Visit to Romania October 2006

In October I was taken by the New Hope Trust, a charity for whom I volunteer, to Romania to visit some of the work they have done with orphanages and to look at new projects and a new strategic direction now that Romania is a member of the European Union. I met many good and holy people and was treated with great love and friendliness.

Here is the Chief Exec, Mrs Wendy Smith (to my right) and two Romanian volunteers.

We prayed the offices in the (now) Presbyterian church in the old graveyard and gave thanks for our safe travelling and for the company of our fellow bikers at the Aberdeen Cruiser Club - this is a great ministry amongst people often neglected by the Church, but even the Orthodox Church blesses bikers!

West coast scenery

The weather in Applecross was the best- wet and not too hot. Too hot, and you get eaten alive by the monster midges!

On the way we visited Sister Petra Clare of the Benedictine Sancti Angeli Skete. Sister Petra Clare is a great friend of our community and we have commissioned an icon of the Transfiguration for the chapel

Saint Maelrubha - Applecross Estate

In the summer of 2006, Father Timothy and Presbytera Claire-Marie travelled, by motorbike, across to the west coast of Scotland to a remote community called Applecross, site of the ancient monastery of Saint Maelrubha

Patriarchal Proclamation Upon the Feast of the Christmas 2006.

+ B A R T H O L O M E W
BY THE MERCY OF GOD
ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE,
NEW ROME, AND ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH,
TO THE PLENITUDE OF THE CHURCH,
GRACE, PEACE, AND MERCY
FROM CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR,
BORN IN BETHLEHEM


"God on earth, man in heaven; and all became mingled together."
St. John Chrysostom


Brothers, Sisters and beloved Children in the Lord,

The human mind finds it difficult to comprehend the immense change the Birth of Christ brought about in the world. He who was born in the manger of Bethlehem was not an ordinary child like the ones that are born every day. He is the Creator of the entire universe, come down to our level, in order to lift up His creature and restore him to the heights from which he had fallen.

According to the plan of the Creator, which is full of love, man was created with the capacity to achieve divinity. Due to his own failings, however, he strayed from the right path and became enslaved to decay and death. In order to restore to man the potential to become divine, God had to become incarnate, to take on flesh, for the sake of fallen, perishable and sinful man who, being a creature of earth, could not by his own means transcend his mortal nature and become like God.

The idea of God's incarnation was something that not even the most vivid human imagination could come up with; no one dared even to consider this unexpected event as a possibility. Only the Prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, prophesized that such occurrence would be possible through God. Indeed, the night of Christmas, the unexpected became real. "God [is] on earth, man in heaven", exclaims St. John Chrysostom in admiration.

This world-altering event is not irrelevant to our life. Its significance is not exhausted in the fleeting celebratory festivities. We ought to contemplate the new situation with great seriousness. The Birth of Christ gives us the opportunity to transcend our mortality, ascend to heaven, live with Christ, be reconciled to God, enjoy His adoption, live in the inexhaustible joy of His love unto the ages.

Let us celebrate spiritually the grace of God offered to man together with the Angels and Saints, and let us begin a new life, worthy of the calling of the Incarnate God. The stirring event of Christ’s Birth, although it occurred inconspicuously and humbly, has caused immense changes to the Universe and particularly to the future of each person. We should take care not to undervalue its importance, simply because it took place in historically humble and simple circumstances. Nor should we celebrate the event in a boisterous and superficial manner that would befit a seasonal celebration that had no other significance for our life beyond providing an opportunity for secular revelry.

Although the events surrounding the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ are not visible by our mortal human eyes, there are some who, by the grace of God, have seen and described the deeper events and the resulting mystical change of the world. Here is how our saintly predecessor on the Patriarchal Throne, John Chrysostom describes this sacred event, dazzled by what he has perceived:

"Angels joined the choirs of men, men had fellowship with the angels and with the other celestial powers; and one might see … reconciliation made between God and our nature, the devil brought to shame, demons in flight, death destroyed, Paradise open, the curse eradicated, sin done away with, error driven off, truth returning, the word of piety everywhere sown and flourishing in its growth, the heavenly City planted on earth, angels continually brought to the earth and abundant hope for things to come" (P.G. 57, 15-16).

Children, brothers and sisters, may we see this very hope for things to come realized in our life through the prayers of great Saint John Chrysostom, who intercedes before us to the Lord in heaven together with all the Saints. This coming year will mark the sixteen hundredth anniversary of the falling asleep in the Lord of this Saint, and thus, the Ecumenical Patriarchate proclaims this to be the year of Saint John Chrysostom, so that we may give the urge to the faithful to study his work and more closely examine his life.

Brothers and Sisters!
Christ is born: glorify Him!
Christ is come from heaven: go to meet Him!
Christ is on earth: be lifted up!
To this God who so loves mankind that He was born for us in the flesh at Christmas, be the honor, the thanksgiving, the glory and the worship unto the ages of ages. Amen.

At the Phanar, Christmas 2006
+ BARTHOLOMEW
Patriarch of Constantinople
your fervent supplicant before God

A larger chapel, with frescos in the roof, note the pink stain on the stone

An example of a simple eremitical cave skete

Gamirasu

We stayed at the Gamirasu Hotel
It is a boutique hotel in an old monastic settlement, with cave rooms. Wonderful hosts and fantastic food. We had a personal guide who showed us the Goreme Open Museum, which is the heart of the monastic communnity, the underground cities (which housed up to 6,000 people during the persecution) and the innumerable chapels dating from the earliest times, through the iconclastic period to the largest and most ornate in the 13th Century. The opening scenes of the first Star Wars (when they are in the stone huts in the desert) were filmed here.

The simple interior of a chapel at the hotel

Cappadocia - the land of the beautiful horses

A balloon flight shows the magic landscape

Cappadocia

I have been married ten years, but can only just afford a honeymoon, so we went to Cappadocia. My wife, Presbytera Claire-Marie did not know anything about the destination until my eldest boy, Joshua, saw something about Turkey and blurted out "Oooh, that's where you are going......I not not supposed to say that was I?!!!!" Anyway, she didn't know that we were headed into the heart of Christian monasticism under the persecutions in the higlands of Cappadocia .

It is a strangely beautiful land, with thousands of caves in which the early coenobitic monasteries were founded, most notably by the affectionately called Cap Dads, especially Basil the Great.

The Cappadocian Fathers were a 4th-century monastic family, led by St Makrina to provide a central place for her brothers to study and meditate, and also to provide a peaceful shelter for their mother. Abbess Makrina fostered the formation and development of three men who collectively became designated the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great who was the older of Makrina's brothers and eventually became a bishop, Gregory of Nyssa also became eventually a bishop of the diocese associated thereafter with his name, and Peter who was the younger of Makrina's brothers and later became bishop of Sebaste. These scholars along with a close friend, Gregory Nazianzus, Patriarch of Constantinople set out to demonstrate that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals and that Christian faith was not anti-philosophical but was a thoroughly distinctive movement of learning, piety, and life-style - one best represented by monasticism. They made major contributions to the definition of the Trinity finalized at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the final version of the Nicene Creed which was formulated there.

You'll want some pictures....

Long time no blog

I haven't blogged for ages, my apologies. I wasn't sure anyone was looking at this blog, and I'm not one to act to an empty auditorium. But I have at least one visitor! God bless you. I will return with more posts on what has been happening at St Drostans.
Timothy+