Orthodixie

Let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us – Psalm 89:17.

This is the cry of the Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses (who wrote this Psalm some 500 years before King David), born of his experience at the burning bush and in communion with God on the top of Mt. Sinai- during which the brightness of the Lord shown upon him and caused his face to glow with the uncreated light.

It is a cry fulfilled in the Holy Transfiguration of our Savior on Mt. Tabor when Moses beheld the divine majesty of the Theanthropos, the God-Man, Jesus Christ. This is the light that illumines the soul in baptism, and that we confess to have beheld every divine liturgy when we sing, “We have seen the true light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity Who has saved us.”

It is the light to which we advance and which we hope to behold and be filled with for all eternity in God’s heavenly kingdom. “Let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us.”

Thanks to FWD from Fr Josiah Trenham.

Where’s Flip Wilson when we need him?

“Talk of the Devil has been brushed under the carpet in our churches in recent times. Once an essential feature of any decent sermon, Satan is now seen as an embarrassing reminder of the Church’s superstitious past …”

MORE.

HT NewsForum

A rrrgh!

(Sorry ’bout that. I have no idea how that got on here!)

Mr Crouch sure makes a lot of sense … would that the Devil (MTV and others — like, say, herself) would heed his words.

HT Drudge

Others agree.

Here’s why.

Meanwhile, from Russia there’s this:

Two-thirds of Russian men smoke, more vodka is consumed per capita here than anywhere else, and recent surveys have ranked Russians among the world’s most promiscuous people.

The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University wants to change all that. And time is of the essence.

A letter written this year by Patriarch Alexy II wishing the group a happy Easter hangs in the corridor. The Orthodox Church does not have any relations with the university …

Full story.

Finally, wanna see some good reporting on an Orthodox blog?

Go here: NOTESFROMACOMMONPLACEBOOK …
and read about traveling with St Ephraim!

We first met in Franklin, Tennessee in 1993. Mary and her husband, Conrad, were fellow Converts to Orthodoxy from the Episcopal Church. We once had lunch at an Italian restaurant and Conrad told us that he knew of two St Conrads. His favorite St Conrad story involved a spider. It seems that a spider was observed slinking down a thread from the ceiling and went into this Conrad’s drink. Conrad drank it — and lived! Everyone back then knew that you couldn’t swallow a spider and live! Therefore, he was a Saint. Conrad Stolzenbach had no idea if that saint was Orthodox, but he liked the story.

At the Missions and Evangelism Conference, fall of ’93, there were so many ex-Episcopalians at the Antiochian Village that we formed a group called the “Canterbury Club.” I don’t recall all the players, but Mary and Conrad were ring leaders. We all had our own Anglican War Stories and we were thrilled to be Orthodox.

Mary had been patiently taking care of Conrad lately: Alzheimer’s. She’d had some serious health scares of her own, only to receive better news. As Terry Mattingly mentions, it was most likely a fatal fall, a little over a week ago, that ended her life. Her funeral is today.
May the Lord rest her soul and comfort the family.

Mary and I had many arguments over the years. These were always ill matched because Mary’s intellect was far superior — with a biting wit. Some of these disagreements happened on various e-lists. We would often swap friendly private posts to each other while carrying on “badly” for public consumption. When Mary sided with you, you felt justified. When she was on the “other side,” well, you felt differently. And, I must admit, sometimes she would send me emails — or questions — that helped me to realize just how non-intellectual (aka dumb) I really am. But, like a good school teacher, you never doubted that she loved you.

I last saw Mary in the fall of 2003 when she, Conrad, and one of their sons stopped by on their way home from visiting her mother in the Carolinas. Back before the popularity of email, she and I used to correspond with snail-mail. But, like most, I knew her best “electronically.” She was omnipresent on the internet. She was a frequent Commenter on this blog — her last comments here were on this story, July 23rd, shortly before her fall.

I am stunned and saddened by her sudden passing. I cannot believe that there will be no more “Stolzi” on the internet. We’re all the worse for it. I can only with sorrow imagine the void now felt in her beloved parish, St Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Church, Franklin, Tennessee.

At Stolzi’s request, the family has requested donations to the Alzheimer’s Association, in honor of Conrad Stolzenbach and his care giver, Mary.

May her memory be eternal!

At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy on the Great Feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Tabor, the priest blesses grapes …

Why?

Here follows some answers …

The blessing of grapes, as well as other fruits and vegetables on this day is the most beautiful and adequate sign of the final transfiguration of all things in Christ. It signifies the ultimate flowering and fruitfulness of all creation in the paradise of God’s unending Kingdom of Life where all will he transformed by the glory of the Lord.
Source.

This is an ancient Christian custom. The first week of August, on the sixth of August, the farmers use to gather the early fruits of their summer harvest (grapes, figs etc.) and to present them in the Church to be blessed and to give them for free to congregation. These fruits are called the “beginnings”.

In a text from the 7th century (“the laws of the kingdom” by emperor Constantine Porfirogenitos) this custom is described vividly: “The Emperor of Constantinople gathers the “beginnings” (“aparches”) in Chalcedone, where there are many vines, and then he waits for the Patriarch of Constantinople to come on the the Holiday of Transfiguration, to bless the fruits and to personally hand out the grapes to the laymen”.

