Culture

The medieval monastery of Ayia Napa is turning into a museum

The medieval monastery of Ayia Napa is turning into a museum. According to the Cypriot newspaper “Politis“, Metropolitan Vasilios of Constantia and Ammochostos, on the occasion of the signing of construction contracts, stressed that in about a year it is expected that the museum will be able to host its first visitors.

Sacred Serbia

I’ve been to Serbia before, but only for a few brief visits. I must admit that I knew about the distinctive local flavor of this Balkan country and the idiosyncrasy of its people mostly from the movies of Emir Kusturica, the world renown Serbian filmmaker. His imaginative work is often based on organically intertwined manifestations of human nature, such as birth and death, happiness and sadness, faith and superstition, mercy and cruelty. Kusturica’s movies truthfully capture the broadness of the Serbian soul. Perhaps, that is what makes us Russians so close to the Serbs?

Ukraine cancels citizenship, deports bishop as he returns from speaking to US Congress about persecution in Ukraine

His Grace Bishop Gideon (Kharon) of Makarov, the abbot of the persecuted Monastery of the Tithes in Kiev, has been deported to America, his Ukrainian citizenship canceled.

Meeting with US Congressmen

Bp. Gideon was, in fact, just returning from a trip to America where he spoke to members of Congress about the persecutions the Ukrainian hierarchy, clergy, and faithful are experiencing now at the hands of schismatics and nationalists. His Grace also holds US citizenship.

Sermon for the Three Hierarchs

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today, we celebrate the Feast of the Great Patrons of all Seminarians throughout the world: St. Basil the Great, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Gregory the Theologian. These three Saints not only had a profound knowledge of the deep mysteries of God but also were granted tremendous ability to elucidate these mysteries to us with utmost clarity, teaching us by their words and their deeds. All three of these Saints had an amazing grasp of the things of heaven and also of the created world, using philosophy, science and other fields of secular learning to build up the Church and eloquently convey the Truth, thereby showing us that a balanced well-rounded education is not to be disdained but rather is to be used for the glorification of God, the spreading of the Gospel, and is to be sanctified by Christ through prayer, ascesis, humility and submission to the Church and to God-ordained authority.

Saint Sava Academy in Karlovac

After three decades, Saint Sava Academy held in Karlovac, Croatia

With the blessing of His Grace Bishop Gerasim of Gornji Karlovac and under auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church-school community in Karlovac and of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Republic of Serbia (The Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region), a solemn Saint Sava Academy was held in the great hall of the City theater “Zorin dom” in Karlovac on 26 January 2019.

Life of Our Holy Father Sava I

The Serbian Grand Zhupan (Patriarchal leader) Stephen Nemanja had two sons, Stephen and Vukan; yet, he and his wife Anna desired, if it be God's will, to have another child. Their pious prayers ascended before God, Who heard their petition and blessed them with their last child, a son who was born in the year of our Lord 1175.

At baptism the child was given the name Rastko, a name derived from the Old Slavonic verb "rasti" which means "to grow." And grow divinely he did. There were many special things about Rastko: he was a lovely child, with pronounced features and smooth skin, and possessed, already in his childhood, an unusually alert and pious demeanor. Little did Rastko's parents and all those of the Royal Court (and even the entire Serb nation) realize that his birth and baptism into Orthodoxy would providentially set in motion their own historical and spiritual journey, which would result in the blossoming of their Christian faith, nation hood and total Christian cultural orientation. This young child, Rastko, whose monastic name later was Sava, became and still remains the most beloved of all Serbian Orthodox saints, considered by all Serbs everywhere and at all times as the ultimate expression and example of what it means to be fully human, that is, what it means to be a devout and committed follower of Jesus Christ.