Orthodixie

NICOSIA, Cyprus – Cyprus’ Orthodox Christian Church on Thursday thanked former Culture Club singer Boy George for returning an icon of Christ that it says was stolen from a church in the breakaway north of the divided island.

Boy George agreed to return the 18th century icon he bought from a London art dealer in 1985 after being presented with proof of its true origin, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site.

“Before this, I had no idea who Boy George was,” Brussels-based Bishop Porfyrios who led efforts for the icon’s recovery told The Associated Press. “He was positive about returning the icon.”

The church said it was alerted about the icon’s whereabouts by an informer who saw the singer with it on a Dutch TV show last November.

Boy George, who said he was unaware of the icon’s history when he bought it, personally handed the icon over to Bishop Porfyrios in London on Tuesday. In return, the bishop gave him a modern icon of Christ as a token of gratitude and “with the wish that others soon follow his example.”

The leader of the Cyprus church, Archbishop Chrysostomos II, lauded the singer for doing the right thing.

“The moment he heard that the icon was stolen, I think that he did right to return it to the Church of Cyprus to which it belongs,” the archbishop said. “We thank him and if he ever comes to Cyprus, we will certainly welcome him.”

The church statement said Boy George …

The whole story here.

Mollie has MORE.

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Thanks to FWD from Ron Ford.

ROSCOMMON (AP) — A northern Michigan woman has put her own spin on Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” by making a replica out of laundry lint.

Laura Bell of Roscommon collected lint from her dryer and fashioned it into a 14-foot-long, 4-foot tall reproduction of the Italian Renaissance painter’s masterpiece.

Bell says she needed about 800 hours to do enough laundry to get the lint, and 200 hours to recreate the mural. She bought towels of the colors she wanted and laundered them separately to get the right shades of lint.

Here’s the story.

And, here’s One-Story that you don’t want to miss:

Conciliar Press has just made Fr Stephen Freeman’s book, Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe, available for pre-ordering. It is due to be released on March 1.

Fr Stephen is a prolific blogger and a sound theologian. This is one story one book I look forward to reading!

Details – HERE.

Finally, in honor of St Anthony the Great (feast – 1/17, ns), there’s this old thing with a few bits of sanity:

St Anthony and the Flying Spaghetti Madness – Aarr!

Back when I was a kid, my father had a wonderful basketball goal constructed in our back yard. Those were the days before they sold the now common mass produced basketball goals, with the plastic base you fill with water or sand. This one was the real deal – metal, wood, light pole, cemented in the ground.

No problem with that goal; no, the problem was chubby me.

But that all changed when, each night after supper, I would head out to throw the ball at that basket until time for bed.

Back in those days, when I was in the 5th or 6th grade, I would often stand back as far I could between the goal and our house – probably right about the current 3-point range – and try to make the basket.

I would sweeten the deal by saying something like, “If I hit this shot it means that Miranda Scott likes me …”

BOOM!

I hit it.

Then, to up the ante, I would say something like, “Hit this one and she will marry me.”

Bonk bonk bonk … missed it.

Okay, if I hit this one, she’ll marry me …

Bonk bonk bonk … almost.

And so it would go.

Miranda Scott, not her real name, was the smartest girl in the class and I figured my mom would like that, me hitching up with a smart girl.

There was another girl, I don’t remember how smart she was, but – at least back then, before political correctness – she was what we understood as, forgive me this, ugly.

We’ll call her Mona Pitts.

From time to time, I’d shoot a wildly impossible shot at the basket saying …

The Orthodixie Podcast on Ancient Faith Radio.

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By KAREN CROUSE

PITTSBURGH — Steelers safety Troy Polamalu opened his red leather-bound playbook to a dog-eared page. “The life of a man hangs by a hair,” he began reading in a voice as soft as falling snow. “At every step our life hangs in the balance.”

It was three days before the Steelers’ A.F.C. divisional playoff game against the Baltimore Ravens, a matchup in which the Super Bowl aspirations of two worthy contenders hang in the balance, and Polamalu was getting himself centered.

“How many millions of people woke up in the morning, never to see the evening?” Polamalu read. And then: “The life of a man is a dream. In a dream, one sees things that do not exist; he might see that he is crowned a king, but when he wakes up, he sees that in reality he is just a pauper.”

The book in Polamalu’s hands, “Counsels From the Holy Mountain,” guides him in football and in life. It contains the letters and homilies of a Greek Orthodox monk, Elder Ephraim, whom Polamalu described as his spiritual doctor.

Polamalu, 29, sought out the octogenarian monk …

Read it all here.

Thanks for FWD from Jim Kees.

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Here’s the ad in TOUCHSTONE.

Here’s the INFO and REGISTRATION.

Hope to see you in Houston at the end of April!