This custom is honored in many places in Greece where there are plantation with vines.

We must not forget that the Church was presented once as a “vine”. So, [the] Church blesses the first fruits of vine giving a “theological” meaning to farmer’s work.
Source.

In footnote 2 for Canon III of the Canons of the Apostles it says that, “during the festival of the Dormition…they used to offer bunches of grapes to the patriarch…at the end of the divine service. Today however [this is St Nikodemos Agiorite writing in the early 19th c] it is the prevailing custom in most regions for such grapes to be offered at the festival of the Transfiguration of the Saviour, and for them to be offered by the priest.”
Source.

A nun, Mother Evfrosinia adds …

However, as grapes do not ripen at the same time everywhere, the Church adapted this tradition in various ways. In some places in the Holy Land, for instance, grapes are blessed on the feast of the prophet Elijah. In Russia, where grapes were not always readily available, apples were more commonly blessed, and Transfiguration is known as “Yablochny Spas”, “the Apple Feast of the Saviour”. In northern Russia, where even apples weren’t ripe by August 6/19, it was traditional to bless peas. Nowadays, when you can buy any sort of fruit or vegetable year round, we’ve lost the sense of getting a blessing to partake of the first fruits. But we can still try to keep to the spirit of this tradition. In our monastery we bless all sorts of fruit on Transfiguration, but we abstain only from grapes, taking care not to eat grapes of the new harvest until the feast, in keeping with the ancient monastic practise.
Source.

In addition, the blessing of grapes, that is specifically mentioned liturgically, is an allusion to the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist, the New Wine that is Christ’s Blood that nourishes us spiritually. The liturgical prayers also refer to Christ Himself as the “Divine Cluster” attached to the Cross from which “Drips the Mystic Wine.”
Source.

Some ancient Typicons prescribe the blessing of fruit of the vine (grapes), not on the feast of the Transfiguration, but on the feast of the Dormition. In the Greek Nicolo-Casulan Typicon of the twelfth-thirteenth century, we read: “Let it be known that, on the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, the 15th of August, grapes are blessed and eaten in church after the Divine Liturgy according to an ancient tradition.” The Typicon of Sinai of the year 1214 contains the same prescription. Similarly, the Typicons of the Lavra of St. Athanasius on Athos prescribes the blessing of grapes on the 15th of August. We have the custom of blessing flowers on the feast of the Dormition.
Source.

Finally, the late Bishop Alexander …

It is the tradition of the Day of Transfiguration to consecrate grapes, apples and other fruit after the Divine Liturgy. The custom of bringing fruit to the temple for consecration originates in the Old Testament time (Gen 4:2-4; Ex 13:12-13; Num 15:19-21; Deut 8:10-14). The Apostles brought this tradition to the Church of the New Testament (1 Cor 16:1-2). Instruction regarding bringing fruit to temple is found in the Third Rule of the Apostolic Canon, the earliest collection of ecclesiastic laws (canons), known since the second century. In Greece, August is the month of ripeness of fruit, mostly grapes and new ears of corn. Since old time, the faithful have been bringing them to temple for consecration and as Thanksgiving to God. St. John Chrysostom wrote, “Plowman receives fruit from the earth not so much for his labour and diligence, as out of goodness of God Who grows this fruit, because neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.”

Grapes are brought to temple because they are directly related to the Eucharistic sacrament; that is why in the prayer for consecration of grapes the priest says, “Bless, Lord, this new fruit of vine which reached ripeness because Thou kindly provided good weather, drops of rain and stillness. Let eating this fruit of vine make us joyful. And give us the honor of offering this fruit to Thee, as the gift of purging of sins, altogether with the Holy Body of Thy Christ.”

In the first centuries of Christianity, the faithful brought forth to the temple the fruit and crops of the new harvest: bread, wine, oil, incense, wax, honey etc. Of all these offerings, only bread, wine, incense, oil and wax were taken to the altar, while the rest was used for the needs of the clergy and the poor whom the church was caring for. These offerings were to express gratitude to God for all goods, but at the same time help servants of God and people in need. Until today, consecration of bread and wine, eggs and milk and other food has been kept in consecration of artos in the church and meals at home on Easter. Consecration of flowers and tree branches is performed now on Palm Sunday, the days of the Holy Trinity and Exaltation of the Cross, and on Sunday of the week of the Veneration of the Cross. Rice with rasins and honey are used as offerings in services for the dead and remembrance repast. Prosphoros are brought forth for proskomide everywhere even today.
Source.

Remember when sane people used to say things like this …

“This is not the first year that this lady has been mixing singing about human passions with Christian symbols – crosses, statues of the Virgin, beads, and now it’s self-crucifixion. This means the singer needs spiritual assistance,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the External Church Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, told Interfax.

“It appears that, by this interest in Christian symbolism, an interest more than strange, the singer seeks to justify her own passions and solve her own internal problems,” Chaplin said.

Brief story.