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The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities. This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the priestly Old Believers, who fled from the persecution of the…
Digre – The Way of a Pilgrim
Minimal synths, plinking and plonking keyboard, a gothic air, a mention of the Orthodox work The Way Of The Pilgrim, and dedicated to the memory of St. Olav the Holy Martyr-King – that was enough to perk my interest in the band Digre. The notes on their Bandcamp site makes them sound like fascinating people doing an interesting project and will be shared on the holiest of days in the Orthodox…
Children’s & Youth Choir “Sophia” – Christ Has Risen
No reviews today, as we celebrate the victory of Christ over death itself. May you, fellow Orthodox and those who celebrate on the Julian Calendar, enjoy Easter! Arabic: El Messieh kahm! Chinese: Helisituosi fuhuole! Czech: Vstal z mrtvých Kristus! Georgian: Kriste aghsdga! Greek: Christos anesti! Latin: Christus resurrexit! Romanian: Hristos a inviat! Russian: Khristos voskrese! Serbian:…
Lonsai Maïkov & New Orthodox Line – Sobornost
Breton musician Thierry Jolif (who records as Lonsai Maïkov here) is a fellow Orthodox who also happens to make boomingly dark experimental drone music. It’s quite something to hear both worlds collapse into each other so violently, but if I could trust anyone to pull of such a feat, it is him. This is an EP’s worth of music, time-wise, but genres covered include ambient, drone, noise, darkwave…
Amid The Ruins 1453 – Dyerwave Trilogy (All Dyerwave Tracks)
Dyerwave is a stand-alone genre sitting inside of synth-wave, which has produced a number of appealing artists who bring 1980s visual imagery and marry it to dystopian visions of the future. The artist responsible for this release, Amid The Ruins 1453 is a Serbian composer and fellow Orthodox Christian who has expressed admiration for philosopher, Christian apologist, conspiracy theorist and…
Fairuz – El Massih Kaam
To our Eastern Orthodox friends, we wish you a blessed Pascha. Christ is Risen! To celebrate the day, we have the legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz singing the paschal greeting in Greek and Arabic.
[Youtube] Les Grandes Voix Bulgares – Chœr d’Hommes – Gospodi Pomilui
As we celebrate Holy Saturday, we offer this, perhaps my favorite liturgical chant, for you, the reader, courtesy of Les Grandes Voix Bulgares.
Archbishop Samuel David – You Are the Light of the World: Antiochian Byzantine Hymnody in Toledo, Ohio ca. 1940s
In times of deep anguish, I’ve relied on the hymnody of the Orthodox Church to find peace. It is where I place my faith, and it has never failed me once. A lot of that comes from my devotion to the chanting I hear in the choirs. Archbishop Samuel David was a Syrian-born priest who rose through the ranks in the Russian Orthodox Church and was a lightning-rod of controversy during his day, being…
[Art] STATIONS OF THE CROSS 8: Christ accepts His cross — ALFRED EAKER I quite enjoyed this painting by Alfred Eaker. Christ accepts His cross © 2019, Alfred Eaker via STATIONS OF THE CROSS 8: Christ accepts His cross — ALFRED EAKER
We celebrate the beginning of Great Lent with Byzantine music. From the website of the Chronos Ensemble:
Wonderful Byzantine Music!!!
“Byzantine Passions” or “Chants of Holy Week” were recorded at 2012. This is a solo album of Evgeny Skurat, the art director of Chronos ensemble.
Last sermon of Christ, the anointing by a sinful woman and Judas betrayal, the Last supper, Passions, Crucifixion…
“Those who have entirely lost the ability to see the transcendent reality that shows itself in all things, and who refuse to seek it out or even to believe the search a meaningful one, have confined themselves for now within an illusory world, and wander in a labyrinth of dreams. Those others, however, who are still able to see the truth that shines in an through and beyond the world of ordinary experience, and who know that nature is in its every aspect the gift of the supernatural, and who understand that God is that absolute reality in whom, in every moment, they live and move and have their being, they are awake.”
