Tag: Christianity

This article talks about the life of Nikolai Ivanovich Egorov, the future Archimandrite Dmitry, who escaped the Solovki camps and entered Valaam Monastery as a novice in the 1930s. Later, he founded several sketes in America, where he reposed in 1992.

Solovki camp, 1920s     

Since the 1990s, when they opened the archives, the number of studies on the history of camps in the USSR has been growing, including on those who escaped from camps. Among other things, some reports on the activities of the Solovki camp administration have become known. Researchers believe that the frequency of escapes depended on the effectiveness of the security in a particular place or region, the time of year, the general development of the punitive system, and also the strength of spirit of the prisoners themselves.¹ Of the recent research, it’s worth mentioning the work of Fr. Vyacheslav Umnyagin;² also of great interest are the published recollections of those who successfully escaped, presented, among other places, in the wonderful series, “Recollections of Solovki Prisoners,” edited by Fr. Vyacheslav.

The fugitives who left memoirs also included clergy. One of the most well-known is the recollections of the former Solovki prisoner Fr. Michael Polsky,³ who fled from exile to Komi in 1929, which were published in Palestine in 1931.⁴ He wrote that in escaping from Soviet Russia he was saving not so much his life as his soul. Considering himself weak, he was afraid that in his country he would “betray the truth for which he fought.”⁵ Another Solovki prisoner, Archimandrite Theodosy (Almazov)⁶ saw “the Providence of God” in his escape.⁷

Finland was the nearest country to escape to, and the lucky ones who reached it saw it in a rosy light at first, especially considering the rather cordial welcome they received. Hatred of the Bolsheviks and the lawlessness they committed was one of the factors consolidating Finnish society. Of course, the refugees were quarantined and interviewed by the police, who were nevertheless sympathetic to them. Archpriest Simeon Solodovnikov (1883–1939),⁸ who fled the USSR in 1930, for example, wrote that the interview was like a friendly conversation. The refugees were fed, clothed, accommodated; Fr. Simeon even played the violin.

The Petsamo Province, through which Solovki refugees passed to Finland Refugees would come across the St. Tryphon of Pechenga Monastery in Petsamo, where in 1921–1931 the abbot was the Valaam monk Igumen Iakinf—later to become the famous elder Schema-Abbot John (Alekseev). For example, the aforementioned Archpriest Simeon Solodovnikov, who fled with his family in 1930, turned to him. He recalled how they shot after them at the border and wounded one of his sons. In Finland, they operated on him for free and saved his life. The story of the Solodovnikovs made it into the papers. The archpriest based his flight from the USSR on the need to educate and raise his children, which he didn’t want to do in an atheist state. There is also evidence that the fugitives were fired at on the border, from both sides.

The escapes are known and described in detail in the published memoirs—they leave no doubt that every such escape was a real miracle and would have been impossible without the help of God. For without it, it would have been impossible to endure the unbearable hardships of the road. However, the inhuman torments that the prisoners suffered in the Solovki camps undoubtedly gave them the strength to not look back. Nevalainen writes dryly: “The refugees reached the borderland of Karelia and Northern Finland having overcome huge distances through the thickets of the forest, their legs bloodied; they were gnawed by mosquitoes and falling over from exhaustion. It’s known that some of the refugees … lost their way and died in the forest.”

In 1926, Finland closed the border, which increased the number of those involved in illegal smuggling. Nevalainen mentions two Ingrians who escaped from the Solovki camp through a logging site in Karelia in 1930—Aatami Kuortti and Mikko Kisseli Kuortti, who was a pastor in North Ingria and was sentenced to ten years in prison in the Solovki camp for his religious activities. But he managed to escape before arriving at Russian film about Solovki Monastery wins Best Film at Christian festival in U.S. (+VIDEO)“The Holy Archipelago is addressed directly to the soul and heart of a person,” the director said. “The film touches on the deep meanings of existence, faith, hope and love. These meanings are close to everyone, no matter what country they live in.”

“>Solovki and walked 185 miles to Finland.

One of those who successfully fled from Solovki to Finland was the future archimandrite Dimitry (Egorov). He made it to Valaam Monastery on Ladoga and remained there as a pilgrim-novice. His name in the world was Nikolai Ivanovich Egorov. Little is known of his life, partly because he didn’t like to talk about himself, considering that a monk should forget his past and his secular life. On the other hand, he wanted to protect his relatives who remained in Soviet Russia. According to preliminary data, he was born in 1907 in the city of Shatsk, Tambov Governorate. There is contradictory information on this point. A. Nivier says he was arrested after the Tambov uprising and exiled to the Solovki camp in 1925–1926. Some articles say that he fled to Finland by crossing the Barents Sea in winter. Thus, he would have been eighteen at the time he was arrested. On the other hand, the Tambov uprising was in 1920–1921, when he was still a teenager.

