will almost certainly be quashed on appeal due to errors by the trial judge does not mitigate the threat. We have taken a step here down a very dark road.”

But Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden-Harris campaign, said in a statement, “In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law.”

“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” Tyler said. “But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”

Tyler argued Trump is “running an increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution” and that “the American people will reject it this November.”

Additional Catholic reaction has varied across social media.

Steven P. Millies, a professor of public theology at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, who also writes about the church’s relationship to politics, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “ordinary citizens working in the system held a (former president) to the people’s laws. This is a great day in America.”

CatholicVote, a GOP-aligned advocacy group that endorsed Trump’s 2024 campaign, accused Biden in a post on X of “locking up his political opponent.” But Trump has yet to be sentenced and was released.

Trump’s sentencing is scheduled for July 11, a date after the first scheduled debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, and four days prior to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Odessa, May 31, 2024

Photo: pravlife.org     

Yesterday, May 30, marked the 100th anniversary of the repose of the Righteous St. Jonah Atamansky of Odessa.

“There has probably never been a more famous parish priest in the history of Odessa,” reads a message from the Holy Dormition Cathedral in Odessa, where the great saint’s relics lie in repose.

This year, the feast was celebrated at the cathedral by the vicar of the Odessa Diocese His Eminence Archbishop Diodore of Yuzhne together with His Eminence Archbishop Sergei of Bolgrad and city clergy, reports Orthodox Life.

At the end of the Liturgy, the glorification to St. Jonah was served in front of the shrine holding his relics.

​

***

The Dormition Cathedral writes of St. Jonah:

There has probably never been a more famous parish priest in the history of Odessa. Archpriest Jonah exemplified many different forms of holiness in his life. He was a denouncer of schisms and heresies, an excellent preacher, a zealous missionary and supporter of the poor, a strict ascetic, and a loving father.

His Eminence Archbishop Nikanor (Brovkovich), who ordained Fr. Jonah, said to those around him: “Take a blessing from Fr. Jonah; he’s a future good shepherd, and I feel a special grace upon him. His soul burns with a sacred flame.”

Fr. Jonah earned the devoted love of his flock through his virtues, and everyone strove to attend the early Liturgy, which he usually served at the Holy Dormition Church in Odessa (now the cathedral). Parishioners hung on his every word. He inspired everyone with his service and sermons. Believers felt he was a great intercessor. To them, he was both a father, mentor, and spiritual guide. Fr. Jonah’s home was open to all who were sorrowful and destitute, and no one left without consolation. He understood people well, could read their thoughts, and delve into their souls. The righteous man knew all his flock by name and skillfully guided them to a virtuous life and sincere repentance. Fr. Jonah especially protected orphans, feeding and clothing many. He was kind and attentive to everyone. People from not only Odessa and its surroundings but also many other places sought his help and advice.

Unceasing prayer and strict abstinence made him truly holy.

Fr. Jonah belonged to the white clergy, but great ascetics of Kiev at that time said of him: “We monks aren’t worthy of him; he’s much higher than us.” He received from God the power to heal wounded souls and sick bodies. The miracle of healing a boy born blind was confirmed by Professor V. P. Filatov. When the Soviet authorities conducted an investigation and show trial, accusing Fr. Jonah of fraud and blackmail, Professor Filatov firmly stated that this was indeed the child he had refused to treat and acknowledged the miracle’s reality, despite the judges’ slander and shame.

Seeing beyond the veil of time, he prophesied about the fate of the world. Now in Heaven, Fr. Jonah continues to pray for those who invoke him, as evidenced by the ongoing miracles and healings at his relics.

Read more about St. Jonah in the article, “A Second Saint John of Kronstadt, Priest Jonah Atamansky of OdessaSaint John of Kronstadt often said to those from the south: ”Why have you bothered to come all this way to see me when you have a man of prayer in Father Jonah?”

