The Catalog of Good Deeds

By St. Nikolai of Serbia

Dear child, if you are dithering, then know: you are more likely for marriage than for monasticism. The monastic life is or those who do not hesitate. St. Sabbas had no hesitation. Neither did St. Theodora, Xenia and Euphemia hesitate, nor many others who became the true ascetics of the monastic life. Not every person can handle this life, but only those who are gifted by God (Ref. to Matthew 19:11).

You say you are often sitting with your mother by a fire considering pros and cons. But I tell you: no matter how much you think about it, it is not these pros and cons that matter, but love. Love is above any arguments. If love towards Christ do not bring you to the monastic silence, then your love towards the world will hold you in this world and will bring you to marriage. However, in this case you will still be blessed with the blessing of Sarah (Genesis 17, 18, 21, 23) and Rachel (Genesis 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 48) and your own mother.

The great love towards God can’t stand living in the world, it leads a solitary life and seeks for loneliness. Such love made thousands of souls deviate from the wide road of the world and go to monasteries so that they can be alone with their beloved Lord; so that they can meet with their Creator in secret, Who is Love itself both by His name and His nature. But first of all to be honored to have this meeting, monks and nuns accept tonsure, labor, humility, vigilance, poverty, obedience and other vows only to be granted this spiritual meeting with the Lord. And when the soul becomes free, purified and adorned, it is honored to meet the Lord on this narrow way. What should the soul of a monk be freed from? From all the earthly bonds and passions. What should it be purified from? From the so-called corporal love, from love towards flesh, relatives and friends, your native village or city, any estate, clothing, food and jewelries. With what should it be adorned? Only with the love towards Christ, which embodies all the jewelries, all the pearls of faith, all the emeralds of hope and all the gems of virtues. The fasting body of a monk is only a cover for all this priceless heavenly treasure.

I write this to you not to bring you to monasticism; rather, I do this to avert you attraction to the world will become stronger in you and I am afraid it will defeat you. You will be in a monastery corporally, but you will be spiritually in the world. The world reflected in the mirror of the soul torments even more than in reality.

Thank the Lord that excerpt from the narrow monastic path, He showed you a wider path to salvation and eternal life. Follow this path, child, which complies more with your inclinations. Follow this path, but follow it with the fear of God and trust in the Lord. Remember: one cannot endure this path without God, too.

May God’s blessing be with you!

Translated by The Catalog of Good Deeds

During one of our Wednesday morning Bible studies, our group tackled the famous verse John 3:16, which reads: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

Scholars have cleverly labeled this pericope the “miniature gospel” (le petit Évangile, in French), for the simple reason that it encapsulates the entire meaning of Scripture and God’s divine plan of salvation. If the entire Bible was lost and only this verse was retained, the core message would still be preserved in its fullness, with the remainder of the Bible serving as an extensive “color commentary.”

However, in this key passage an equally significant message resides among the words, but it is plainly hidden from sight, a mystery to the unsuspecting, superficial reader. What is it? John 3:16 houses the secret of true life in God, a life that is made manifest to us when we participate in three central activities of the Orthodox Christian Church: love, faith, and sacrifice. Life in God is different from biological life, which is understood in its horizontal dimensions — that is, in our relationships with other human beings. The life in God is far more intense because it boasts of a vertical dimension, defined according to man’s stance before the Lord. In this life, God’s power and wisdom are infused in man, so man’s existence becomes not only more meaningful but indicative of a presence that heals and saves. St. Paul confesses this life when he writes: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). The life in God is, quite simply, God’s healing and saving presence in man.

To have this life within us, we must imitate the life in Christ in these aforementioned three areas. First, we are commanded to have a faith that is genuine and true, one that is not based on conditions or personal expectations. It means, as the saying goes, to “let go and let God”, to trust blindly when nothing makes sense, to take the first step even when you cannot envision the whole staircase, to quote the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Second, perfect faith must be coupled though with perfect love, out of deference to Christ’s commandment to “love one another, as I have loved you” (John 13:34), a love that far surpasses the limitations of human emotion. Perfect love is not simply to want or seek the good of the other, but to be pained over their welfare, to make the other priority over oneself, to be willing to suffer in their place.