- David Bentley Hart
Luke 8:41-56
Going against the opinion of his peers, Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue in the region of Galilee, came to Jesus openly, begging Him to come and heal his daughter who was ill and near death. Jesus, filled with compassion not only for Jairus, but for all mankind, agreed to come to the home of this prominent man and to bring relief to his suffering daughter. While traveling toward the house of Jairus, the whole crowd of people followed Jesus hoping to hear more from Him concerning the Kingdom of God and hoping perhaps to see more miracles. In the crowd there was one who came in secret, seeking healing for herself, but out of shame and fear hiding her own weakness. This woman had an illness which, if it were recognized by those around her, would have rendered her unclean and outcast. She would have been a pariah and before she could even approach Jesus, she would be driven away. And so out of fear and filled with shame for the nature of her illness, she sought to approach Jesus without being noticed. Even when she got near enough to cry out to Jesus and be heard still she remained hidden and rather than ask Him for healing, she simply reached out to touch His tunic, thinking that if only she could do this it would be enough and she would be healed. And so it was – she reached out and touched the hem of His garment and was immediately made whole. Secretly rejoicing she began to withdraw, but Jesus calling out asked who had touched him. The woman who had been filled with joy at being healed now was overcome again with fear of being found out. The disciples seemed to help her case by suggesting that many people in the crowd must have touched Jesus as they pressed round about Him, but the Lord knew what had happened and so pressed His question seeking to reveal this woman who had approached Him so secretly. Finally, knowing that she had been discovered by the One Who had healed her, she came and confessed her former illness and proclaimed the healing power of the Lord.
This woman had approached Jesus in secret and had been healed. What reason was there in now revealing her and calling attention to her former illness – especially since she was no longer suffering and so no longer “unclean”? Surely our Lord did not call her out simply to embarrass her and to renew her shame. Why did He not simply allow her to withdraw quietly since she had indeed been healed of her illness? The answer to this lies in the fullness of our Lord’s knowledge of the nature of mankind and the desire not only to heal the body but also the soul. The dual nature of the God/man Jesus Christ is also made evident in this healing. In every instance of healing others our Lord not only addressed the suffering of the body, but also addressed the captivity and weakness of the soul. He would point out the role of a person’s faith in the healing or He would pronounce forgiveness of sin in relation to the healing of the body. Always there was this dual divine/human element to His actions. This woman, in receiving healing of the body had only been partially healed – only the suffering of her body had been addressed, not the suffering of her soul. In order to complete the healing our Lord calls her back for it would not be to her profit only to be healed in body but for her soul to remain to be bound by the chains of her spiritual weakness and sins. And so He calls her back to be freed not only from the chains of her bodily illness, but also to be healed of the sickness of her soul.
Why then was it necessary to publicly call this woman out and for her to reveal before the whole crowd – even before the ruler of the synagogue (who would most certainly have the power to declare her again outcast for her audacity to enter the crowd while unclean)? Why could not the Lord have returned to her quietly at a later date as He did with some of the others? What did this public admission of her desperation accomplish? In the healing of men, we see our Lord act out of both of His natures. In His human nature, He healed the body. This power over sickness is within the purified nature of a man who lives in union with God. In the lives of the saints we see this clearly and even after they completed their earthly lives we see that this healing power remains in their relics. Even the enemies of our Lord were not angered because He acted out of His human nature and healed the body, rather they objected to the actions of His divine nature when He would proclaim the forgiveness of sin. The healing of the body is within the nature of the deified man and so it was by the human nature of the God/man that this woman was healed. Now it was necessary for the divine nature of the God/man to act and do what only God can do – to heal the soul. In healing the body the woman was released from her physical suffering and from the chains of illness that bound her. Now she was called to be released from the chains of the spiritual illness that bound her. It was necessary to confess her sin and to repent of it. Confession of sin is necessary for us to be released from the chains which bind the soul. Here the woman was called to confess publicly her shame and fear and to lay them before the Lord – and in doing so they were made powerless and she received from the Lord not only health of body but also the restoration and peace of soul that completed her healing.