“>A Second St. John of Kronstadt, Priest Jonah Atamansky of Odessa.”

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“The landscape is what defines me. When I am somewhere new or familiar, I am constantly in dialogue with the past, present, and my future self. When I am thinking about landscape, I am thinking about those who had stood on this land before me. Whoever they are, hopefully, history recorded their markings on the land for us to study and contemplate” — Binh Danh, Vietnam-born American photographer

Born in a South Vietnamese village during the Vietnam War, Binh Danh has an MFA from Stanford and teaches at San Jose State University.

Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. In the wake of the Communist takeover, his family — mother, father, older brother, two older sisters, and assorted relatives on his mother’s side — fled Vietnam for a Malaysian refugee camp on the island of Pulau Bidong. There they stayed for nine months, a period of which Danh, a baby at the time, has little memory.

The family eventually received asylum from the U.S. and, like thousands of others, embarked on a perilous, nerve-rattling voyage by boat. They emigrated in September 1979 and settled in the San Jose area. For years, his father ran a TV repair shop and his mother worked in a factory.

Binh Danh’s parents spoke little of the war, but the boy was ravenous to fit the pieces together, to recover memories, to understand the family history. Studying photography at college, he started combing eBay for archival materials related to the war: photos, dog tags, documents. He pored over Vietnam War-based comic books, watched Vietnam War movies and, in 1999, returned to Vietnam for the first time and visited with his maternal grandmother.

Always he was obsessed with geography, landscape, and the long-term effects of war on the human body and spirit. Vietnam in his mind’s eye was green and lush, but also a place of danger: the enemy, armed to the teeth, could be lurking beneath the cover of tropical trees.

What if the plants themselves could witness war, hold the events in their cells? What would they have to teach us?

Back in San Jose, he writes: “One summer, I was motivated to experiment with photosynthesis and its pigments after observing how grass changed color under a water hose that was left on the lawn.”

He developed a process of printing, using only chlorophyll and light, whereby shadowy images of soldiers, Vietnamese civilians, chevrons of fighter planes, and camouflage patterns were superimposed on leaves from the vegetables and flowers that grew in his mother’s backyard San Jose garden.

The result was the series “Immortality: Remnants of the Vietnam and American War.”

The photos don’t “take sides;” rather, they seek to understand, to incorporate, to consider all those traumatized by this terrible war during which American planes dumped 11 million gallons of toxic Agent Orange on the Southern Vietnamese countryside.

The figures on the leaves are dim, hard to make out, fading before our eyes. Why do we wage war? they seem to ask. Does anyone ever really “win?” Why this senseless, sorrowful carnage? How can we not realize that we all belong, that everyone is our brother and sister?

Binh Danh began visiting national parks, fascinated by the idea that they are open to everyone while also still feeling in some sense an exile; a man thoroughly American but permeated by the blood memories of another country. His emotions were further compounded by the fact that the land on which the parks were located had often been taken forcibly from Native Americans.

Yosemite is perennially associated with the photographer Ansel Adams whose platinum silver prints of the park’s craggy cliffs, evergreen-forested slopes, and moon-haunted skies are visually imprinted on every American who even tangentially knows and loves the West.

But why should Yosemite “belong” to Ansel Adams? Binh Danh seemed to silently wonder.

He taught himself daguerreotype, a 19th-century, labor-intensive form of photography using silver-coated copper plates.

And he proceeded to make Yosemite his — and newly ours — as well.

A collection of his national park photos, entitled “The Luminescence of Memory,” is on view through June 15 at ROSEGALLERY in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station. The exhibit includes images of Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Death Valley.

The solarized prints have a silvery sheen in which you can almost see yourself reflected. Waterfalls, streams, and other bodies of water show up a startling rinse-blue seldom found in nature, lending the photos an otherworldly, even comically menacing air.