Finally, faith and love are tested and perfected when the third commandment is fulfilled; namely, sacrifice, the “giving” of oneself. For us Christians, this sacrifice is the gift of time we give to the one who needs God through our presence, our words, and our actions; but it is most especially valuable when we celebrate the Eucharistic sacrifice together on Sunday. Put simply, if we believe in God and we love Him, our place is at the sacrificial altar every Sunday during the Divine Liturgy, in addition to the altar of every human heart that we encounter daily.

All three of these expectations are commandments of our Lord in the Scriptures; they are non-negotiable and they are not optional. More of one and less of another is not a solution. All three draw us deeper into the mystery of Christ’s life, which becomes our life when we assimilate our ways with His ways. To believe in one’s heart and love all people but refuse to be with them in worship is not enough, precisely because faith and love remain deficient. When physical illness prevents us from church attendance, that is one thing; but when spiritual illness that is untreated causes us to become selective in our philanthropy, faith and love become deformed into lies, catering to our own shortsighted desires and needs.

By Fr. Stelyios Muksuris

Source: http://myocn.net/scriptures-most-valuable-secret/

I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve heard parents discussing the difficult task of raising children right in a world gone wrong. How do we raise children with strong morals and values, when the world is drowning in immorality? How do we teach them to set themselves apart from that which is wrong?

One of the most important things we, as parents, can do for our children is offer them positive role models. And as most of us will agree, that can be a very daunting task nowadays. Now that school is back is session, this is especially important because our children are being exposed to things they aren’t normally exposed to in their Orthodox homes.

I recently spoke with a group of teen and tween-aged girls on the subject of role models. I asked them to answer a prompt without thinking too much about the answer, to simply give the first answer that popped into their mind. The prompt was: Name three famous sisters. few of them giggled and looked around at each other but no one would answer.

So I fished some more, “C’mon, you know who I’m talking about. We usually see them in pictures together.”

Then one brave soul blurted out, “The Kardashians?”

It wasn’t the answer I was hoping for but it was the one I expected. The answer I was looking for were Saints Faith, Hope and Agapi; three young sisters who gave up their lives for our Lord Jesus Christ. The majority of them were familiar with the girls mother, St. Sophia, but none of them had ever heard of her three daughters.

Try it on your children. Ask them how many cartoon characters they could name. Then ask how many saints could they name. Two? Eight? A dozen if you’re lucky. And we can blame no one but ourselves for this. We expect our children to stay in the church and understand our traditions and always do the right thing, and, and, and, but how can we expect all of this if we’re not teaching them?

Why aren’t we passing these treasures on to our children? Why are we filling their heads with imaginary kingdoms but not filling their hearts with zeal for a real-life kingdom?

It’s so easy to overlook teaching them about the importance of saints in our lives. We forget to remind them to look up to them and ask for their intercessions. They’re only children, we say. And yes, they are children. But then again, so were Faith, Hope and Agapi. The eldest sister was only 12; the youngest was 9.

When their mother, St. Sophia called them together before they were to appear before the emperor, she tried to strengthen their spirits by saying, “My beloved daughters, the greatest joys of my earthly life…Our trials may be great—eventually leading to our deaths. The path we are about to take ends in defeat and death for those who do not know Christ. For those of us who know Him, it ends in victory and eternal life…Remember, my darlings, physical pain lasts momentarily; the Kingdom of God lasts forever.” And do you know how those precious souls responded? Instead of hiding in fear, like I surely would have, they in turn tried to strengthen and soothe her spirit. “Don’t be afraid, dearest Mother, we will remember your words and pray that our Lord will keep all of us strong so that we may enter His kingdom together.”

And then they prayed together. How many of us pray with our children on a daily basis? How can we expect them to follow Christ as He instructed (Matthew 16:24) if they are not armed with prayer?

Sometimes we rationalize these things in our minds. But SHE was a saint, I am not! How can I have that kind of strength? But saints are not born, they’re created. She was not born a saint, she was born a typical human being like all of us. The only difference is she chose to follow Christ. One of the many benefits of being Orthodox is the rich spiritual inheritance we’ve been given; the lives of the saints. We have all the answers we need on how to live a holy life in a sinful world. We can all do what she did. We just have to want it bad enough.

