23 August ~ St. Ebba

Posted on by Fr. Peter
St. Ebba (in English St. Tabbs) Virgin & Abbess August 25, A.D. 683 She was sister to St. Oswald and Oswi, kings of the Northumbers, and, assisted by the liberality of the latter, founded a nunnery upon the Darwent, in the bishopric of Durham, called from her Ebchester; also a double separate monastery at Coldingham in the marshes, now in Scotland, below Berwick. This latter house of nuns she governed herself till she was called to eternal bliss in 683.

Silence

Posted on by Fr. Peter
A good friend from California e-mailed me yesterday to remind me that I had not posted for six days and was I okay or away or something. Well here I am still here and toiling in the fields. This has been a busy week with parish meetings and the like. With the fall of the year fast approaching the meeting season begins again. Monday night we had a very productive parish council meeting and last night the religious education committee met and we planned the first half of the year. Good to have that done.
Sunday we have a baptism. That will be the first one in maybe a year and a half. I need to brush up on the rubrics of this one so I don’t drown the kid. That would not be good. We had planned it for some months ago but the God Mother was sick and we wanted to wait until she got better. Praise the Lord she did.
Next week I have a wedding. Now this is no small miracle here. I have only done one before and that was right after I came here. If you are familiar at all with the Orthodox Wedding service you know how involved it is. Crowns, movements, singing, incense, and all that stuff. I need to read up on that as well.
Yesterday I had the guys from the fire house bring the big ladder truck to try and remove the cross on the front of the church. It has been up there for years and needs some restoration work done. Well up they went, we did not have the right tools, and then… the alarm sounded and they had to go. So we will try again. I had my camera but did not have time to take any snaps. Next time for sure.
My Cantor has been away and we have had some subs in. They did a good job, but it will be nice to have him back and get back to a routine. He was visiting family in Romania so I await stories of his trip home. Maybe he brought me something nice. A new set of vestments perhaps?
So today I am blessing a new house. Before that lunch with an old friend and tonight a meeting at the Fire House.
I better get started…

Russian Church to Annually Honor early British Saints.

Posted on by Fr. Peter
MOSCOW. Aug 21 (Interfax) – The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church instituted a holiday to honor Christians who lived on the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and were canonized before the 1054 schism that divided Christendom into the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
The holiday will be an annual event observed on the third Sunday after Pentecost in the Julian Calendar.
The Synod, which met on Tuesday, also ordered that these saints’ names be included in the Menology after their Christian exploits have been studied.
The Synod’s decision follows an appeal of March 3, 2007, in which the diocese of Sourozh, a Russian Orthodox Church diocese having the islands of Great Britain and Ireland for its territory, asked the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, and its Holy Synod to institute a holiday for pre-1054 British and Irish saints.
A tip of my Skoufia to Fr. Joseph for this informaiton.

16 August ~ St. Roch

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Born at Montpellier towards 1295; died 1327. His father was governor of that city. At his birth St. Roch is said to have been found miraculously marked on the breast with a red cross. Deprived of his parents when about twenty years old, he distributed his fortune among the poor, handed over to his uncle the government of Montpellier, and in the disguise of a mendicant pilgrim, set out for Italy, but stopped at Aquapendente, which was stricken by the plague, and devoted himself to the plague-stricken, curing them with the sign of the cross. He next visited Cesena and other neighbouring cities and then Rome. Everywhere the terrible scourge disappeared before his miraculous power. He visited Mantua, Modena, Parma, and other cities with the same results. At Piacenza, he himself was stricken with the plague. He withdrew to a hut in the neighbouring forest, where his wants were supplied by a gentleman named Gothard, who by a miracle learned the place of his retreat. After his recovery Roch returned to France. Arriving at Montpellier and refusing to disclose his identity, he was taken for a spy in the disguise of a pilgrim, and cast into prison by order of the governor, — his own uncle, some writers say, — where five years later he died. The miraculous cross on his breast as well as a document found in his possession now served for his identification. He was accordingly given a public funeral, and numerous miracles attested his sanctity.

In 1414, during the Council of Constance, the plague having broken out in that city, the Fathers of the Council ordered public prayers and processions in honour of the saint, and immediately the plague ceased. His relics, according to Wadding, were carried furtively to Venice in 1485, where they are still venerated. It is commonly held that he belonged to the Third Order of St. Francis; but it cannot be proved. Wadding leaves it an open question. Urban VIII approved the ecclesiastical office to be recited on his feast (16 August). Paul III instituted a confraternity, under the invocation of the saint, to have charge of the church and hospital erected during the pontificate of Alexander VI. The confraternity increased so rapidly that Paul IV raised it to an archconfraternity, with powers to aggregate similar confraternities of St. Roch. It was given a cardinal-protector, and a prelate of high rank was to be its immediate superior (see Reg. et Const. Societatis S. Rochi). Various favours have been bestowed on it by Pius IV (C. Regimini, 7 March, 1561), by Gregory XIII (C. dated 5 January, 1577), by Gregory XIV (C. Paternar. pont., 7 March, 1591), and by other pontiffs. It still flourishes.

(From the Catholic Encyclopedia)

Dormition

Posted on by Fr. Peter

Troparion of the Dormition (Tone 1)

In giving birth, you have preserved your virginity; and in fallin asleep, you did not forsake the world, O Mother of God. You have passed to life, being the Mother of Life. Through your intercession, save our souls from death.

Kontakion of the Dormition (Tone 2)

Neither death nor the tomb, could hold the Mother of God, our watchful protectress and our unfailing hope. Since she is the Mother of Life, Christ who dwelt in her ever-virginal womb lifted her up to the eternal life.