We know this place — and yet where is it? What are we seeing? Who are we? Are the Martians about to descend upon American soil? Are the Viet Cong going to start rappelling down Bridalveil Falls? But the photos are also beautiful, finely detailed, and lovingly wrought.

“The Enigma of Belonging,” a two-volume collection of Binh Danh’s photographs and archival materials, includes reflections on his work from colleagues and friends.

Andrew Lam, a memoirist and journalist who left Vietnam for the U.S. at the age of 11, contributes a wrenching essay in which he describes destroying three generations of photos, at the behest of his panicked mother, as the Communists approached.

For years as an adult, he berated himself, bitterly regretting the loss. Then one night he had a dream.

“I saw what I hadn’t seen before: that nothing was ever truly lost…Precious things…refuse oblivion. They simply wait to be rendered into testimonies, into stories and songs.” 

For the 20th anniversary of the repose of the holy and Venerable Dionisie of Romania and Mt. Athos (1909–2004), who will be Romania: Elders Paisie (Olaru) and Dionisie (Ignat) proposed for canonizationThe names of two more of the holy elders under consideration for canonization in 2025 by the Romanian Orthodox Church were revealed over the weekend.

“>canonized in 2025.

The following article was originally published in “Familia Ortodoxa” No. 5 (64), May 2014.

***

Hieromonk Dionisie (Ignat)     

An elder from Holy Mount Athos, from the mountain of prayer, the mountain of repentance, the mountain of tears, the mountain of ascetic labors, where the image of the Most Holy Theotokos reigns; from the mountain where, as someone once said, not a single man is born, but where they come to die—to sin, to the passions, to the lusts, ambitions, and vexations of this deceptive world, in order to ascend to where the glory of the world to come, the Kingdom of God, shines.

This is how Archimandrite Ephraim of Vatopedi describes the spiritual portrait of Elder Dionisie from the Colciu Skete.¹

Elder Dionisie is a great Romanian spiritual father, revered by Athonite ascetics of all nationalities who inhabit the Garden of the Most Holy Theotokos. News of his holiness spread beyond Athos, and the old abba was visited in great number by hierarchs, priests, monks, and laymen, who asked him, as in the Paterikon, to give them “a word for the salvation of their souls.” And his main word, especially in his last years, was the following:

“We have to have spiritual friendship, for that’s love, and where there is love, there is God. And where there is no love, there is no God.”

Fr. Dionisie was an “old-fashioned” monk who tried all his life to adhere to the traditions he received from the elders and to pass them on to his disciples and spiritual children, for all seventy-seven years of his monastic labor.

“We left everything we had and didn’t have in order to find holy salvation”

The Church of St. George in Suceava, where the holy relics of St. John the New are kept. Photo: visitingbucovina.ro     

The youngest child from the large Ignat family, which lived in the village of Vorniceni in Botoșani County, in Holy Baptism he received the Holy Great Martyr Demetrius as his patron saint. And at the age of two, God permitted that he lose his father.

Hieroschemamonk Dionisie (Ignat) and Monk Ioan (Sova) Monk Ioan (Sova), who knew Fr. Dionisie well, said:

Their father was a very pious man; he and his whole large family often went on pilgrimage to the nearby monasteries together. Here’s a vivid example of his great faith. Once he went to venerate the holy relics of the Great Martyr John the New of Suceava, but he didn’t know the way and he asked everyone he met. But after a while, when he was still three to four hours away from Suceava, he smelled the fragrance of holy myrrh. He followed this fragrance, and found that it led him directly to the relics of St. John.

As the saying goes, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” This folk wisdom was fully confirmed by the Ignat family, where the children absorbed the spirit of reverence from an early age and tried to go to church and labor in prayer, come what may. The elder brother was the first to go to a monastery, at Magura Skete, and through him God poured the sweetness of monastic labor into the soul of his younger brother.