We spend so much time making sure our children “fit in” (and fit in to what exactly?), when we should be spending that time teaching them how to stand out. Each and every one of our children should be a light. They should carry the light of Christ inside of them for all to see.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16

Teach your children to love, not fight. To give rather than take. To show compassion and humility instead of passing judgment on others. If we, as Orthodox Christians don’t do this, who will? Opportunities to teach these things present themselves every day! We need to be teaching them these things in both our words and actions.

Now that we have begun a new school and ecclesiastical year, let’s start anew. Here are a few simple suggestions:

– Begin and end each day by reading prayers together as a family.

– Teach your children of spiritual warfare. St. Kosmas Aitolos said, “Life is spiritual warfare, and if you’re not fighting you’re losing.”

– Teach them how to use a prayer rope and pray the Jesus Prayer.

– Teach them to live a God-pleasing life just as their patron saints and the Theotokos did. Remind them they are soldiers for Christ. Arm them every single day.

My children look forward to being “armed for battle” every morning. I make the sign of the cross with holy oil on their foreheads; their armor. I give them each a piece of antidoro (take an extra piece on Sunday and cut into small pieces for the rest of the week) and a sip of holy water; their strength. And we double check to make sure they have their weapons; their cross and prayer rope. Then we leave for school and I have the peace of mind knowing that God and His holy Mother and all the saints are surrounding my children with their protection.

A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.

- St. Anthony the Great

The world has gone mad and our responsibility as Orthodox Christian parents has become even greater. It is our children who will carry Christ’s light into the future. Are they ready? Have we prepared them?

Source: http://pemptousia.com/2015/08/our-spiritual-inheritance/

In the year 1993 the whole Orthodox world was shocked by a tragic event, which had happened in Optina Hermitage: three inhabitants of the monastery were brutely murdered on Easter night. They were hieromonk Vasily (Roslyakov), monk Ferapont (Pushkarev) and monk Trophim (Tatarinov).

The Easter service in Optina began as usual. According to the existing tradition, the religious procession to the skete of St. John the Baptist,which is situated to the east of the Monastery, and back was coming to an end. The festive Easter peal was heard coming from monastery and skete belfries. The number of people was enormous—up to 10 thousand people (as the militia later reported, which were guarding the Monastery during the festive service,). After the Liturgy the monks went to the refectory to break the fast. After completing the meal, two of the bell-ringers, monk Ferapont and monk Trophim, returned to the belfry to continue the Easter peal. By then it was ten past six. Suddenly the bell ringing became uneven and then stopped completely. A terrible crime was committed on the belfry—the monks were villainously killed with stabs from a knife.

Monk Ferapont expired at once. After the stabbing Monk Trophim uttered a loud shriek: “God, have mercy upon us!” and “Help!; having risen a bit, he rang the bell—and fell down.

The murderer ran away to the skete, where hieromonk Vasily was also going in order to hear confessions. The criminal stabbed him in the back with the same knife.

Then the murderer climbed over the monastery wall and threw away a blood-stained self-made knife. It was double-edged, five centimeters wide, and resembled a sword. It was engraved on its blade with “ 666” and “satan”. The same inscription was found later on a knife in the pocket of a greatcoat that was abandoned by the murderer.

The murderer Nikolay Averin inflicted knife wounds to the back. According to the investigator, the injuries were inflicted with unusual professionalism “and deliberately—they were not too deep—to make the victim bleed to death over a long time”. In fact, hieromonk Vasily suffered for several hours, though monks Trophim and Ferapont died immediately.

Averin killed monks Ferapont and Trophim while they were announcing to the world on the belfry the Resurrection of Christ. And hieromonk Vasily was killed when he was going to the skete to hear confessions. Having committed the murder, Averin slipped the edge of the monks’ robes to their heads and pulled their klobuks over their faces.

It seemed that there was still life in monk Trophim. He was brought to Vvedensky Cathedral, but a few minutes later he passed away.

In spite of a terrible wound, Hieromonk Vasily lived longer than the others. He looked at the people surrounding him and even tried to rise. He was also brought to the Cathedral and was put next to the relics of St. Elder Ambrose, and then he was taken by ambulance to the local hospital in Kozelsk. There he soon passed away.

