Our next free online (click →) (← click) starts soon! So enroll today, before you forget!
|
FIRST, THE NEWS: |
 |
BULGARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OPPOSES EUROPEAN GENDER-TERMED 'WOMEN'S RIGHTS' TREATY, SAYING IT WILL CAUSE 'MORAL DECAY'
from: THE WEEK
(22 Jan.) The Bulgarian Orthodox Church on Monday announced its opposition to a treaty to reduce violence against women and promote gender equality, Reuters reports. The treaty, known as the Istanbul Convention, was drafted by the Council of Europe in 2010 and adopted in 2011. The council then introduced the document for EU-wide ratification in response to previous EU findings on the prevalence of gender-based violence in Europe.
[ED: Formally named "The Council of Europe Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Violence against Women and Domestic Violence," this international treaty introduces the concept of "gender" via international law, which supercedes all national laws, thus forcing all signatory nations to recognize trans-genderism and same-sex marriage.]
In a statement, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church's governing organization proclaimed that "no man of Christ" supports violence against women, but warned that the treaty "raises anxiety about the future of European Christian civilization" and "opens the doors to moral decay." The treaty's ratification is currently being considered in Bulgaria's National Assembly.
A particular point of contention for the church is the Istanbul Convention's use of the word "gender." The church says the treaty imposes "an ideology that denies that man exists as a man or a woman." An English version of the convention's text contains no explicit mentions of any such ideology, but does encourage "gender-sensitive policies," legal measures to help domestic violence victims, and the promotion of "non-stereotyped gender roles." The church claims that these "unfamiliar" gender roles "are directed against God's marital union of husband and wife."
The church's concerns are being taken seriously in Bulgaria's National Assembly, as Reuters reports that a significant part of the country's legislative body is now trying to prevent the Istanbul Convention's ratification. [read more...]
KAZAKHSTAN: BAPTIST YURI BEKKER'S JUDICIAL APPEAL FAILS
by Felix Corley: Forum 18 News Service
(12 Jan.) Council of Churches Baptist Yuri Bekker has failed to overturn his criminal conviction and one-year sentence of living under restrictions. He was punished for refusing to pay a 2016 fine for exercising freedom of religion or belief. In December 2017, Akmola Regional Court rejected his appeal
On 31 October 2017, Zhaksy District Court in the northern Akmola Region imposed a one-year restricted freedom sentence on Bekker under Criminal Code Article 430, Part 1. This punishes failure to fulfil a court decision over a period of more than six months or interfering with such a decision, with a penalty of imprisonment or restricted rights for up to three years. The sentence was the first Criminal Code Article 430 punishment imposed on Council of Churches Baptists for exercising their freedom of religion and belief.
The decision noted that Bekker is under one year's restricted rights, under which he "is obliged not to change his place of permanent residence and work without notifying the appropriate state organ, not to attend public places of entertainment, cafes, bars, and restaurants." He is also "obliged to appear before the state probation organ to be registered within 10 days of the court decision entering into force."
If Bekker does not comply with the provisions of the verdict, the court decision states that "the remaining part of the term will be replaced with deprivation of liberty (imprisonment) for the same period." Bekker told Forum 18 in November 2017 that he did not pay the fines or the fee for state "expert analysis" as "I did not violate the law and I did not ask the state to carry out an 'expert analysis' of my own Christian books." [read more...]
"FLASH MOB" IN EDMONTON SHOPPING MALL SINGS CHRISTMAS CAROL, THEN SHOUTS "CHRIST IS BORN, GLORIFY HIM!"
from: Ukrainian Male Chorus of Edmonton - Facebook
(24 Dec.) On an ordinary pre-Christmas shopping day, the crowds were surprised and impressed by a group of first two, then four, and eventually a couple dozen men in traditional Ukrainian peasant shirts began singing a Ukrainian Christmas carol.