This is why it is important not only to repent of our sins privately in our daily prayers, but also to come to the sacrament of confession and to receive from the Lord the grace of forgiveness and spiritual healing that is bestowed upon the penitent. When we come before God in confession with the priest as our witness and speak aloud the sins that bind us, we lay bare our soul before God and all the weakness and sickness that is in it. When we have stripped away our own fear and shame and so exposed our sins they are then cut away from us by the divine power of God. When we hide our sins and protect them from such exposure, then they remain to afflict us again. It is necessary to expose our sins to the light of Christ and to allow Him to cut them off from us so that they no longer have any power or connection to us. Confession is a very powerful weapon and tool in our struggle to live a righteous life for it is by this act – by laying bare the weakness and corruption of one’s heart – that those sins are exposed to the divine action of the God/man Jesus Christ Who then cuts them off and breaks the chains by which they hold us captive.
It was not to shame and embarrass the woman that Jesus called her to Himself. He called to her that she, of her own free will, might come and confess her weakness and so be released from the power of sin which bound her soul even as her sickness bound her body. Had she not come and confessed her actions, the fear of being found out would have continued to eat at her and produced in her anxiety that would have manifested itself in other illnesses or perhaps even in the return of the illness that had been miraculously healed. She would have been only half healed. But our Lord called to her to give her the opportunity to be completely healed, to be healed not only in body but in soul and to be delivered from the power of her own shame and fear which was born from the sinfulness of her heart. So also our Lord calls to us with the voice of His Body, the Church and beckons us to come to the sacrament of confession that of our own free will we might expose and lay bare the sickness, the weakness and the corruption of the soul so that it might be cut off and healed by the divine grace poured out upon us by the Holy Spirit. It is not enough just to be sorry for our sins, or to resist them and hold them off by force. In order to be truly healed it is necessary to confess our sins before God, to lay bare our souls and to open even the darkest, dirtiest recesses of the soul to the light of His grace so that the chains which bind us might be shattered and we might be delivered from the power and torment of our sins. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9).
Posted by: David Moser <[email protected]>
David Bentley Hart - Christianity and Its Fashionable Enemies
The Gethsemene God — Eclectic Orthodoxy In A.D. 451 the Council of Chalcedon solemnly defined the doctrine of the Incarnation: So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a […] via The Gethsemene God — Eclectic Orthodoxy
Matthew 1:1-25
In just a few days, we will celebrate the feast of our Lord’s birth. Last week we remembered all the ancestors – that is the physical forebears of Christ. This week we remember all the holy fathers – that is all the righteous ones who lived before the coming of the God/man Jesus Christ into the world. In the reading of the Gospel, we heard the lineage of Christ, the ancestors of Joseph (and for the most part Mary as well since they were of the same tribe and house). These are some of the whole host of righteous men and women who prepared the way for the coming of the Messiah. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Moses and Aaron; Joshua; David and Solomon; Daniel and the three holy children; the great prophets Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the others to name but a few. All of these righteous ones exemplify the best that mankind could produce (the pinnacle of mankind’s efforts being, of course, the Most Holy Virgin Mary) and yet each one carries the legacy of the fall – infected with the illness of sin and subject to corruption and death. Abraham and Sarah were promised that their children would be as numerous as the sand of the sea, and yet in their pride they tried to “help God out” thus creating a situation that would lead to suffering for the people of God up to this day. Moses became angry and disobeyed God by striking the rock to produce water rather than simply speaking as he had been commanded. As a result he was deprived of the joy of entering into the promised land. David disobeyed the commandments and indulged in the sins of adultery and murder. Even the righteous Joseph doubted God and tried to “fix” the Virgin’s pregnancy by “putting her away privately” thus preserving his own reputation.
What a great contradiction there seems to be – on one hand we have the righteousness of the holy fathers held up to us, while on the other hand we know that their righteousness is flawed. This is the situation of fallen man – although we may desire to serve God, our own efforts are always tainted by our sinfulness.
