Posted on 11/03/2015 12:52:49 PM PST by Trumpinator
'It's a whole other world': religious pilgrims venture deep into Alaska forest
Pilgrims from as far as Russia descend up the small town of Kodiak to honor a Russian Orthodox saint who lived and died in the archipelago centuries ago
Celeste Englehardt has traveled all over the world to pray.
A Russian Orthodox Christian from Washington, DC’s Virginia suburbs, Englehardt’s faith has taken her to Jerusalem, Ukraine, Moldova – even to the ruins of ancient Orthodox monasteries in Ireland. And now an island in Alaska’s Kodiak Archipelago is among the holy sites she has visited.
“Sometimes you can’t describe things,†Englehardt said, sitting on a beached log on Spruce Island in the Gulf of Alaska, choking back tears. “Because you feel it in your heart and your soul, and there’s a peace. There’s a peace beyond understanding.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The Czarist Russian Orthodox conquest of the natives of Siberia and Alaska seems to have converted them on a spiritual level without destroying their native culture (I mean how they dressed, what language they spoke, etc). I think it is ingrained in Orthodoxy to try and convert on a national basis as they did the Slavs by meeting them in their culture and in their language.
I have always been bothered at seeing pictures of American natives in Protestant schools forced to wear "western" clothing - they just look unnatural on the Indians in those pictures.
My folks were Huguenots, run out of France on a rail;
ended up in England, sailed to America, had lots of
kids, got land grants which diluted with kids.
The Huguenots & the Catholics didn’t gee & haw all
that well. - Named “Maupins”; first came to
Williamsburg - fought a revolution.
Save Thy people, O Lord,
and bless Thine inheritance.
Grant victory to Thy Church over her enemies,
and protect Thy people by Thy Holy Cross!
“The Czarist Russian Orthodox conquest of the natives of Siberia and Alaska seems to have converted them on a spiritual level without destroying their native culture (I mean how they dressed, what language they spoke, etc). I think it is ingrained in Orthodoxy to try and convert on a national basis as they did the Slavs by meeting them in their culture and in their language.”
This is precisely the Orthodox way. Here in America we have many, many ethnicities in our parishes, something which has developed pretty much since I was a child. Back then, my parish was likely 90% Greek, with a few convert spouses and the rest Syrians. I thought Syria was part of Greece! Today we are a Pan-Orthodox parish. To drive that point home, mostly to new members, we recite the Our Father in Greek, Ukrainian, Church Slavonic, 2 Ethiopian dialects (Ge’ez and Amharic), Arabic, French, Hungarian and English. Believe it or not, it doesn’t add that much time to the liturgy.
For the children, the immigrants and the American converts it’s a real lesson in the universality of The Faith and The Church.
“Scotland is an easy one. The bones of St. Andrew were taken there from the Eastern Roman empire and this Christian link in Scotland is unequivocally Orthodox in origin.”
In those days, The Church, the whole One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church throughout the entire world was Orthodox.
The feast of +Andrew, The First Called, is November 30. The local Roman Catholic community will be joining us, with their priests, to celebrate the vespers of his feast day at our parish. The next day, we will celebrate with them! We have done this on August 15th also. Frankly, it’s great!
I am a Westerner by background, so St. Sebastian is our own “special” Saint!!!!
That is besides my two Patron Saints, of course!!!!
If that is an ordinary Sunday Pascha must seem like Pentecost what with the Paschal Greeting and Troparion in a multitude of languages.
The Feast is the marker for determining the beginning of Western Advent. The First Sunday of Advent is the Sunday closest to the Feast.
Yes, that also happens to be the fourth Sunday before Christmas.
--The Troparion of St. Herman of Alaska (Tone 4)
Odd then that the Normans had to forcibly reduce the Church throughout the British Isles to papal rule, and only at that time did the filioque come to be used in Britain and Ireland.
“Yes, that also happens to be the fourth Sunday before Christmas.”
I did not know that.
I know. But they were Catholic. Just as any Russian monastery before 1054 (and many would argue afterward too) were Catholic. There never was a formal (1054) schism between the West and Rus. Hence, the ohilosophy of Vladimir Soloviev and the Russian Orthodox Church in Communion with Rome.
Our little mission has a similar custom — the Our Father is recited in as many languages as there are those present who customarily pray in that language. Typically we have Greek, Arabic, Romanian and English, sometimes Russian. We’ve gotten up to six on a few occasions with Russian and (on different occasions) Serbian, Spanish and Georgian.