Magura Skete, 1945. Photo: Wikipedia     

And so, in 1926, in the midst of the troubles caused by the calendar change, with the Church switching to the new style, young Dimitrie, who was only seventeen, together with his older brother Hierodeacon Gimnazie, left for the Holy Mountain. They had little idea what awaited them there, but they were burning with the fire of God’s call:

From the moment we arrived on the Holy Mountain, the Fathers always sought holy salvation; after all, that’s why we left our dear and beloved homeland, mother, father, and everything someone could have or not have—to find holy salvation.

In Constanța, they boarded a magnificent Romanian ship and arrived in Piraeus. They spent three days there then boarded a small, fragile boat, fiercely beaten by the waves. After long adventures, bypassing many islands, they reached Holy Mount Athos at the port of Daphne, where, to their joy, they found bread,

said Fr. Ioan (Sova).

Cell of St. George at Kapsala Skete. Photo: ziarullumina.ro     

“First, we went to the Cell of St. George in Kapsala. There were eighteen Romanians there. We arrived on the eve of the feast of the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos and immediately stayed for the All-Night Vigil,” recalls Fr. Dionisie about his arrival to Mt. Athos.

“On the Holy Mountain, my soul felt contented, like nowhere else”

​Elder Dionisie at the Hermitage of St. John the Baptist     

“The Holy Mountain is called the Garden of the Mother of God, and rightly so, because the Mother of God came here for the first time and blessed this place, and then the locals became Christians. Therefore, everyone who comes here with the fear of God and reverence receives great help from her,” Elder Dionisie said with conviction.

He added, “Of course, everyone lives according to their own zeal on the Holy Mountain. But since the Holy Mountain is a special place, very special, my soul felt contented like nowhere else. I lived in a monastery in Romania for three years, and what can I say? Monasticism is wonderful there too. But here, Mt. Athos, is the place of hesychia.”

The Ignat brothers had to separate for some time to somehow earn their living in various monasteries and sketes, but already the next year, together with another Romanian monk, Fr. Gedeon, they managed to buy the Annunciation Cell under Pantocrator Monastery, where they could finally take up the work of prayer. Those were times of many hardships, but abundant grace, which he recalled with great love:

At first, we worked as farmhands, because times were different then, hard times… Life was different, with great difficulties, but the monks were much, much closer to God. Now we have very, very great facilities, but that true spiritual joy that we had when we were poor and destitute, and earned our daily bread with difficulty—we don’t have that joy now.

In the same year of 1927, he received the great and angelic tonsure into monasticism, and four years later he was ordained a hierodeacon to serve in the same cell. There, in the Annunciation Cell, they endured many temptations from the enemy. Demons made themselves seen and heard to frighten them so they would abandon their cell rule and harsh living. Sometimes demons appeared to them in the form of rabid black dogs that rushed at them, barking. But Fr. Dionisie’s brother, who was ordained a hieromonk in the same year, served the Divine Liturgy often, and the demons eventually disappeared.

“In Colciu, there are two Romanian cells that are connected by great spiritual love”

In 1937, after nearly ten years of asceticism in the desert of the Holy Mountain, Fr. Dionisie and his co-strugglers moved to the Cell of St. George, which belonged to Colciu Skete, under Vatopedi Monastery.

“Here, in Colciu, there were eight cells similar to the Cell of St. George; some smaller, some larger; of them, six were Greek and two Romanian. And these two Romanian cells, which have been linked by love since time immemorial, have survived to this day,” says Elder Dionisie.

It was a much richer cell than the one in Karyes—it had olive, orange, lemon, nut, fig, plum, and cherry orchards and vineyards, and so on. And the garden had everything necessary for food: onions, garlic, tomatoes, eggplants, hot peppers, parsley, celery, cabbage, beets, potatoes, beans, and so on. The fathers called their garden “Monk’s Cow.” Located on the highest peak south of Vatopedi, along the eastern shore of Mt. Athos, the skete was very safe from visitors, as Father described it:

“This is the desert of Colciu. It’s still good now, but no one used to come before, because, as you can see the way Mount Athos is formed, Colciu is off to the side, far from the main roads. You have to come specifically to Colciu, otherwise, you won’t get here!”

