Byzantine blindings Zonaras and theophanes,pachymeres on paleoplogus.

, simeon magister, theophanes continuatus,georgius monachus, georgius cedrenus,skylitzes continuatus genesios source of blindings and was a constitutional penalty, chronicle skylitzes, nikephorus, attaliota deleanos and leo Phocas ,nicetas choniata basil 2 bulgar slayer blinding bulgars from gylcas cendrenus[note primary biased sources]anna comnena case of pretend blinding of urselius . Curopalates and nikephorus were only burn eye lids. Blinding of john lascaris a partial blinding caused a small leucoma on the cornea a small drop in visual acuity[gradual dimness] on Byzantine blindings john lascaratos

Latins practice of devine liturgy,anna comnena on crusaders

philanthropic aid to the blind Christendom

A. H. Diamandopoulou-Drummond,* 1 A. A. Diamandopoulos 1 and S. G. Marketos 2 1 St. Andrew's State Hospital, Patras, Greece; and 2 Department of the History of Medicine, Athens University, Greece

during the Byzantine Empire (325 1453 AD) that the state organized a 'blindness relief' plan as part of a widespread public health system. Our sources for the subject include medical writings, state decrees, Saint's 'vitae' and representations of relevant works of art. (a) support of ophthalmological education as evidenced by an abundance of medical writings on the subject; (b) establishment of charitable institutions exclusively or partially for the blind, where there was not only medical care but also provision for a wide range of social aid the most advanced being specially trained escorts for each blind person; and (c) support by the state of an extended chain of religious institutions where miraculous help for the blind was promised. We conclude that the public health policy in Byzantium made adequate and very early provision for the blind.

rome and pax romana doc prophecies

Poet claudian

that this unity among the nations had been created by Christ, Who

simultaneously founded the Church as the spiritual core of this unity and the Roman Empire as its social-political guardian. For His Birth, which marked the beginning of the Eternal

Kingdom of God on earth. The one rule established by Augustus over the whole civilised world

pseudo methodius prophecieskey to revelations and Byzantium as

thousand yr kingdom of god on earth

Tiburtine Sibyl, 380 CE].It purports to prophesy the advent of a final Emperor vanquishing the foes of Christianity:

Gladiators

1 martyre recorded. Telemachus (Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History 5.26) 1 in 10 died. It was a professional sport thumbs down only to signify death abc article show they did not fight to the death Kanz and Grossschmidt tombstone death gladiator only after 100 fights and were expensive for supports a professional sport like wrestling Emperor gladiator commodus. Well nourished evidence. Most gladiators losing were pardoned. One for 4 times. Suggest it is the norm Gladiators own private doctor and masseur AD404 by the Emperor Honorius, when he closed what remained of the gladiator schools Misconceptions atia a morale woman portrayed as vile, vomitorium not for indulgence but passageway to amphitheatre

Reference to File: Byzantium and Exerpts Note pieces therein

free speech Constantinople- free speech insults against

emperors.

Constantius philanthropy outbreakSt zoticus martre of emperor constantius [forgery?]

st john chyrsostom followed description of Byzantine hospital

history of philanthropy saint Sampson hospital reference to painkillers

children in Byzantium opiates and other sedative herbstreating

basil 1 leo vi legal edicts

abolishing senate?, leo law books

just war and just price,Byzantine wars were not rescript for slave,jus law a witness.

St quadratus 70 apostle

gave apologia to emperor Hadrian who

enacted not to persecute Christians without cause. Became martyre.

St Stephen killed by jews Theodosius kills pagans document cited. Defeats maximus and
eugenius pagan upsurgers with gothic army who he had settled in italy. Thessalonians demanded release of charioteer and some romans died, led to emperor sending army to take inhabitants.

He resent a messenger, but it was too late and led to ambrose provoking a

repentence from him. * Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.17 * Sozomenus, Historia ecclesiastica 7.25.1-7 * Cassiodorus, Historia ecclesiastica 9.30

Waterbasin and saintation

3rd century BC

Described by the

Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium (3rd century BC) Pneumatics (chapter 31) as part of a washstand automaton for guests washing their hands. Philon's comment that "its construction is similar to that of clocks" indicates that such escapements mechanism were already integrated in ancient water clocks. cite escapement third century bc

3 eminent Byzantine physicians

hydrocephalos Byzantium

oribasius, aetius and paul of aegina . cite

monk institution to prevent imperial interference Professor angela constantinides-hero Centre fo r byzantine modern greek studies, queens college new york