Valaam Monastery in the 1930s     

Rare memories from the Elder’s spiritual children have been preserved. Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) has said that Nikolai Egorov was arrested in Moscow and escaped from Solovki only on the second attempt:

I came under the guidance of Archimandrite Dimitry (Egorov) in 1979. When I met him, he was already quite old and was reluctant to talk about himself… I know he grew up in Moscow and studied medicine in the 1920s. He was arrested for possession of and reading the Bible and was sent to Solovki. The clergy who were serving time there baptized the young man.

He spent two years on Solovki, then he and a friend secretly made skis and planned an escape in winter. They walked through the woods for several days and then reached a village, but they were afraid to enter. They continued to roam, his friend froze, and he found himself back in the camp. He was punished for escaping by being deprived of his rations. He didn’t die in the camp—he survived. The death of his friend was really hard on him and he decided he must now live and labor for two.

He dreamed of becoming a Valaam monk, but he only managed to live on Valaam as a novice…

Fr. Dimitry lived as a hermit for many years; he acquired unceasing prayer and was a bit of a fool for Christ. Later, when he was already quite sick, he lived at Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga, California. He pastored the nuns and helped everyone who wanted to lead a monastic life in California.

He was clairvoyant; in Confession, he always knew everything I’d done. He always had words for me that left a mark in my heart. He had the gift of spiritual discernment. I felt a strong spiritual connection with him; I felt his prayer for me. He became my spiritual father, which was a blessing from God.⁹

Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) The idea of Nikolai having a secret Baptism on Solovki raises doubts—children born long before the revolution were usually baptized in infancy. Perhaps he came to conscious faith in the camp by communicating with the ascetics who were there. The Elder never fully mastered English. Little is known about the details of his life in the camp and his escape. The American version of his biography says that Nikolai was exiled to Solovki (“a group of small islands in the White Sea”) for ten years for “counter-revolutionary activity,” that he was severely beaten by jailers in the camp,¹⁰ and when he managed to escape, they released the dogs after him, but they didn’t catch him.

Nikolai was a novice-pilgrim at Valaam until 1935. During his escape from the camp, he got frostbite in his legs and he had to have part of his foot amputated. In the monastery, he carried out his obedience in the library and helped Igumen Chariton (Dunaev) prepare a book about the Jesus Prayer, gathering quotes from the works of the Holy Fathers. Then he left to study at the St. Serge Theological Institute in Paris. He was under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Evlogy (Georgeivsky), whom he called a “bright person.” He was tonsured a monk on June 6, 1936. On June 14, he became a deacon. He was ordained a hieromonk by Metropolitan Evlogy at the St. Serge Podvoriye in Paris on February 28, 1937. His classmates at the institute would say that Fr. Dimitry was probably the “most Orthodox” of all the students of the school, and that meant he didn’t completely fit in. They called him a “typical Russian village peasant.” Nevertheless, he loved the people—it wasn’t nationality or education that mattered to him, but the salvation of their souls.

In 1937-1938, he was head of Holy Trinity Church in the Paris suburb of Ozoir-la-Ferrière. Then, in 1939, he was the second assistant to the rector of the Church of the All-Merciful Savior in the city of Asnières, and served at the Holy Resurrection Convent and a home for the elderly in Rozay-en-Brie near the city of Melun. In 1940, he started serving in the Skete of All Saints of Russia in the city of Mourmelon. In 1944, he started serving at the Church at the old folks’ home in Rozay-en-Brie again. He served at the Church of All Saints of Russia in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Cemetery in the Russian House near Paris.

In 1947, he was mentioned as rector of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the city of Sens, but now in the jurisdiction of the Russian Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Then he moved to San Francisco by invitation of Archbishop John (Shahovskoy), and on March 4, 1948, he was received as a cleric of the North American Metropolia of the Russian Church. In 1948-1949, he served as an assistant priest in Holy Trinity Cathedral. From 1949 to 1963, he served at Holy Protection Church in Santa Rosa. In 1954, his friend from Valaam Monastery, Hieromonk Mark (Shavykin), also moved to the U.S., becoming a priest in 1969.