Colciu Skete. Photo: doxologia.ro     

Due to the vicissitudes of history, no more monks were coming, and the skete became completely desolate, falling into disrepair. The little brotherhood made every effort to restore the buildings, having building materials delivered to the harbor from afar, then carrying them up to their cells on mules.

But their physical labors were doubled by their spiritual asceticism. The brothers diligently celebrated the Church services and cell rule, following the Athonite regulations:

“The statutes of the Church, the monasteries and cells, are exactly the same today as I found them when I came to the Holy Mountain so many years ago. Only, people were much simpler then,” Fr. Dionisie humbly confessed in his old age.

Attracted by the good order there, which brought spiritual growth, more and more monks began to gather, increasing the ranks of the brotherhood.

However, amidst all the labors and troubles, God also sent consolation to His fervent devotees. Once, one of the monks’ cells there, which housed an icon of the Kazan Mother of God, caught fire.

Fr. Ioan (Sova) recalls:

The entire floor burned, along with the furniture and the books, but the window frame, the door, the table where an icon stood, and the floor under the table remained untouched! When Fr. Dionisie opened the door, the room was full of smoke, and it hit him hard in the face. Once he was able to look inside, he saw the icon untouched by the fire and a lampada burning before it on the table, and it seemed the face of the Theotokos was smiling.   

But the enemy, of course, didn’t stop plaguing the ascetics. Fr. Dionisie recalls a few instances:

There was one brother, Gabriel, living next to our cell. One day, going to church, he suddenly started shouting, pointing towards the sea. He was too far away for us to hear him, so we went to him and asked him what all the fuss was about. He said that when the bells started ringing for the start of the service, he saw demons coming up from the sea like a swarm of bees. They were coming to tempt the monks who were gathering for prayer.

Another time, during the All-Night Vigil, between Vespers and the start of the Six Psalms, when everyone in the church was standing in stasidia listening to the word being read, one of the monks, Fr. Arsenie, saw a dark figure dressed in black (he couldn’t see his face) come into the church, holding something like a censer in his hand. When the vision approached the monk, he froze. Fr. Arsenie was terrified, and when the vision drew near to him, he screamed with all his might. And then everyone woke up. You see? A monk is a warrior fighting against the devil.

To be continued…

Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Visitation, when Mary went to visit her sister Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist.

The Gospels tell us that when John felt the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb, he leaped for joy in his own mother’s womb. At this moment, John was cleansed of original sin, and filled with the grace of God.

The earliest evidence of this feast’s celebration in the Church is its adoption by the Franciscan Chapter in 1263, under advisement from St. Bonaventure. The feast spread to many churches, but was celebrated on various dates. On April 6, 1389, Pope Urban VI extended the feast to the entire Church, with the hope that Christ and Our Lady would put an end to the Great Schism that was threatening the Church at the time.

The feast was originally assigned to July 2, the day after the octave of St. John, which is estimated to be around the time that Mary returned to Nazareth. However, during the Schism, many opposing bishops refused to adopt the feast, until it was confirmed at the Council of Basle in 1441. Pius IX raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class on May 13, 1850.

Cherkasy, Cherkasy Province, Ukraine, May 28, 2024

Photo: YouTube     

His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasky of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church is currently facing a third round of charges for “inciting religious enmity.”

The latest accusation against him is especially absurd, Met. Theodosy said in his address to the court, considering that what he’s being prosecuted for was a verbatim quote from St. Luke of Simferopol.

In his address to the court on May 22, the Metropolitan explained that St. Luke is revered not only in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, but throughout the entire Orthodox world, and especially in Greece, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists, with reference to video of his address.