Many people stopped their shopping and recorded the flash mob as they sang. Watching this video, you will see that the crowd was pleasantly surprised and impressed.
At the end, the crowd of shoppers applauded loudly and a man in a Hindu turban faced the camera with a pleasant smile on his face: this "random act of kindness" will leave a lasting impression on his mind and on the minds of all who watched this deeply moving event.
God grant that more Christians will make a public profession of their faith in such a beautiful way! [WATCH THE VIDEO!]
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX BISHOP WARNS FAITHFUL NOT TO VOTE FOR 'DARK' PUTIN
from: The Moscow Times
(22 Jan.) Russian Orthodox Bishop Yevtikhy Kurochkin has spoken for the first time against voting for Vladimir Putin's re-election this spring over recent comments the president made which he described as "blasphemous."
Putin raised controversy in the Orthodox Christian community last week by comparing the Bolshevik revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s tomb to "holy relics" in a documentary about the Valaam Monastery.
{In a linked article:] Russia's President Vladimir Putin said that Communism is "very similar" to Christianity while comparing Lenin's mausoleum to saints' relics, as part of televised remarks aired in Russia over the weekend.
A century after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, a debate has reignited over whether to move Vladimir Lenin's corpse from its Red Square mausoleum to another location. In the Soviet era, long lines of supporters would pay their respects to Lenin's preserved body in a ceremony that was reminiscent of a religious ritual. [read more...]
RUSSIA WITHOUT A FUTURE IF IT FOLLOWS EUROPE'S EXAMPLE IN ISSUES OF RELIGION - DEPUTY SPEAKER TOLSTOY
from: Interfax-Religion
(25 Jan.) Situations in which feelings of believers are insulted require special attention and cannot be ignored, State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said. "I want to caution against another danger: one cannot not take into account the opinion of people who are insulted by this or that action on faith," Tolstoy said at a parliamentary hearing in the State Duma on Thursday.
"Insults based on faith are unacceptable. It's one of the worst sins, it's one of the hardest situations, and our society now doesn't now know a way out because neither the authorities nor society can understand how to behave in such a situation," he said.
The search for an answer "is also our common task, because without that it is impossible to broadcast our unique experience of the co-existence of different religions in one country, different ethnicities, people with different philosophies, who are working for the good of our common great Russia," he said.
"The image of the future is freedom to choose. If we repeat the same moves that were made before us by our colleagues in Western Europe, Russia will have no future," Tolstoy said. [read more...]
KYRGYZSTAN: CHURCH ARSON FOLLOWS LONG-STANDING GOVERNMENT FAILURES
by Mushfig Bayram: Forum 18 News Service
(24 Jan.) On 2 January 2018 the Baptist Church in Kaji-Sai, in Kyrgyzstan's north-eastern Issyk-Kul [Ysyk-Kol] Region was burnt down. Baptists found bottles filled with petrol [gasoline] nearby, and although police claim to be investigating the crime local Baptists do not think this is the case.
Baptists are convinced that the arson attack happened because the police have done nothing to find and punish the perpetrators of a series of violations of human rights, including of freedom of religion and belief, that have taken place in the Region since 2010. These include violent threats and attacks, intimidation of people out of their homes and work, and refusals to allow non-Muslim dead to be buried according to their own ceremonies and rites.
After one such incident, police summoned Baptists to meet their attackers in Karakol Police Station. After police officers expressed sympathy for the attackers, police then ordered the Baptists and their attackers "to write statements that they forgave each other and will have peace between themselves in future." The Baptists found the atmosphere of the meeting very intimidating and coercive, and for fear of state reprisals do not wish to name the police officers who were present.
After the arson attack on the Church, police were very interested in investigating not the crime but the Church, and asking why ethnic Kyrgyz Christians did not go to a mosque. Police also suggested to Forum 18 that perhaps one of the Baptists had committed the arson attack. Police told Forum 18 that they were "doing their best to find the responsible persons." But Baptists told Forum 18 they do not think the police "will punish the perpetrators this time either". The Baptists also said that "we are still restoring and renovating the Church, and we will continue our services despite adversity." [read more...]