Redwood National Park     

In the early 1950s, the Lewry family from San Francisco donated seventeen acres to the diocese in the picturesque Point Reyes forest area in Marin County, California. It was supposed to be used as a monastery in memory of their son Eugene, an American soldier who died in World War II. The monastery was to be named in honor of the holy warrior-martyr Eugene and they were to pray for the repose of Eugene Lewry. Fr. Dimitry, disappointed with the hustle and bustle of parish life and perhaps Church politics, retired to this donated land and lived there as a hermit. The American version of his life states that in 1951, he received a blessing from Archbishop John (Shahovskoy) to found a monastery on this land. With the help of Orthodox friends in the Russian community, Fr. Dimitry built two small buildings on the new land: A house with two cells and a small chapel and trapeza/guest house. Selectively cut trees from the site and old building materials were used for the construction. At the beginning of the monastery’s life, there were no provisions, and Fr. Dmitry’s first “cell” was an army tent, followed by a hut measuring ten by eight feet, heated by a wood stove.

Church of the Holy of Myrrh-bearers in Sacramento, California In 1963, Hieromonk Dimitry was elevated to the rank of igumen. On April 7, 1969, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite. In 1983, he was appointed rector of the Church of the Holy Myrrh-bearers in Sacramento. In 1986, he retired and moved to Santa Rosa, where he served the sisters of the Skete of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God, which he had founded. They took care of the Elder who was seriously ill, suffering from Type 2 diabetes, heart problems, and cancer. In the last years of his life, Fr. Dimitry suffered at least two strokes, which confined him to a wheelchair.

He reposed on June 13/26, 1992, in the Kazan Skete, and was buried in the Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg. After leaving Valaam, he adhered to the old calendar his whole life.

To be continued…

Lovech, Lovech Province, Bulgaria, February 6, 2024

Photo: bg-patriarshia.bg     

On Sunday, February 4, the faithful worshiping in the cathedral in Lovech, Bulgaria, were blessed to venerate a new icon of the beloved Georgian saint Gabriel (Urgebadze) with a fragment of his relics.

The icon was a gift from the Georgian Orthodox Church, given with the blessing of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia of Georgia, reports the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

The Divine Liturgy in the Cathedral of Sts. Cyril and Methodius was celebrated by His Eminence Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech, parish rector Archpriest Michael Kovachev, and other clerics.

The icon will be kept in the Lovech Diocese and brought out for veneration during the Divine services.

Met. Gabriel offered a homily in which he touched upon interesting episodes from the life of St. Gabriel, and expressed his deep gratitude to the Georgian Church for the priceless gift.

St. Gabriel (Urgebadze) Comes to BulgariaIn the time since the icon’s arrival in Sofia, the Church of the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God has become a pilgrimage site.

“>OrthoChristian has previously written about the Bulgarian faithful’s love for St. Gabriel and the icon with a particle of his relics at the Holy Dormition Church in Sofia.

In 2022, the Diocese of Lovech published the book, St. Gabriel (Urgebadze): Miracles and Teachings, which contains more than 100 testimonies of the miraculous power of St. Gabriel manifested in numerous cases of healings, clairvoyance, prophecies, and spiritual guidance.

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I love Lent.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I take pleasure in fasting. And I don’t enjoy “giving stuff up” any more than the next guy. In my devotional life, I can be a typical spoiled American.

But Lent, for me, is always a hopeful time. It’s my annual reminder that change is possible. More than that, I’m reminded that God wants me to change and wills me to change. So he’ll give me the grace I need to put away vice and put on virtue. All the readings at Mass reinforce those lessons. God calls Israel to repent — to cease its sinning — and to grow by means of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

I usually mark the season with a silent retreat, so that I can get back to the basics of the spiritual life. I’ll usually take a book with me; and I want to tell you about a book I took along a Lent or two ago. It’s “Knowing the Love of God: Lessons from a Spiritual Master” (St. Joseph Communications, $14.95), by Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP.

This author defined “the basics of the spiritual life” for me, way back when I was a new Catholic. Garrigou-Lagrange was perhaps the most celebrated Catholic theologian of his lifetime (1877-1964). He taught for many years at Rome’s Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum), and among his illustrious students was a young Polish priest named Karol Wojtyla. Father Wojtyla (whom we now know as St. Pope John Paul II) completed his doctoral dissertation under the direction of Friar Reginald.

He is best known, however, for his foundational work of spiritual theology, “The Three Ages of the Interior Life” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $25), which he wrote when he was young. That title, too, bears careful reading and re-reading. I cannot name — and can’t even imagine — a book more justly influential on the practice of spiritual direction.

But “Knowing the Love of God” is an even better way to pass your Lenten days. It is Father Garrigou-Lagrange’s most mature work — his last writings, produced in the midst of much suffering. In fact, its chapters are mostly the notes for meditations that he preached at retreats for his fellow friars.