11 August ~ St. Blane

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Bishop and Confessor in Scotland, b. on the island of Bute, date unknown; d. 590. His feast is kept on 10 August. He was a nephew of St. Cathan, and was educated in Ireland under Sts. Comgall and Kenneth; he became a monk, went to Scotland, and eventually was bishop among the Picts. Several miracles are related of him, among them the restoration of a dead boy to life. The Aberdeen Breviary gives these and other details of the saint’s life, which are rejected however, by the Bollandists. There can be no doubt that devotion to St. Blane was, from early times, popular in Scotland. His monastery became the site of the Cathedral of Dunblane. There was a church of St. Blane in Dumfries and another at Kilblane. The year of the saint’s death is variously given as 446, 590, and 1000; 446 (Butler, Lives of the Saints) is evidently incorrect; the date 1000, found in Adam King, “Kalendar of Scottish Saints” (Paris, 1588), in Dempster, “Menologium Scotorum” (Bonn, 1622), and in the “Acta SS.”, seems to have crept in by confusing St. Kenneth, whose disciple Blane was, with a Kenneth who was King of Scotland about A.D. 1000. The highest authorities say the saint died 590. The ruins of his church at Kingarth, Bute, where his remains were buried, are still standing and form an object of great interest to antiquarians; the bell of his monastery is preserved at Dunblane.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia

Bartolomeu Anania: Let the Church elect its own Patriarch!

Posted on by Fr. Peter
Metropolitan Bishop of Cluj, Alba, Crisana and Maramures says the most important thing is that the future head of the Church should not be someone who could be blackmailed.

published in issue 3994 page 2 at 2007-08-10 Nine O’Clock

BUCHAREST – In an interview granted yesterday to Mediafax news agency, the Metropolitan Bishop of Cluj, Bartolomeu Anania, called on political forces to refrain from becoming involved in any way in the election of the future Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR) scheduled on September 12. He stated that all political forces, ‘either overt or covert, must respect the right and freedom of the Church of electing its patriarch even if a candidate might seek their support’. The central media speculated extensively, after the death of Patriarch Teoctist, on the involvement of both the political factor and of the Free Masonry in the election of the following head of the Church. As far as he is concerned, Anania says he has no intention to run for the position as it ahs been suggested in the media, ‘because the nonagenarian patriarch who dies should not be replaced by an octogenarian’.

Doing the sketch of the future patriarch, Anania thinks it is essential ‘that he should not be subject to blackmail, either morally or politically-socially, or haunted by the secret of collaboration with covert organizations or structures, including intelligence agencies’. Apart from the ‘clean biography, without vices or covert affiliations’, in Anania’s opinion the in-coming patriarch must show ‘ecclesial dignity, missionarism and management skills’. Even if for the time being there is no official list of possible candidates, but with the press presenting Daniel – Metropolitan Bishop of Moldavia, and Teofan, Metropolitan Bishop of Oltenia, as favourites, Bartolomeu Anania did not say if either matched his description. The Metropolitan Bishop of Cluj added in his interview that, within the Holy Synod, he would act according to his statutory prerogative as far as the selection of the candidates is concerned.

Dinescu reported to CNSAS

The Patriarchy yesterday reported Mircea Dinescu, member of the College of the National Council for the Study of the Former Securitate Archives (CNSAS), to CNSAS, complaining about his statements published by the ‘Cotidianul’ daily suggesting that the former Metropolitan Bishop of Ardeal, Nicolae Plamadeala who had died two years before, had worked for the former Securitate (former political police of the communist regime) and had asked Nicolae Ceausescu to upgrade him from colonel to general. ‘There is a letter written by Plamadeala to Ceausescu where, on August 23, he was asking that eh should be upgraded to general for he had spent enough time as a colonel’ Dinescu stated for the ‘Cotidianul’.

The statement was made in the general context created after the CNSAS College had announced, on Tuesday, that it would check the files of the BOR heads who would run for the position of patriarch.

According to the representatives of the Patriarchy, Dinescu’s statements are incompatible with his membership of the CNSAS College. ‘The publication of data or information from the files that is not true, that undermines the life, dignity, honour or reputation of an individual, is a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment’ reads a communiqué issued by the Patriarchy yesterday. The Romanian Patriarchy wants to put off indefinitely the exposure of the clergy who collaborated with the former Securitate instead of sorting out the matter before electing the new patriarch, Mircea Dinescu stated for Rompres on Thursday, replying to BOR’s accusation. ‘My statements are not state secrets. The reason we are at CNSAS is to expose the former Securitate collaborators and I am doing the job for which I was sent there’ said Dinescu. He added that the Patriarchy people should mind ‘the ranks in their own backyard’ and start attending widows and orphans instead.

The collaboration with the former Securitate of priests or high-ranking clergy members is however a delicate issue to BOR. According to NewsIn cited by Realitatea TV, the best known case is Nicolae Corneanu, Metropolitan Bishop of Banat, who, immediately after the Revolution, in 19900, admitted to having been a collaborationist. Last August, Teodosie Tomitanul also admitted to having signed a commitment to the Securitate, but said that it only applied to major state issues.

Last year, the Bishop of Alba Iulia, Andrei Andreicut, stated that he had signed a similar paper but under the threat of imprisonment. Suspicions also exist in the case of Bartolomeu Anania himself and of Teoctist’s predecessor, Patriarch Iustin Moisescu. Ioan Mihai Pacepa, former chief of the Communist espionage, said that Anania used to be a covert agent of the Foreign Intelligence Department, according to Realitatea TV.

by Dan Sapos

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