When God created the world it was made to exist in the balance of obedience and humility (for these two things always occur together). “Adam was rich in obedience and humility, it was hardly possible to differentiate between his spirit and the Spirit of God, between his will and thoughts and those of God. He could feel, desire or think nothing that was not in God and of God. As the angels of God stood in the full presence of God, so did Adam (in a direct closeness), and from this closeness gazed on the Source of light, wisdom and love. He had no need to light a candle of his own, living as he did in the Sun Itself. His candle would, in the light of that Sun, have neither burned nor given light.
“But when Adam violated obedience and lost humility – and those two are always gained or lost together – then his direct communication with God was cut off, the bridge was demolished and he fell into a fearsome, stagnant darkness, in which he had to light himself with his own candle – the candle that the mercy of God had given him when God’s righteousness drove him out of Paradise. He then began not only to make a difference between himself and God, between his will and the will of God, his feelings and those of God, his thoughts and those of God – he not only began to make and see a difference, but was scarcely able (only now and then in moments of enlightenment) to be aware of his likeness to God.
“Alas, in what a miserable and abysmal state, through his disobedience and pride, does he find himself who was originally created in the image and likeness of the Holy and Divine Trinity Itself! … Alas we are all descendants of Adam, all low shoots from the stump of the felled cedar that had once majestically been raised up above all God’s creatures in Paradise; low shoots overcome by the tall weeds of cruel, brutal nature which had grown up like a curtain between him and the Source of immortal love.” (St Nikolai Velimirovic)
The Gospel goes on to draw out a contrast to this human righteousness saying, “But the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise…” The Evangelist uses this word “but” to show that this birth, while being fully human was also something of a different order and that from it a new superhuman and divine order is established. This is the birth of Christ, the birth of the one who would deliver us and the world around us from the illness and enslavement under which we suffered.
“Look now at the Lord Jesus Christ. All is obedience and humility. The Archangel Gabriel, the representative of angelic obedience and humility; the Virgin Mary – obedience and humility; Joseph – obedience and humility; the shepherds – obedience and humility; the wise men from the East – obedience and humility. Storms obedient, winds obedient, sun and moon obedient, men obedient, beasts obedient, the grave itself obedient. All is obedient to the Son of God, the New Adam, and all is humble before Him.” (St. Nikolai Velimirovic)
Here now we see that the conflict in which we find ourselves, the very conflict of which the Apostle spoke when he lamented, “That which I would do, I do not and that which I would not do, I do…who will deliver me from this body of death?” is resolved by the coming of the God/man Jesus Christ. He has come to restore the lost balance of obedience and humility. By being Himself obedient and humble, following the will of the Father from His humble birth to His death on the Cross, He has opened to us the path by which we can return to that blissful communion with God that our parents enjoyed before the fall. That path is the path of obedience and humility. That which we once lost through our own disobedience, we have now regained through the obedience of the God/man Jesus Christ.
We have been given a new chance, a new opportunity to continue on towards the life of union and communion with God for which we were created. By the obedience and humility of our Lord Jesus Christ, we now can continue to walk in obedience and humility and thus fulfill our true calling and nature. For this purpose, we need to live a life of obedience – first a life of obedience to God however just as the commandment to love God is paired with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, so also our obedience to God is linked to our obedience to one another. There are many obediences built in to our daily lives: children obey their parents, wives obey their husbands, we obey the authorities over us, we obey our spiritual father as he gives to us the law of God, we obey the traditions and rules of the Church, we obey our priests and bishops. Everywhere in our Christian lives we find the opportunity for obedience. The world encourages us to fulfill our own will, to take care of ourselves, to arrange for our own well being – but the Church teaches us just the opposite for she teaches us to set aside our own will and to live in obedience, entrusting our lives and well being into the hands of God. Without obedience it is impossible to have humility and without humility it is impossible to be saved.
God has become man and has dwelt among us that we might see Him and know Him. He has revealed Himself to us and bids us to follow Him. The path that He shows us is the same path that He walked in this world – the path of humility and obedience. Let us then heed his call and walk the path of salvation – the path of obedience and humility.
Posted by: David Moser <[email protected]>
[Music] The Bulgarian Voices Angelite – Gospodi Pomiloi The Bulgarian Voices Angelite are the continuation of the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir…