Garrigou-Lagrange anticipated what St. Pope John XXIII called the greatest teaching of the Second Vatican Council: the universal call to holiness. Garrigou-Lagrange believed that ordinary Christians, by virtue of their baptism, were called to the mystical life and empowered for it. This doesn’t mean we’ll all be visionaries or prophets; in fact, it seems that God calls very few to experience such dramatic phenomena.

But we’re all called to enjoy a life of profound, prayerful, and intimate union with God. We’re called to be God’s children, and to know his Fatherhood in an ever more powerful way. This is the ordinary vocation of Christians.

It’s my vocation and yours, and we can certainly live it better. If you can’t join me on retreat this year, please join me at least in the pages of this book, which is now available again after many years out of print.

Today the Church honors the 26 martyrs of Nagasaki. These native Japanese Catholics and foreign missionaries were killed for their faith in 1597.

St. Francis Xavier brought the Catholic faith to Japan in the 16th century, and Jesuit outreach continued after his death. But by 1587, more than 200,000 Japanese had been converted.

Because of the religious tensions in the country, many churches were destroyed, and missionaries were forced to keep their work secret. This didn’t deter more Japanese from converting, however, and within a decade, 100,000 more had turned to God.

In 1593, King Philip II of Spain sent Franciscan missionaries to Japan to continue charity and evangelization work, but their arrival disturbed the relationship between the Church and the Japanese government. When a Spanish ship was found off the Japanese coast carrying artillery, the imperial minister sentenced 26 Catholics to death.

The sentenced Catholics included three native Jesuits, six foreign Franciscans, and several laypeople, including children. They were marched 600 miles to the city of Nagasaki and sentenced to death by crucifixion and lancing.

During their march, the Japanese soldiers publicly tortured the Catholics, intending to terrorize other Christians. But the 26 were courageous throughout, singing hymns of praise even when they arrived at the hill where they would die.

These martyrs included Sts. Paul Miki, John of Goto, and James Kisai. These men were associated with the Jesuits, but were not priests. Miki was studying for the priesthood, Goto was a catechist preparing to join the order, and Kisai was a layman. Miki joined one of the other Franciscan captives in preaching to the crowds that had gathered to mock the prisoners on their way to Nagasaki.

St. Paul Miki and his companions were killed on Feb. 5, 1597. The place where they died became known as Martyr’s Hill. They were canonized in 1862 by Pope Pius IX.

In the latest twist to the long-running “Vatican Girl” drama, the brother of the 15-year-old who vanished in 1983 has revealed a purported letter from a senior Vatican cardinal a decade later suggesting Emanuela Orlandi was in London, and apparently requesting the help of an official of the British government in ending her unexpected pregnancy.

Orlandi was the daughter of a minor official in the Prefecture of the Papal Household whose family lived in a Vatican apartment, and her still-unexplained disappearance more than 40 years ago has gone on to become the premier Vatican mystery story of modern times. In 2022, it was the basis for the successful Netflix series “Vatican Girl.”

Pietro Orlandi, the brother of the missing girl, has dedicated his life to trying to find out what happened to his sister, sometimes presenting alleged bombshell evidence in the case which, upon examination, turns out to be either dubious or inconclusive.

In the case of the letter revealed Sunday, Orlandi conceded that he could not authenticate it, and in fact acknowledged that it was allegedly signed by the late Cardinal Ugo Poletti two years after he had resigned as the Cardinal Vicar of Rome. Poletti died in 1997.

There was no explanation of why a former Vicar of Rome would be corresponding with an official of a foreign government rather than someone from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, which is the department responsible for such contacts.

The previously unknown letter is addressed to Frank Cooper, a former Under-Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defense in the British government. Like Poletti, Cooper was actually retired by 1993, and also like Poletti, he’s no longer alive to confirm or deny the authenticity of the letter, having died in 2002.

In the supposed letter, Poletti appears to solicit Cooper’s help with an unplanned pregnancy.

“I thank you for making yourself personally available for the immediate resolution of this totally unexpected and undesired problem,” Poletti allegedly wrote.

“Miss Orlandi is the protagonist of events of primary importance in the panorama of international diplomacy, and it’s of vital importance that Miss Orlandi remain alive and in good health,” the alleged letter says.

“Although the vision of the Vatican is clear in establishing that even a fetus within the maternal womb possesses a soul, I understand her concern and, being involved myself personally, I share in part her thinking,” Poletti is alleged to have written, adding that he would leave himself for London on Feb. 24, 1993.

Orlandi presented the letter in a Sunday interview with the Italian TV program “Verissimo,” claiming it had been given to him roughly a year before by an ex-member of an Italian terrorist group from the 1970s and 80s called the “Armed Revolutionary Nuclei.”