It was also surprising that the monks began to give away their possessions before their murder, including their personal tools, saying they would not need them any more (which was all the more unusual at the time when there was such a lack of tools in the monastery that one had to bring them from home or get them somehow through friends, otherwise one could not do his work). Everyone in Optina monastery was surprised by this occurance, but after the murder it became clear: the monks had foreseen the glory of martyrdom prepared for them.

To understand why the monks were ready to die, it is necessary to know what kind of life they lived.

For more than ten years people in Optina monastery have been collecting information about monks Trofim, Ferapont and Vasily.

A Joyful Ascetic

Leonid Tatarnikov, the future monk Trofim, was born in the village of Dagon , Irkutsk region, on the 4th of February, 1957. When he was a baby he cried day and night incessantly for almost two years, so that some people thought he was unlikely to survive. But he became quiet as soon as he was baptised, and since then became a smiling healthy boy.

Leonid grew into a tall beautiful young man, and girls liked him. Besides being handsome, he was erudite (he would read all night long, and was even nicknamed Bookworm), hard-working and never touched alcohol. Girls tried hard to marry him, some even turned to magic. One of them actually told him, "either you will be mine, or no one's!" But Leonid stayed calm and had but one word to address a girl: "sister". He was a born monk, but he understood it much later.

Having finished secondary school, Leonid studied in a railway services college. After completing his service in the army he worked as a sailor on a trawler.

When Leonid was getting a foreign passport, for some reason he changed his name and became Alexey. Alexey tried quite a number of occupations: photography, horse-breeding for a local horse farm, and shoe-making (the shoes he made were such that everyone in the town queued to get a pair). He was a member of various hobby groups, such as a yacht-club, wrestling and karate societies, as well as classical and folk dance schools. He was very flexible. At thirty years of age he could still do the splits without straining. Together with his sister Natasha, Alexei studied in a classical dance school and won prizes in competitions. Once he was even offered to enter into a contract and become a professional dancer, but he refused.

The future monk was looking for the meaning of life and still could not understand what was lacking. He took up "well-being" and even gave up eating meat. In his room there hung a time-table according to which Alexei went without food for ten days twice a month in the vain hope to give up smoking (he took to smoking at a very early age). Then he began to go to church, and the priest told him he had to choose between God and nicotine. Alexei finally rid himself of his long-term habit.

How on earth could this cruel man of an unknown build overpower three monks?! And what monks! Monk Trophim could tie a poker into a knot (there was an episode when some drivers tried to straighten out a dent in a truck wing with a sledge-hummer, and all their attempts fell flat untill Trophim did it with bare hands). Two-meter-high hieromonk Vasily in his previous life was known to be one of the best water-polo players in the country. He used to be a member of a combined team of the USSR . His reaction time was stunning and he was famous for an amazing mighty throw. Even while dying he was able to deliver a shattering blow. Monk Ferapont was very good at martial art (aikido, karate).

The committee of inquiry affirms that the whole point is the stabs were delivered to the back. But the belfry where monks Trophim and Ferapont were killed is rather small, and a stranger can’t get there unnoticed. However, it’s clear to an orthodox person even without any investigation that the monks could not requite violence using the same violence. It was their last temptation. A real monk mustn’t bloody his hands.

Evidently, by then monks Trophim, Vasily and Ferapont were ready for death. According to the witness’ recollections, the martyrs had foreseen their death. Monk Trophim had often spoken that he had little time left – half a year, a year. While Ferapont, once a silent monk, began asking everybody to pray for him.

On Pentecost day, 1990, Alexei had a vision. He immediately decided to become a monk and bought a ticket to Optina monastery. But when he was ready to leave, his passport, money and ticket were stolen, and he made it to Optina in only a month and a half. His spiritual search lasted a long time untill at the age of thirty-six he stayed in Optina monastery and took monastic vows, becoming monk Trofim.

Having settled in the monastery, he found this holy place rather neglected. The locals, who after World War II built a village on the monastery territories, cursed this land which bore nothing, although it had been very fertile before. Tomatoes use to grow there in such quantities that they were given for free to anyone who asked for them. Now the land bears fruit again. The monks have managed to cultivate this poor soil, and the hard-working monk Trofim took part in that, too.

The local farmers say that wherever monk Trofim planted potatoes for old people, there were no Colorado beetles, while there were plenty of them in the neighbouring gardens. Some people even came to the monastery to ask what kind of prayer the monk was saying. By now some farmers take a pinch of earth from his tomb and, having dissolved it in water, use it to sprinkle their gardens.