OTHER NEWS HEADLINES:
LATVIAN CARDINAL SIGNS STATEMENT CALLING POPE'S READING OF AMORIS LAETITIA 'ALIEN' TO CATHOLIC FAITH
from Lifesite News
19 JANUARY IS THE FEAST OF EPIPHANY (THEOPHANY) ACCORDING TO JULIAN CALENDAR
from Religious Information Service of Ukraine
CHRISTIANS IN CHINA WORKING OUT THEIR FAITH AS THEIR BUILDINGS ARE DEMOLISHED
from Mission Network News
EPIPHANY BATHING HELD AT THE POLE OF COLD IN YAKUTIA AT 63 DEGREES BELOW ZERO
from Interfax-Religion
RUSSIA: NEW ATTACK ON EVANGELICALS IN "ANTI-TERRORISM" YAROVAAYA LAWS
from Politsovet
METROPOLITAN HILARION'S BOOK "CATECHISM. A SHORT GUIDE TO THE ORTHODOX FAITH" TO DISCIPLE "STATISTICAL ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS"
from Russian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate
MARIA'S STORY: SCHOOL WITHOUT WALLS - RUSSIA
from Mission Eurasia
CONSTANTINOPLE’S BULGARIAN IRON CHURCH REOPENS AFTER RESTORATION
from Orthodox Christianity
PRIESTS OF UOC OF MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE REPORTEDLY PRAY FOR MILITANTS IN DONBAS, BLESS ARMS – MEDIA
from UNIAN
CHINA: UPROAR OVER INSTALLATION OF ILLICIT BISHOPS
from Eurasia Review
MESSAGE TO PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS: 'OUR ENEMIES CAN TRY, BUT THEY WON'T SUCCEED'
from Crux
NOW, OUR VIEWS:
I'm still recovering from a bad cold while starting to audit two seminary courses, so I'm taking a brief respite from "Our Views" and "Daily News & Views". I hope to be fully functional for the next issue of Hosken-News. Below is my first sermon (corrected) from my Homilietics course.
To SHARE THE ESSAY BELOW with your friends, GO TO: Hosken-News Blog. You can also write your COMMENTS there!
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
The Gospel reading from Luke 18:9-14 (OSB) begins with these telling words – "Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others…."
What images does this parable conjure up in your minds? Do you envision a luxuriously-dressed, well-fed or even corpulent Pharisee, head held high in pious prayer pose, with a bag full of coins tied to his waist cloth, some of which he has just dropped into the moneybox; while standing afar off cringes a scruffy Publican, unkempt and dressed in tatters, looking down and weeping? Is that what appears in your mind’s eye? I’ve seen such depictions in icons and other illustrations. But this is incorrect: the Publican or tax collector was a Jew who served the occupying Roman governor, thus he was very likely well-compensated from his allowed percentage of collected taxes in addition to whatever more he could squeeze out of Rome’s unwilling Jewish subjects. So he may well have been better-dressed and more well-fed than the Pharisee, which is why the latter despised him with an air of moral superiority.
But in his commentary on Luke (ACCS), St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote: "Lower your pride, because arrogance is accursed and hated by God. It is foreign to the mind that fears God. Christ even said, ‘Do not judge, and you shall not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.’ (Luke 6:37) One of his disciples also said, ‘There is one lawgiver and judge. Why then do you judge your neighbor?’ (James 4:12) No one who is in good health ridicules one who is sick for being laid up and bedridden. He is rather afraid, for perhaps he may become the victim of similar sufferings…. The weakness of others is not a suitable subject for praise for those who are in health."