Orlandi asserted that the person who gave him the letter claimed that his sister’s disappearance was part of a large-scale pedophile ring at the time, of which the terrorist group acted as an “operational arm.”

Speculation that Emanuela Orlandi somehow ended up in London after her 1983 disappearance from Rome has been around since 2017, when an Italian journalist named Emiliano Fittipaldi published what he claimed to be a secret five-page Vatican memo listing roughly $300,000 in expenses for maintaining Orlandi in a London residence between 1983 and 1997.

At the time, a Vatican spokesman described the purported document as “false and ridiculous.” Observers noted that, among other indications of a possible fake, the memorandum was written on plain white paper with no Vatican seal and no protocol number, some of the ecclesiastical titles it employs are incorrect, and the name of one of the clerics to whom it was supposedly addressed is misspelled.

Nevertheless, Pietro Orlandi told the TV program that he found the hypothesis that his sister spent time in London “very plausible,” and urged investigators to take it seriously.

At the moment, there are three separate inquires into Orlandi case: One by the Procurator of Rome, essentially the city’s chief prosecutor; one by the Promoter of Justice in the Vatican, an Italian attorney named Alessandro Diddi; and one by the Italian parliament.

“I am confident and I am convinced that we can do things that have not been done in the past,” Orlandi said during Sunday’s broadcast, adding that he maintains hope that his sister will be found alive despite the passage of time.

“I feel she is alive,” he said. “Until I find her remains, I will always hope to be able to find her again.”

Poletti had been linked to the Orlandi case before, based on the fact that he approved a 1990 request from the family of notorious Roman mob boss Enrico De Pedis that his remains be entombed in Rome’s Basilica of Sant’Apollinare. Over the years, there has been consistent speculation that De Pedis and his Banda della Magliana may have played a role in Orlandi’s disappearance, and in 2012 his tomb was opened to search for Orlandi’s remains.

In the end there was no trace of Orlandi, and De Pedis’s remains were removed from the basilica for cremation.

Christians must let go of the God they think they know and convert every day to the God Jesus presents in the Gospel — the God who is the father of love and compassion, Pope Francis said.

When the faithful discover “the true face of the Father, our faith matures: we no longer remain ‘sacristy Christians’ or ‘parlor Christians,’ but rather we feel called to become bearers of God’s hope and healing,” he said Feb. 4 before reciting the Angelus prayer with about 15,000 visitors in St. Peter’s Square.

During his greetings after the noonday prayer, he also marked the celebration in Italy of the Day for Life.

“I join with the Italian bishops in hoping that ideological visions can be overcome so as to rediscover that every human life, even those most marked by limitations, has an immense value and is capable of giving something to others,” he said.

And he greeted the many young people from different countries who were in Rome to mark the World Day for Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking, which is celebrated Feb. 8.

“Many brothers and sisters are deceived with false promises and are then subjected to exploitation and abuse. Let us all join to counter the dramatic global phenomenon of human trafficking,” he said.

In his main Angelus address, the pope reflected on Jesus being continually on the move in the Gospel accounts of his ministry and how that “challenges us with some questions on our faith.”

“The Gospel lets us see that Jesus, after teaching in the synagogue, goes out, so that the word he has preached may reach, touch and heal people,” he said.

“He reveals to us that God is not a detached master who speaks to us from on high; on the contrary, he is a father filled with love who makes himself close to us, who visits our homes, who wants to save and liberate, heal from every ill of the body and spirit,” the pope said.

“God makes himself close to accompany us, tenderly, and to forgive us,” he said. “Do not forget this: closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

Jesus’ journeying reminds the faithful “that our first spiritual task is this: to abandon the God we think we know, and to convert every day to the God Jesus presents to us in the Gospel,” he said.

Christians should reflect on whether they have “discovered the face of God as the father of mercy, or do we believe in and proclaim a cold God, a distant God? Does faith instill in us the restlessness of journeying or is it an intimist consolation for us, that calms us? Do we pray just to feel at peace or does the word we listen to and preach make us go out, like Jesus, toward others, to spread God’s consolation?” he said.

ROME — In light of the recent furor over Fiducia Supplicans (“Supplicating Trust”), a Dec. 18 Vatican declaration authorizing nonliturgical blessings of same-sex unions, one might almost be forgiven for thinking it’s a matter of life and death.

Of course, in truth that’s a merely rhetorical assertion. However important the doctrinal issues may be, nobody’s going to live or die depending on how they’re resolved.

On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the issue currently dominating Catholic discussion in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, which isn’t the theology of same-sex relationships or any of the other topics that often loom so large in Catholic debate in affluent societies.