Trofim valued time, and he had time for everything. His main duties were those of senior bell-ringer, sexton and tractor operator. Besides that, he worked as a receptionist, candle-seller, house-painter, baker; he worked in the bookmaker's shop, in the warehouse, in the forge. People surrounging him had a feeling that he could do everything. Only after the murder did they learn that monk Trofim had never before been a forger, a tractor operator, a baker, a bookmaker, and had never learnt how to ring the bells. God made him able to do all that for his prayers.

When they decided to bake their own bread in the Optina monastery (in the beginning of the nineties bread supplies in Russia were limited), the task was appointed to monk Trofim. Nobody knew how to bake bread in the monastery. The monk had to run around to find a receipt. But as a result his loafs were spongy, light and tasty. His bread was called "healing" in the neighborhood. When leaving the monastery, one businessman even asked to have the special receipt of monastery bread. The man explained that his sick stomach did not digest bread at all, excluding the monastery "healing" bread. They gave him the receipt but he did not know the most important thing: how thoroughly monk Trofim prayed on each baking and how many bows he made in front of Icon of the Mother of God "The Grower of Crops" ["Sporitelnitsa hlebov"].

Trofim was a real monk—secret, focused inward, and there was no external, ostentatious devotion in him. There were no bad people in the world in his opinion, and anyone at any time of day and night could ask him for help and would receive it. It was to monk Trofim that everybody went asking for repairs for a watch, photo camera or even boots.

He prayed a lot but slept little, and he ate very modestly, limiting himself even in water. But in spite of those restrictions he was never sick and never seemed to be tired. And everybody in Optina got used to his perseverance. It was difficult to imagine this strong monk, always happy and lively, to be an ascetic one and to have a custom to eat nothing during the first and the last week of the Great Fast.

However during the last (for Trofim) Fast one could notice signs of fatigue in him. It was getting clear for Optina's inhabitants that the monk was on the verge of exhaustion. As a rule, at five in the morning, when all the monks were going to the midnight service, it was hard to recognize faces in the darkness. But one could always recognize monk Trofim even from a long distance because of his flying long gait. He was hurrying to church overtaking many others on his way. But during his final days it became hard to recognize him. Sasha the Prosphora-maker remembered an incident, when he was slowly going to midnight service and had overtaken somebody in the darkness. Turning around to see who it was, he could not believe his eyes that it was Trofim. Sasha noticed that Trofim was going so slowly and with such effort as if he was carrying an unbearable burden.

The mother of monk Trofim did not manage to be in time for her son's burial. When the news of his death had come, she was being treated in a hospital after a stroke. The doctors prohibited her from flying by airplane, so she had to travel by train from Siberia . She came to the monastery and spent some time there. She even wanted to stay there for good but they blessed her to go back home and to turn to God her other children. Thus through the death of a beloved brother and because of a mother's efforts, her children had come to God. Once Lena , a younger sister of the monk, saw Trofim in a dream. He looked so worn out in that dream and had such a sorrow in his eyes that the girl shivered hearing his voice as for real: "I'm so tired. I have worked my tail off praying for you all but you are still not going to church." And at one time 14 of Trofim's relatives had been baptized together.

He lived without touching the earth.

The future monk Ferapont was born into the world Vladimir Pushkarev on the feast of the icon of the Mother of God “The Unburned Bush”, 1955. He was born in a remote desolate town of the Taiga, where lumber cutting paid only pennies, and many suffered poverty or drank. All of the workers were unbaptised since the nearest church could only be reached by plane, and no one had the money for that.

Everything in Vladimir ’s life was normal. He attended school, then the army (compulsory, and then additional voluntary service), where he learned the Eastern art of warfare, which he later discovered was mixed with occultism. Having finished the army, he studied agriculture. After that he worked as a technical-forester in a lumber range in Baikal. He never drank, never smoked, and everyone respected him. But his life in the world was made difficult because certain people considered him a sorcerer.

