Free Republic

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Echoes of our own dissenters can be heard in the Holy Mountain. Folks, for the last few days I've been tracking several news streams regarding the eviction of a number of monks from the ancient Esphigmenou monastery, located in the monastic republic of Mount Athos—also known as the "Holy Mountain"—in Northern Greece. Most Orthodox Christians see the monks residing in the various Athonite monasteries the theological trend-setters of their communion. BackgroundThe current dispute centers on ecumenism. The current residents of the Ephigmenou monastery refuse to recognize the Orthodox-Catholic rapprochement, of which the late visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Patriarch...

THE SEVEN MACCABEES, THEIR MOTHER SOLOMONIA AND ELEAZAR THE PRIEST They all suffered for the purity of the faith of Israel under King Antiochus, called by some "Epiphanos," the "enlightened one" and by others "Epimanis" the "insane one." Because of the great sins in Jerusalem and especially the vying over priestly authority and crimes committed during the occasion of this struggle, God permitted a great calamity on the Holy City. After that, Antiochus wanted by any means to impose upon the Jews the idolatry of the Hellenes in place of their faith in the one living God and he did...