Orthodixie

I put my advanced copy of the new CD from Cappella Romana, Angelic Light – Music From Eastern Cathedrals, in the home stereo, unannounced, and let it play while the Mrs was cooking dinner. I’ve done such a thing before, often going unnoticed.

Not this time.

After a while, the wife said: “This is nice … who is it?”

Later, the high school senior (a vocal student at a Performing Arts school) came out of her room

Let me repeat: came out of her room

… and into the kitchen saying, “Dad? Who is this?”

So, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it; other than my playing it over and over in my car, that is my review.

Come up with your own!

Order or download HERE.

You can read a more substantive review HERE.

The new CD features:

As Many of You As Have Been Baptized

O Great and Most Sacred Pascha

Cherubic Hymn (in English Mode Plagal IV)

Communion Verse for Sundays

Cherubic Hymn

Great Entrance and Communion Hymn for Holy Thursday (Mode Plagal IV) — featured above

Communion Verse for Sundays (Mode Plagal I)

Now the Powers of Heaven

Cherubic Hymn (Special Melody: The Thief Beheld)

Let All Mortal Flesh

Megalynarion for Christmas

Ikos Six, from The Akáthistos Hymn

Kontakion of the Mother of God

O Tebe Raduyetsya

What Shall We Call You

Cherubic Hymn (in Greek, Mode Plagal IV)]]>

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Image thanks to Frank … the story, thanks to Wiki:

St. Patrick banishes all snakes from Ireland

Pious legend credits St. Patrick with banishing snakes from the island, chasing them into the sea after they attacked him during a 40-day fast he was undertaking on top of a hill. This hagiographic theme draws on the mythography of the staff of Moses, messenger of Yahweh to gentile Egyptians. In Exodus 7:8–7:13 , Moses and Aaron use their staffs in their struggle with Pharaoh’s sorcerers, the staffs of each side morphing into snakes. Aaron’s snake-staff prevails.

However, all evidence suggests that post-glacial Ireland never had snakes, as on insular “Ireland, New Zealand, Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica…So far, no serpent has successfully migrated across the open ocean to a new terrestrial home” such as from Scotland on the neighboring island of Britain, where a few native species have lived, “the venomous adder, the grass snake, and the smooth snake”, as National Geographic notes, and although sea snake species separately exist. “At no time has there ever been any suggestion of snakes in Ireland, so [there was] nothing for St. Patrick to banish”, says naturalist Nigel Monaghan, keeper of natural history at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, who has searched extensively through Irish fossil collections and records. The List of reptiles of Ireland has only one land reptile species native to Ireland; the viviparous or common lizard.

One suggestion, by fiction author Betty Rhodes, is that “snakes” referred to the serpent symbolism of the Druids during that time and place, as evinced on coins minted in Gaul. Chris Weigant connects “big tattoos of snakes” on Druids’ arms as “Irish schoolchildren are taught” with the way in which, in the legend of St. Patrick banishing snakes; the “story goes to the core of Patrick’s sainthood and his core mission in Ireland.”

Some pics from my recent speaking engagement in Alberta, Canada …

Y‘all? This is a landing pad for interplanetary space ships in St Paul, Alberta!

You can read about it here.

My guide, Caroline and I happened by St Paul’s most famous landmark on a spring-like day (by Alberta standards).

I so wanted to get into the Visitor’s Center — but it was closed in anticipation of warmer temps.

Kinda funky, eh?

Should a visitor from, say, Kgahobuoiuighii, pop in — there’s a trusty map to show them YOU ARE HERE.

What? You didn’t believe me?

Here’s another extraordinary story: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church when it was located in Willingdon …

And here’s the church, loaded on a truck, being hauled 60 miles (over two days of power line disconnect, etc) …

… to its current location: All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church, St Paul, Alberta.

Some saints “pictured” at All Saints.

They even welcome sinners!
A portion of last Friday’s introductory talk can be found here.

Me and Fr Volodymyr Bilous, following Sunday’s Liturgy at All Saints.

FYI: This particular District consists of 8 rural churches, spread throughout Northeastern Alberta. Some churches are very small and will only have 6 services per year, while St. Paul and Bonnyville have larger congregations and have about 16 services per year. Many people travel from church to church in order to participate in regular Sunday services; so they have one “church family” in 8 churches.

Some more saints at All Saints.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Sunday evening, we traveled to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity in Spedden for the weekly Passion Service.*

* – Passion Services (Passias), or the Sufferings of Christ, are conducted solemnly throughout Ukraine on the first four Fridays of the Great Fast, but where it is difficult to gather on that day, they are conducted on Sundays after the Divine Liturgy or after vespers.

A “Golgotha” (a tall icon of the crucified Christ) is placed in the center of the Church, and in front but to the sides are placed tall candle holders. A pulpit with the Holy Gospel placed on it is set behind the Golgotha. When a separate Golgotha is not available, then a larger cross, draped in black cloth, is set in its place.

Passion services were introduced into the Holy Ukrainian Orthodox Church first during the leadership of the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Petro Mohyla (+1647 AD), in remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and the sufferings of the Ukrainian Church under her oppressors.

Source

Click the pic to enlarge

Most everywhere you find the Ukrainian Orthodox Church you’ll also find a Ukrainian Catholic Church nearby. This pic was taken from the Orthodox church parking lot, looking across the way.

Wonderful, wonderful people in that part of the world!
No doubt, they would be a welcoming community even to those from other worlds …

Slava EEsoosoo Khrïstoo!

Although on hiatus from podcasting, I could not resist giving a shout out — Eh? — to my new Northern Family up in St Paul, Alberta.

From the AFR site:

Recorded live at All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church in St Paul, Alberta, Canada. Fr. Joseph confesses that, for him, fasting from food ain’t the problem.

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

Who, you may be asking, is the guy in the pic? That, my friends, will be explained in a subsequent posting. (I shall refrain from calling him an Eh-lien.)