Instead, it’s what a growing chorus of observers describe as a “genocide” directed against Christians in a country that has the largest mixed Muslim/Christian population in the world. According to some estimates, Nigeria now accounts for almost 90% of all Christians martyred worldwide each year. 

In its latest annual report, Aid to the Church in Need, a papally sponsored foundation supporting persecuted Christians, reported that more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians had been murdered between January 2021 and June 2022.

Nigeria is merely an especially urgent case of a broader phenomenon. According to an annual report of “Open Doors,” an ecumenical watchdog group on anti-Christian persecution, more than 365 million Christians in the world, that is 1 in 7, faced high levels of persecution for their faith as of late 2023.

The threat to Christians in Nigeria has been clear for some time, but it’s been driven home of late in the wake of Christmas massacres in the country’s Plateau State that claimed the lives of more than 300 Christians.

The assaults have continued into the New Year. On Jan. 4, Boko Haram insurgents killed a pastor and at least 13 members of his Church, according to local news site “Sahara Reporters.” Pastor Elkanah Ayuba was the leader of a Church of Christ in Nations congregation.

While the violence is sometimes characterized as more social and economic than religious, pitting members of the Fulani ethnic group who are herdsmen against Igbo and Yoruba farmers and pastors, religion is inevitably part of the picture given that the Fulani are largely Muslim while their victims are mostly Christian.

In addition, there’s a clear pattern in the violence of targeting Christian churches, schools, residences, and other facilities.

At least 52,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria since 2009, according to the International Society for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (“Intersociety”), an international monitoring group tracking genocide in Nigeria.

Last year, Fulani herdsmen were responsible for the deaths of at least 3,500 Christians, the group said.

The same report published in April also asserted that 18,000 Christian churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been set ablaze, and around 34,000 moderate Muslims also have been killed in Islamist attacks.

Within the same period, at least 707 Christians were kidnapped, out of which the Northern Nigerian Niger State recorded more than 200 abductions, including the March 14 abduction of more than 100 Christians in Adunu. Roughly 5 million Christians have been displaced and forced into Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps within Nigeria and refugee camps at regional and sub-regional borders, according to Intersociety.

The director of the Christian-inspired human rights organization said the genocide of Christians in Nigeria is being carried out with the complicity of the government.

“The government of Tinubu is part of the butchering machinery,” said Emeka Umeagbalasi, a criminologist and grassroots human rights and Democracy campaigner, referring to Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, who took office in late March.

“The Fulani jihadist rose to power under the Buhari administration and was able to take control of everything,” he said, asserting that Tinubu is set to perpetuate that heritage. The reference was to Nigeria’s previous government under former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Umeagbalasi said that international pressure should be brought to bear on the Tinubu administration if Nigerian Christians must be set on the way to freedom.

“The destiny of Nigerian Christians lies in the hands of international state actors and nonstate actors to pile enough pressure on the government of Nigeria and compel the government of Nigeria to do the needful,” Umeagbalasi told Crux.

He said one way of compelling the government to act is by tying foreign aid to religious freedom. Otherwise, he said, “the killings are going to continue and with catastrophic consequences, including the total Islamization of the Middle Belt.”

Johan Viljoen, director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute, an entity of the Southern Catholic Bishops’ Conference, recently said the Nigerian government is at fault for the mounting threats to Christians in the country and should be held accountable.

“Any foreign assistance or investment to Nigeria should be made conditional to the strict observance of human rights,” Viljoen said, insisting that victims of anti-Christian violence should receive financial compensation for property destroyed and lives lost.

“The Nigerian government should pay. It was, after all, the Nigerian government that failed to ensure the safety and security of its citizens — one of the prime duties of any national government,” he said. Viljoen blamed the government of new Tinubu for doing little to change the situation, noting that attacks have continued in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.

All this background, perhaps, makes a simple point for Catholics in the developed world, including the United States.

Yes, we may have issues around which great passions can be aroused, and their theological and sacramental significance shouldn’t be underestimated. At the same time, however, we can still go to Mass on Sunday without taking our lives into our hands — and, frankly, the same cannot be said of Catholics everywhere, a fact that perhaps deserves a greater claim on our attention.

The “Our Father” as an exemplar of Christian prayer—The three main parts of the same—Christian prayer as thanksgiving and doxology (especially in the Liturgy)

Photo: RuTube     

The Lord’s Prayer is, of course, an example of prayer for us Christians. In examining its composition and substance, we can see that it can be split into three parts: 1) invocation, 2) petition, and 3) doxology. In terms of its inner meaning, it can also be divided into three parts: the first, most important and principal part encompasses invocation and the first three petitions; this is followed by the fourth petition, about “daily bread”; and then, finally, by three petitions about our personal sins.