“...and the book stated the Irish monks and the Gaelic church were pretty much converted from Egyptian (though I can see why some call it Coptic) Christians.”
And we know that’s false. St. Patrick was not Egyptian. He also was not commissioned by the Egyptians.
“The story of the conversion of at least a part of Scotland by Alexandrian monks is very ancient and likely very true.”
They were Catholic.
“They were Catholic.”
Yup. Just like me, Vlad.
Your history is wrong. In 1054, and more importantly 1009 or 1014 when Rome was dropped from the Diptychs of the Great Church of Constantinople, the Russian church was still subject to Constantinople.
Actually, the Russians were even more steadfast in their rejection the papacy and the filioque than were those inside the Empire. While the Emperors at Constantinople were toying with reunion in the vain hope of Western military aid against the Turks, the Rus were militarily resisting attempts to reduce the Russian Church to papal rule (St. Aleksandr Nevsky, pray for us!). Isidore was turfed out as a heretic upon his return from the False Union Council of Florence/Ferrar and went back to Rome to end his days as a Cardinal, and Russian autocephaly was functionally seized with the Russian rejection of Florence/Ferrar, since it was from that time that Russia ceased to seek approval from the (unionist) Church of Constantinople for the election of her hierarch, and recognized by the mother church of Constantinople only after the end of imperially sponsored unionism with the fall of the City to the Turks.
“Odd then that the Normans had to forcibly reduce the Church throughout the British Isles to papal rule, and only at that time did the filioque come to be used in Britain and Ireland.”
False. That is an overblown myth. First of all, if it were true, then no Anglo-Saxon priest or prelate would have remained in authority, but some did. By 1087, eleven of fifteen bishops were Norman, and only one of the other four was English - but he remained because he was a reformer - as were the Normans. The reform movement in question is usually called the “Gregorian Reform Movement” but it actually began decades BEFORE Pope Gregory VII became pope. Thus, when Gregory VII wanted to enforce canon law rigidly so as to oblige the clergy to adopt ascetic standards of conduct, and the English Church largely lacked the disciplinary machinery to make that happen, the Normans could supply it because they were already doing it in Normandy. Celibacy and anti-simony measures were also important. The Norman Bishop Lanfranc introduced Gregorian reforms into the English Church. He held national Church councils in London (in 1075) and Winchester (in 1076), where canons were passed to enforce clerical celibacy. Lanfranc also looked to the material conditions of the English Church, initiating the rebuilding of the cathedrals at Canterbury, York which may not have been fully retored from the time it was heavily damaged in a fire decades earlier and then further damaged by fire in 1067.
By the way, although Bishop Lanfranc adopted many of the Gregorian Reforms, he did not oppose the king’s power over the Church in England despite the fact Gregory had urged him to do so. As Lanfranc wrote to Pope Gregory in 1080: “If with God’s help I were ever able to speak with you in person, I should demonstrate by events themselves as much as by words that my devotion has increased whereas you (if it may be said with respect) have declined somewhat from your original cordiality.”
So, in short, things were far more complicated than you let on - which is no surprise. Perhaps you should read a book on the subject? Have you ever read any at all on it? Even one?
“...and only at that time did the filioque come to be used in Britain and Ireland.”
No. Filioque was introduced into England BY A GREEK (named Theodore of Tarsus who lived from 602-690 and was the Archbishop of Canterbury) He presided over the the Council of Hatfield in 680 where he introduced the filioque as a response to Monothelitism.
Did you know any of that? It pays to read books. If you don’t believe what I just said about the filioque being introduced into England in 680 BY A GREEK, then you might want to read The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, by A. Edward Siecienski, page 88.
“Your history is wrong.”
Really? So the Council of Hatfield was not presided over by a Greek bishop named Theodore of Tarsus who introduced filioque into England at that council in 680?
Honestly, you were so wrong, that you can’t possibly say to me “Your history is wrong” about anything.
“Actually, the Russians were even more steadfast in their rejection the papacy and the filioque than were those inside the Empire.”
Um...you might want to read another book: this one: http://www.strobertbellarmine.net/books/Solovyev—Russia_Universal_Church.pdf
Remember, Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, WAS A GREEK, and he introduced filioque into England in 680.
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