“Currently, hundreds of churches have been built in his honor in Ukraine, Greece, Europe, America, and Asia. The Society of Orthodox Doctors named after St. Luke is being established. Medical institutions are being opened in his honor, international conferences are being held, and books are being published. The memory of St. Luke is perpetuated in the Cherkasy Province,” he said.

“The whole absurdity of this situation is that the OCU [schismatics—OC] also honors St. Luke, building churches in his honor. And at the same time, they didn’t like the literal quoting of St. Luke. Since it reveals their theological ecclesiological inadequacy, they perceive it as inciting religious hostility against them.”

“Let them sue St. Luke himself,” His Eminence stressed.

It’s noteworthy that in all the cases against him, the so-called “victims” are a family, the father of which was suspended from serving after apostatizing to the schismatics.

It’s not Met. Theodosy who is inciting religious enmity, the hierarch said, “but the representatives of the OCU, who are posing as victims in this production.”

The fact of the criminal proceedings also indicates that the Cherkasy branch of the Ukrainian Security Service has a personal interest in removing Met. Theodosy from his post as ruling hierarch of the Cherkasy Diocese.

Recall that the Metropolitan has done much to bring international attention to the facts of the state persecution of holy Orthodoxy in Ukraine. He is among the founding hierarchs of the Hierarchs of Local Churches come together to form human rights groupThe press release on the creation of the association notes that UN representatives have repeatedly raised concerns about the violations of the rights of the UOC and its faithful.

“>international human rights association Church Against Xenophobia and Religious Discrimination and has Persecuted UOC hierarch addresses UN Human Rights CouncilThanks to his speech, Met. Theodosy received the status of a UN human rights defender, which allows the organization’s resources to be used for his protection.”>addressed the United Nations several times.

Met. Theodosy was under Persecuted Ukrainian hierarch returns to ministry after 8 months of round-the-clock house arrestAccording to today’s decision of the Cherkasy Court, Met. Theodosy now has a great deal more freedom, though he remains under nighttime house arrest.

“>round-the-clock house arrest for much of 2023, and has been under nighttime house arrest ever since.

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Ex. 24:3-8 / Ps. 116:12-13, 15-18 / Heb. 9:11-15 / Mk. 14:12-16, 22-26 

All of today’s readings are set in the context of the Passover. The First Reading recalls the old covenant celebrated at Sinai following the first Passover and the exodus.

In sprinkling the blood of the covenant on the Israelites, Moses was symbolizing God’s desire in this covenant to make them his family, his “blood” relations.

Quoting Moses’ words in today’s Gospel, Jesus elevates and transforms this covenant symbol to an extraordinary reality. In the new covenant made in the blood of Christ, we truly become one with his body and blood.

The first covenant made with Moses and Israel at Sinai was but a shadow of this new and greater covenant made by Christ with all humankind in that upper room (see Hebrews 10:1).

The Passover that Jesus celebrates with his 12 apostles “actualizes,” makes real, what could only be symbolized by Moses’ sacrifice at the altar with 12 pillars. What Jesus does today is establish his Church as the new Israel, and his Eucharist as the new worship of the living God.

In offering himself to God through the Spirit, Jesus delivered Israel from the transgressions of the first covenant. And, as we hear in today’s Epistle, by his blood he purified us and made us capable of true worship.

God does not want dead works or animal sacrifices. He wants our own flesh and blood, our own lives, consecrated to him, offered as a living sacrifice. This is the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving that we sing of in today’s Psalm. This is the Eucharist.

What we do in memory of him is to pledge our lives to him, to renew our promise to live by the words of his covenant and to be his servants.

There is no other return we can offer to him for the eternal inheritance he has won for us. So let us approach the altar, calling upon his name in thanksgiving, taking up the cup of salvation.

Lovech, Lovech Province, Bulgaria, May 29, 2024

Photo: bg-patriarshia.bg     

A group of three hierarchs of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church are calling for the people to take up a special prayer rule in the lead-up to the Patriarchal election to be held late next month.