It is well known that Vladimir ’s conversion occurred during his time working as a lumber jack. They say that once and old man appeared to Vladimir in the Taiga, who gave him a book about magic and arranged another meeting on the same spot in a year. Vladimir did not like the sorcerers and they did not appear for their second meeting. But he performed magical tricks for fun for the local girls. He would send them into some local brush and told them to write a note, which he would then read from a distance. He was mystically gifted by nature. His games almost ended in tragedy. According to the words of his own friend, Vladimir lived through his own death. His soul separated from his body and he traveled to a kingdom of terror. He died. But an angel appeared to him and said that he would send Vladimir back earth only if he agreed after that to go to church.

After all that Vladimir soon left the forest farm, where a church wasn’t even hundreds of kilometers distant, and moved to the Rostov–on Don. There, he started working as a yard–keeper in the Cathedral of the Nativity of Virgin. It was soon noticed that he was an exceptional faster: during Lent he would take several prosphora, crackers and a bottle of holy water. After the service he would only eat this in the Church behind a column.

The future monk lived in Rostov–on–Don for three years, and on holidays he would travel around the monasteries in search of one to stay in. At that time his decision to become a monk had already been made and he had received the blessing of the elder Kirill (Pavlov) of the Trinity–Sergius Lavra. Vladimir later went to Vladika Vladimir, the present-day metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine , and told him, “Vladyko, I can even clean the toilets, if only you give me a recommendation to the monastery!”. And it turned out exactly that the cathedral needed a person to clean the toilets. The future monk did that for around a year, when he received a recommendation and left the city.

He came to the Optina Hermitage from Kaluga (quite a long distance) on foot and took the veil with the name Ferapont.

Once he had the duty to keep watch at the Holy Gate of the monastery so that no inappropriately dressed woman would enter it. He had to give them scarfs and work gowns. It turned out that he did not notice the women and even didn’t realize how they were dressed. The warden was constantly criticizing and blaming him, “can’t you see that! You must carefully watch how they all are dressed!” But the monk was only repeating with repentance, “forgive me, father, I haven’t reached that perfection as to be able to look at the women! I am guilty!” Soon this duty was taken from him.

As far as the other kinds of work are concerned, many have admired his talent: a talent to study something new. He was doing everything very carefully. In the monastery he became an excellent woodcarver. Half of the Optina bretheren are wearing his paraman crosses.

Artist Sergey Lavrov called Ferapont “Titian” for his shaped cheekbones, bright-blue eyes and "golden curls on the shoulders ". Lavrov recollected the day when Ferapont showed him his first work, a carved paraman cross. The impression it produced was very strong. Today there are, of course, elegant crosses decorated with many details. Each curl is trimmed so gracefully, that it is possible to admire it, as an independent picture. But the details hide the main subject, and the skill of the artist and his pride come to the fore. In Ferapont’s work there was modesty, severity and laconicalness—the eye at once seized the figure of the Savior.

In Optina Ferapont is described as a person who lived without touching the earth. Imperceptible, silent, he was praying day and night. He had a very strong prayer indeed!

Once a person came up to church’s warden saying that he had come to the monastery by accident, doubting the existence of the God, and at last he believed. " I saw here how one monk was praying,” he said, “I saw the face of an angel talking with Lord. Do you know that there are angels among you? " " What angels? " said the warden in surprise. The visitor then pointed to Ferapont, who was coming out of the Church at that moment.

The monks also tell that, when monk Ferapont completed the monastic prayers with a “five hundred” (500 repetitions of the Jesus prayer), not an obligatory one for an inok, he then would still pray for a long time at night. One of his fellow brothers had decided to count how many bows he made during one night. The cell was divided by a curtain, and monk Ferapont was praying in the corner, having thrown a sheepskin coat on a floor in front of the analoy. His cellmate was counting and counting the bows, and while counting has fallen asleep.

The hierodeacon who lived with Ferapont in the cell related that before the death of Ferapont, he did not sleep at all, praying all the night and found rest while bending over a chair. Moreover during all of Passion Week he did not eat a bite.

After he was murdered a letter was found in his pocket. It said that "if help is needed, I shall be glad to give a hand". It is not known yet to whom this letter was addressed.

Source: http://www.pravmir.com/article_127.html

Jerusalem. Archaeologists say they are stunned with the discovery of a “magnificent and untouched” burial chamber in the ancient city of Megiddo known from the Bible.

National Geographic states that the extraordinary discovery may provide some insight into the royal dynasty that ruled that region to the South from Haifa (present day Israel) before its conquest by Egypt in the early 15th century B.C.

