Posted on 04/15/2022 7:37:48 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
I'm not even sure you'd define "approved by the Church". I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Church of the East all have different lists of which relics have been "approved" by each of them as the "true cross".
Putin used to hang with some Orthodox mystic who did weird consecrations on his planes, offices, meeting rooms etc.
I’ve read he is very “religious” and symbolism is real to him.
Whether the story is true or not, it sounds like something he’d convince his peasant 50-IQish conscripts to believe.
My guess....NONE
A piece of wood isn’t going to save anyone. Nice try.
These pathetic attempts by the PUtinists to garner sympathy for Russia are disgusting and also sad.
SACRALIGE!! Everyone knows Russian warships always carry holy relics. Those dastardly Ukrainians!
—”No problem. They can get new pieces of the True Cross on ebay.”
I didn’t want to make any jokes on this one, but that was just right.
As an M.S. Lutheran, I’m slightly different than my Catholic friends.
A friend’s elderly parents took great joy in visiting other Catholic churches and they invited me to go to some shindig with a Bishop! (you address him as Your Excellency).
They took us to an inner sanctum and showed us their relics in heavy glass cases.
A beautiful church and my friend’s parents beamed with delight.
There are so many fragments of the true cross that someone could build their own forest . . .
Elon Musk did not seed the U.S. with America-hating prosecutors, Soros did that!
Another Kursk like salvage operation coming?
—”Maybe the long lost amber room was on board too.”
There are nonpublic amber rooms in the Kremlin, not lost.
A late friend with an unusual background; a career Military Intelligence Officer, who spoke fluent Russian retired and then worked for a megabank assigned to London... but spent years in Moscow working directly with all the top Russians, his job was to translate between the bank CEO team and the Russian team. and had photos, also of his personal tour of a nonpublic Kremlin amber room with Yelstin and others.
At his funeral, a mutual friend that was executor of the estate, casually said, “you knew he was a spy”.
I had never thought of it, slow yes, but it all clicked into place.
When younger he looked more than a bit like Putin.
My question—where was the admiral? The Captain? Shouldn’t they have been on the ship when it went down? Isn’t that the tradition of the sea—Go down with your ship. 400 sailors went down on that burning hulk—why were any officers not in their complement? If he had himself saved and his men not—he should be arrested—and if he was incompetent—he should face the full wrath of Putin. Send him to the back room with a pistol and promise him a good funeral, encourage him to “Do a Rommel” for his family and the state.
“That makes it sound like you prefer random Ebay postings to even an attempt at verification.”
Not at all. They didn’t have Ebay back in the 1950s and early 1960s when there were claims all over the place of pieces of the cross. Even one of our priests said that the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria could be rebuilt with less wood than that.
But the only verification the Vatican has is, well... the Vatican said so. I’m Catholic, but papal infallibility does not make something fact that isn’t. I mean, for centuries the Church branded as heretics anyone who thought the sun revolved around the earth, instead of the reverse. And the punishment for heresy? Not pleasant.
“Yup, sounds like a personal problem.”
Because I dare to THINK? Am I now John Scopes, and you William Jennings Bryan?
“Have a blessed Good Friday.”
Thank you; I will. I wish the same for you.
Pieces of the true cross - and a bunch of nukes... Salvage operations should be interesting.
Interesting timing....right here at Easter and all.
See post #26.
Now you’re moving the goalposts.
You were the one who brought up eBay.
And you left the original question unanswered.
About even an attempt at verification.
Part of the issue is that forensics we’re not highly developed until the last couple of hundred years, along with technology; inaccurate claims therefore do not necessarily mean deliberate fraud.
Nor does the presence of counterfeits mean there is no such real thing.
“Now you’re moving the goalposts. You were the one who brought up eBay.”
No, I did not. It was fidelis who first mentioned EBay. I responded accordingly.
“And you left the original question unanswered. About even an attempt at verification.”
Tradition is not verification. And there has been no scientific evidence at all to support a claim that any of the pieces, or relics, are the true cross. Hell, it was not mentioned in the New Testament, and no one even made a claim about the cross until more than two hundred years after the last evangelist, John, died; and that was just hearsay (a noblewoman allegedly said she found three crosses together, and one had the Christus inscription, and many years later some “historians” recounted the story...and, voila!). Aside from whether or not her story is even true, no physical evidence at all has been brought forth to support it.
Fake “relics” were and are not unusual, as they can be rewarding. Not too long ago a piece of the “true” cross was analyzed scientifically and it was determined that it was a thousand years younger then the cross would have been (in other words, it dated to around the year 1,000 AD).
Belief is based on faith, and faith can be a wonderful thing; but faith alone is a two-edged sword, and how it pans out can end up cutting one very deeply.
Indeed, if one needs relics or old pieces of discarded refuse to support their belief, then their faith is not very strong.
“Now you’re moving the goalposts. You were the one who brought up eBay.”
No, it WAS you who first mentioned EBay!
Your Post #38: “That makes it sound like you prefer random Ebay postings to even an attempt at verification.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.