His Holiness Patriarch Neofit, who presided over the Bulgarian Church for 11 years, reposed in the Lord Patriarch Neofit of Bulgaria reposes in the LordThe Patriarch was in poor health in recent years.

“>in March. His successor will be chosen on June 30.

On Monday, three hierarchs, Metropolitans Gabriel of Lovech, Seraphim of Nevrokop, and Daniil of Vidin published the following statement and call on the site of the Bulgarian Church:

Dear fathers, brothers, and sisters in the Lord,

We are facing crucial elections for the Patriarch of our Bulgarian Orthodox Church, as well as state elections.

We appeal to all who wish to prayerfully support our holy Church and homeland.

Let us read the Supplicatory Canon to the Most Holy Theotokos every day from today until June 30.

May the Lord God, through her most holy prayers, forgive and have mercy on us, and pour out His Divine mercy on our native holy Church and our people.

Tensions are running high in the Bulgarian ecclesiastical sphere, especially after the Bulgarian hierarchs concelebrate with Ukrainian schismatics in IstanbulFor the first time, hierarchs of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church concelebrated with representatives of the graceless “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” sect yesterday at Life-giving Spring Monastery in Istanbul.

“>recent incident in which five Bulgarian hierarchs concelebrated with two Ukrainian schismatic hierarchs in Istanbul. Clergy, monastics, and laymen from across the country have sent letters of protest to the Office of the Holy Synod, and a group gathered in Bulgarian priests and faithful denounce episcopal concelebration with Ukrainian schismaticsIt is noteworthy that the official site of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church never published any news about the concelebration. However, it didn’t escape the attention of the Bulgarian clergy, monastics, and faithful.”>protest outside the Synodal meeting on Sunday.

Metropolitan Nicholas of Plovdiv, one of the hierarchs who served with the schismatics, is a frontrunner in the Patriarchal elections, and is understood to enjoy the backing of Patriarch Bartholomew, who created the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” in 2018 together with the Ukrainian and U.S. governments.

And according to Bulgarian Church and state figures, the upcoming Patriarchal election is also proving to be quite politicized.

In an interview with Bulgarian National Radio, theologian Profession Ivan Zhenev stated:

This was a move by Metropolitan Nicholas [of Plovdiv] to do a little advertising for himself. Moreover, with the elections coming up, Euro-Atlanticism is very much in vogue. Patriarch Bartholomew, behind whom stands the State Department—it’s very prestigious to be on good terms with him. Metropolitan Nicholas went to bow to him there and to secure support. Now he’s a fan of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. They served with these Ukrainians, whom the Bulgarian Church hasn’t recognized—this is a violation of the canons.

Politician, historian, lawyer, and founder and chairman of the Revival party Kostadin Kostadinov made similar comments on Sunday, saying the Bulgarian Church is under pressure from the U.S.

He also referred to the “canonical crime” that occurred with the schismatics in Istanbul.

“It’s no secret that our Patriarchate is under strong American pressure, and Bartholomew plays the role of the main weapon in this pressure,” Kostadinov said. Moreover, there is a growing Grecophile movement within the Bulgarian Church that “puts the future of the independent Bulgarian Orthodox Church in question.”

He explained that “the election of a new Patriarch will take place at the end of next month and it looks like we’re about to get a Greek at the head of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, who will be just a nominal head, following the orders of Bartholomew, who increasingly feels like an Orthodox pope.”

This faction earlier invited Pat. Bartholomew and schismatic representatives to the funeral of His Holiness Patriarch Neofit, and now they have invited Pat. Bartholomew to attend not only the enthronement of the next Bulgarian Patriarch, but even to sit in on the election itself.

“Unfortunately,” the fate of the Bulgarian Church “is under threat due to the venality of a few Church janissaries,” Kostadinov lamented.

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