What should a Christian pray for first of all and above all? About that which he should be seeking above all: “the Kingdom of Heaven and his righteousness” (cf. Mt. 6:33). We see this in the first part of the prayer. In addressing God as the Heavenly Father, a Christian bears witness to the fact that our true fatherland is not on Earth, but in Heaven. “Our citizenship is in Heaven,” the Apostle Paul wrote explicitly (Phil. 3:20). After addressing the Father in this way, the Christian prays for the Name of God to be hallowed—both in each of our private lives, and throughout human history. It is especially hallowed when we, as Christians, make non-believers “glorify the name of our Father who is in Heaven” (cf. Mt. 5:16) by performing good works. Next, the Christian prays for the Kingdom of God to come on Earth.

Looking closely at life, one can see in it a constant struggle between two principles: darkness and light, truth and lies, good and evil. In seeing this, one cannot help but pray for the victory of light over darkness to be manifested in our life and for the Kingdom of God—a Kingdom of righteousness and goodness—to triumph. In the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, we pray for the will of God to be realized in the life of men, just as it is in the world of Heaven above. The Christian consciousness tells a person firmly and with conviction that trusting in the Will of God is not only our duty, but also genuine wisdom and truth in life. Our Heavenly Father knows what is necessary and beneficial for each of us, and in His infinite love and goodness, desires what is good for us and our salvation more than we do ourselves. This is why the Apostle says: Cast all your care upon Him; for He careth for you (1 Peter 5:7).

The fourth petition in the Lord’s prayer is the only one about our bodily, as opposed to spiritual, needs. We are to ask for our “daily bread”, that is, that which is necessary for our existence, to support our bodily life. As for anything on top of this, “if it is given, then give thanks to God, but if it is not, do not care for it” (excerpt from the Catechesis). Of course, “daily bread” is to be understood here as anything that we require: food, clothing, lodgings, etc. This fourth petition shows us that our earthly life with its “cares and concerns” also comes under the care of our Heavenly Father for us. The Apostle Paul writes: Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (Hebrews 13:5).

The fifth petition of the Lord’s prayer is about Remission of Sins, and False Christian Love and ForgivenessHow understandable this is, how logical and how completely opposite this clear and definite, pure Gospel teaching is to the propaganda so fashionable today of some pseudo-Christian love and unconditional all-forgiveness, just too all-encompassing, which supposedly extends even to the enemies of the Christian faith who actively war with the Church and faith in God itself and are undoubtedly the servants of the coming Antichrist!

“>forgiveness of sins. Not only in this petition, but also in other places in His teaching, the Lord states in no uncertain terms that a condition of God’s forgiving our sins is for us to forgive our neighbor theirs. Yet how often this petition is untrue in the eyes of God to Whom we are praying. We read: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” yet in reality, we neither pardon nor forgive, but rather are offended, and nurture a feeling of injury and a desire to get back at the person in our hearts. A Christian thus ought to ask himself each time he reads this petition whether he has forgiven his enemies and injurers. If he has not, he cannot expect to be forgiven by God.

The two final petitions, the sixth and the seventh, are about the same thing: the causes of sin. We first ask for its germs—trials and temptations—to be removed far from us, and then to be delivered from the Evil One, that is, the Devil and progenitor of all sins. People are often afraid of outward misfortunes: failures, illnesses, poverty, etc. Christianity, however, teaches us to fear above all for our immortal souls. The Lord says, And fear ye not them that kill the body and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell (Mt. 10:28). Elsewhere, the Lord, after enumerating outward trials and forms of persecution for the Faith, says explicitly: Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven (Mt. 5:12).

On the contrary, a Christian ought to be afraid not of outward misfortunes and calamities, but of his own sins and falls. Everyone knows how we grow used to sin and sin literally every step we take and at every moment in our lives. Sin is a form of lawlessness, a violation of the law of God’s righteousness, and the result of it is thus torment and weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12). The “Our Father” thus keeps our hearts repulsed by these spiritual evils, and we, confessing our weakness and predisposition to sin, ask to be kept from falling into the sins that tempt us and to be delivered from the progenitor of sin, the Devil.

As we know, after these seven petitions, there comes a triumphal glorification of the might, power, and glory of God. This glorification of God’s greatness is also a filial expression of unshakeable and clear certainty that everything for which we ask will be given to us through the love of the Heavenly Father—for His is “the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, to the ages. Amen.”