For about 5000 years, since 3000 B.C. to 1918, Megiddo was an important strategic point for international military and trade routes.

Megiddo is mentioned in the Revelation of John the Theologian 16:16 as the place called “Armageddon”, which comes from Har-Megiddo, or 'Hill of Megiddo'.

Archaeologists state that they have discovered the chamber of the 15^th century B.C. – the period when Megiddo was besieged for 7 months by the by the forces of the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III. The city surrendered, and Thutmose III turned Canaan into a province of his empire.

Israel Finkelstein and Mario Martin of Tel Aviv University and Matthew Adams of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeology, who have been conducting archaeological excavations there since 1994, discovered an underground corridor near the palaces of the bronze age in 2016.

The discovered chamber contained the remains of three people — a man, a woman and a child —adorned with delicate gold and silver jewelry. The male body had been crowned with a gold diadem, which proves a high level of the local craftspeople’s skill.

“We are speaking of an elite family burial because of the monumentality of the building itself, the findings are rich and because of the fact that the burial is located close to the royal palace,” – Finkelstein explains.

Moreover, in addition to the three individual burials, archaeologists found other human remains that had been interred at an earlier point according to the burial traditions of that region.

Melissa Cradic, an excavation team member, said that the condition of the three found bodies in comparison with the others that had been removed, makes sure that they were especially important.

The DNA study of the bodies found in Megiddo is supposed to define whether the common citizens of the Canaanite city were of the same background as the royal ones.

The results of the study can change the perception of the Canaanite population, since scientists assume foe a long time that the hurrians, the mountain people, that appeared in that region in 3000-4000 B.C., could play an important role in the building of the first cities in the Middle East.

“These studies can just revolutionize everything we know about the population of Canaan," - says Finkelstein

Source: http://www.sedmitza.ru/text/7947946.html

The sound of the world around us generally qualifies as little more than noise. Almost nothing advertises itself as unimportant or something to be attended to later. The insistent cries of everything often raise the demands for our attention to a deafening pitch. “Do this! Read this! Buy this! Remember this! Believe this!” The world constantly presents itself to us as though it were teetering on the apocalyptic brink of disaster – with the added note that our attention to the pending disaster will make a difference.

This is noise.

The world indeed teeters on the brink of an apocalypse, but not the one it fears. Its history has a direction but not of its own choosing. The coming apocalypse is silence.

The word “apocalypse” (from the Greek) means “revelation,” bringing into plain sight what had before been hidden. The Christian faith is, from beginning to end, apocalyptic in nature. It is always a bringing forth of hidden things. Very often the most important thing in the world is nearly invisible to everyone around: the birth of a child in a village in Palestine, the lonely execution of an itinerate preacher, an empty tomb that puzzles a city. Jesus is not what anyone expected. The entirety of His life is only understood after the fact, in the light of revelation.

On the morning of the resurrection, certain women felt that the most pressing thing in the world was to purchase additional spices and myrrh to give a more careful treatment to the dead body of their most beloved friend. It seemed so important that they started out “very early in the morning.” It was the first day of the week, a day for business. It was a day for opening shops and arranging goods. Some spice merchant in Jerusalem rejoiced over the first-thing-in-the-morning visit of some grieving women, virtually cleaning out his shop. Grief makes such great customers!

Everybody was rising for the day, with roosters crowing here and there, without significance.

In the tomb was silence.

The tomb was silent because nobody was there, except a stray angel or two. And into the silence were spoken words that made the noise of creation to pass into nothing: “He is not here. He is risen.”

After this, the women cannot hear anything of the noise. The angry words of a passing stranger go unnoticed. The merchants in their stalls along the souk calling out their wares are mute. For the women, the world has become silent. The apocalypse of the truth has the exclusive care of their attention. Only one thing is needful.

Nothing in the world has changed since then. The insistent noise of the merchants cries out and the impending disasters forecast by kings and criminals warn that an apocalypse is just around the corner. But all of this noise takes place in the silence of the true apocalypse. It is just noise. The silent Stillness of eternity has already entered the world. His first words continue to speak: “Peace be with you.”

Only one thing is needed.

This is Silence.

By Fr. Stephen Freeman

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/10/12/a-quiet-apocalypse/

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