The Pharisee despised this tax collector for being a traitor to his Jewish race and country: "Why, that half-breed quisling Publican probably extorts unjust sums from our people, bathes nude in the public Roman baths, sends his children to the Greco-Roman gymnasium where they are taught pagan ideas such as wife-swapping, abortion, and homosexual practices. How disgusting! But I! I fast and tithe like a good Jew should!" In our Carpatho-Rusyn context, we might say: "I go to church whenever the doors are open, I pay my church dues and put something in all the regular and special offering envelopes, I send my children to a Christian school, and I make halushki and nut rolls like the best of them!"
Notice in both cases the "I… I… I." As the introductory verse to this parable says, it is about "some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others." The focus is on "I" - on self, not on God. Do we look down on those who are not like us, not of our cultural or ethnic background: not Eastern European, not Greek, or even not white? It is a natural – if fallen – human trait to consider one’s own culture and clan superior, but St. Paul wrote: "For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise." (2 Corinthians 10:12, OSB) Our measuring rod ought not to be ourselves, but Christ our God in His perfection: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48, NOASB)
How many times in the Gospels does Christ turn our stereotypes of self-satisfaction and ethnic superiority upside-down? This tax collector is just one: recall Zacchaeus (in the next chapter of Luke) and Matthew, both tax collectors, the good Samaritan, the Roman centurion, the Syrophonician woman, the woman caught in adultery, the harlot who anointed Christ’s feet with precious oil, and others. The implied message is that the Jews, the Chosen People, especially the Pharisees who knew the Law inside and out and followed it to the letter – and by extension we who sing every Liturgy, "We have found the true faith!" (Beware that you never sing that out of pride!) – we all must come to God on the same basis as those traitors, foreigners, and fornicators: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" Don’t look at the other person or in the mirror, comparing yourself with them or with yourself, but look to God in all His fearsome holiness, fall down and beg for mercy.
In Ephrem the Syrian’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron (ACCS), he wrote: "In the case of that Pharisee who was praying, the things he said were true. Since [however] he was saying them out of pride and the tax collector was telling his sins with humility, the confession of sins of the last was more pleasing to God than the acknowledgment of the almsgiving of the first. It is more difficult to confess one’s sins than one’s righteousness."
It is well and good that we don’t extort money, oppress widows, are sexually pure, fast twice a week, give alms to the poor – these are all good things for oneself and for society! They were good things for the Pharisee to do, and are good for us to do. But if these outward religious acts are merely a mask for pride, ethnic superiority, and self-righteousness, they do more harm than good to our eternal souls.
The Pharisee, Christ says, appeared to be praying to God but in actuality, he "prayed with himself" – he was putting on an act, he was wearing a mask: that is what the word "hypocrite" means. His prayers got no higher than the ceiling. All those good works were good for nothing, they were only for show. But the tax collector’s spirit of humility in his genuine repentance for his treason, extortion, and other sins gained for him justification – true righteousness – from God by that simple prayer that we sing and say over and over in all our services: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!" - and in our private prayers: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner!"
So let’s combine the outward righteous acts of the Pharisee with the inward humility of the Publican, doing good works but not to be seen by men, and also recognizing the tendency of our fallen nature to deceive ourselves that we are somehow better than others. May we say "Lord, have mercy!" from our hearts, not begging an angry, vindictive deity who’s itching to hurl down thunderbolts on us, but asking Him Who is truly a merciful God Who loves all humankind: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Sources:
OSB = Orthodox Study Bible
ACCS = Ancient Christian Commentary on the Scriptures, on this parable
NOASB = New Oxford Annotated Study Bible
To keep our websites free,
please Support Agape Restoration Society: click on the "DONATE" button there.
Also, please Share Our Vision with your family and friends.
And shop at our Amazon.com Store too!
Please remember to pray for Christians in socialist countries, and for...
Your fellow-servants,
Bob & Cheryl
p.s. With today's open-ended tolerance, many people are so open-minded, their brains could fall out.
, 27 Jan. 2018