Yet the Lord’s prayer is not the only one to conclude with such a doxology. Doxological prayers in their most pure, isolated form (for example, “Praise ye the name of the Lord…”, “Holy, holy, holy…”) are not used so commonly by us. Yet they usually make up the final words of our prayers (especially liturgical prayers) and are often solemn or sacred in character. This is why they are always pronounced (intoned) by someone in holy orders: a priest or a bishop. The most important and exemplary prayers of glorification are the hymns “Gloria to God in the Highest…” (the Great Doxology) and the “We praise Thee O God”. It is chiefly these doxological prayers that ought to be called “exalted and Christian”, since it is in them that the Christian’s love for God and veneration of His supreme perfections is most clearly expressed.

The third type of prayer, thanksgiving, is inextricably linked to this type of doxology. It goes without saying that a Christian who loves God and knows His love, mercy, and the good things that He does, cannot but feel gratitude to Him in his heart. Our most important form of prayerful thanksgiving is our most important church service, the Divine Liturgy. The main part of it, the so-called “Canon of the Eucharist,” opens with the words “Let us give thanks unto the Lord…”. The most pure, bloodless sacrifice, the sacrifice of righteousness, the sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which is offered at the Liturgy in the sacrament of Holy Communion, though it may be visibly offered by people, is invisibly performed by Christ the Savior Himself, through His grace and almighty power, while being accepted by us people with the reverence of thankful love. This is why, at the most important moment in the liturgy, the priest solemnly intones: “Offering Thee Thine own of Thine own, on behalf of all and for all…”, and the faithful (or the choir, standing in for them) reply with a hymn of thanksgiving: “We hymn Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, O Lord, and we pray unto Thee, O our God.”

St. Agatha was born into a rich family, but when she was young, she dedicated her life to God, and refused any offers of marriage. 

One man, Quintian, was angered by her refusal, and thought he could intimidate her into marrying him. He reported her as a Christian to the government, which at the time persecuted Christians. She was brought before him and he expected that she would change her mind when he threatened torture and even death, but she simply prayed in front of him. 

Quintian had Agnes tortured, and refused her any medical care. But God sent a vision of St. Peter to take care of Agnes. She was tortured a second time and died after her final prayer: “Lord, my Creator, you have always protected me from the cradle; you have taken me from the love of the world and given me patience to suffer. Receive my soul.” 

St. Agatha has been venerated since the sixth century. She is considered a protector against fires, and was asked for help when Mt. Etna erupted. She is also the patroness of bellmakers.  

Greece, February 5, 2024

Photo: vimaorthodoxias.gr     

Adding their voices to the protests coming from the Greek hierarchs unanimously condemn gay marriage and adoptionThe hierarchs of the Orthodox Church of Greece met in an extraordinary session today, with the sole item on the agenda being the state’s intention to legalize gay marriage and adoption by gay couples.

“>Hierarchy of the Greek Church, the Synod of Crete speaks out against gay marriage and adoptionThe statement emphasizes that the Church preaches the timeless Divine truth that marriage is between a man and a woman, and warns that gay marriage is detrimental for the children of such “marriages.””>Eparchial Synod of Crete, the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos: We are opposed to any form of marriage that contradicts the GospelAmidst the controversy surrounding the Greek government’s proposal to legalize gay marriage and adoption by same-sex couples, the Holy Mountain has raised its voice.”>Mt. Athos, and other hierarchs and Albanian Church: Legislation can’t make the unnatural natural“What is against nature cannot be made natural by legal provisions,” the Albanian Church states.”>Synods, more than 100 Orthodox Christian associations from all over Greece have come out against the government’s intentions to legalize gay marriage and gay adoption.

As of Saturday, 140 associations had united “against any attempt to legally equate same-sex relationships with heterosexuals and marriage under any pretext … call[ing] on everyone to react by any legal means for it to be canceled,” reports Vima Orthodoxias.

The signatory associations include Orthodox missionary brotherhoods, parenting associations, student unions, scientific associations, and many more.

The consciousness and tradition of the Greek people are clearly against gay marriages, reads the statement signed by the nearly twelve dozen groups. “In the consciousness of our people, there is the living Law of the Gospel, the will of God, the Tradition of our Church, which represent all Orthodox Christians, for whom such a union is blasphemous and destructive.”

Further:

In a heterosexual marriage and family, parents are called to sacrifice their rights for the sake of their children. In a same-sex “marriage,” the whole of society, and especially its most vulnerable members, the children, are called to be sacrificed to satisfy the contrived and unsubstantial rights of the homosexual “union.”

The Center for Patristic Studies in Marousi, Greece, is also organizing a rally against the bill in Athens on February 11. The government’s goal is for the bill to become law on February 15. Patristi

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