Justinian and Athens academy malalas and agathias source oodegr.com romanides with the interplay of theology and society dramatically showed how western
society with its doctrines produced the fruits of feudalism as opposed to orthodox doctrine that produced the fruits therapeutic philanthropic society. Also most importantly how orthodoxy, in many quarters adopted augustinism philosophies and therefore lost the therapeutic teachings of the fathers

According to Camerons rationale, in 529 A.D. the Platonic Academy had no financial support, as a result of which, its activities were significantly reduced, but not entirely discontinued. Note- the paper is weak, philosophy continued in the context of Christianity not idol worship . its seems fair and civilized for a society that lays claim that through only Christ one is saved and all idols ought destroyed

Christ or god triumphant breaks the enemy written on gates constantinople Romanity or barbarity doc in Byzantine file

Roman file

Ammianus unreliable source. ammanianus probable forgery.derived from

Carolingian script texts

iconoclasm 2 sources
Byzantium inventing iconoclasm and annotations brubaker Byzantium in the iconoclasm notes doc [mac] based on brubaker and haldon pdf book in roman file Iconoclasm and the franks by Nicholas lazarou on pc

Patrologia Graeca a list in roman file

Aspects of the roman history source based Hilary swan and mark everson davies 82 BC to AD 14. Cite aspects of roman history doc .--Woman and the Law in Roman Empire

source book Judith evans grubbs cite roman law in marriage and divorce notes doc

Development of the Roman Law of Debt Security

Donald E. Phillipson Stanford Law Review Vol. 20, No. 6 (Jun., 1968), pp. 1230-1248 (article consists of 19 pages) Published by: Stanford Law Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1227498 Note another source of roman law on debt security cite. development of roman law

Roman history july 2011

Polybius on roman constitution. People have the greatest role in the state British folklore Henry huntingdon claim Helena daughter king of England Britain
pretend imperial commonwealth legitimacy cite british envy of origins Roman just law livy romans declaring war

On augustus wiki doc

Theophanes Continuatus, ed. Bekker, p. 443

Second Law of Romanos I (AD 934) New law of Emperor Lord Romanos the Elder concerning invasions of the powerful (dynatoi) into communal properties of the poor (penetes) ...

1. Therefore we command that in every region and province which after God our authority governs, the inhabitants have their appointed dwelling free and undisturbed. If [the property] remains in his posession in his lifetime, let it be the property by inheritance of the children and relatives, or let the possessor's will be executed. But if, in the course of human life and time's reversals, because of necessity or need, or even desire, he partially or totally allows alienation of his lands, let the right of purchase reside with the inhabitants of the same or neighboring fields or villagelands. We do not set out these laws through hatred or jealousy of the more powerful, but we command it out of good will and protection for the poor (penetes), and for common salvation. Cite .theophanes welfare and the poor

prophecies of Christ in old testament

hard to open cite fulfilled prophecies in defence of early rome--. File to early church file the following

origins of rome
Many scholars consider it unlikely that the patricians sent an official delegation to Greece, as the Roman historians believed. Instead, those scholars suggest, the Romans acquired Greek legislations from the Greek cities of Magna Graecia, the main portal between the Roman and Greek worlds.[4] The original text of the XII Tablets has not been preserved.

Byzantium to Byzantium research

Irene blinding source His Chronicle was much used by succeeding chroniclers, and in
873-875 a Latin compilation (published in vol. ii. of De Boor's edition) was made by the papal librarian Anastasius from the chronicles of Patriarch Nicephorus, George Syncellus, and Theophanes for the use of a deacon named Johannes in the second half of the ninth century, and thus was known to Western Europe.

There also survives a further continuation, in six books, of the Chronicle down to the year 961 written by a number of mostly anonymous writers (called Theophanes Continuatus or Scriptores post Theophanem), who undertook the work at the instructions of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Cite source for Irene blinding unreliable

Latin Translation in the Renaissance

The Theory and Practice of Leonardo Bruni, Giannozzo Manetti and Desiderius Erasmus Series: Cambridge Classical Studies Paul Botley University of Bristol Hardback ( (ISBN-13: 9780521837170 | ISBN-10: 0521837170) Also available in Paperback cite translations and forgeries

josephus blames fanatic jews for early 1st century revolts. roman law exempted mad from injustice. Cite forensic psychiatry roman law constantine soldius coin exacted from tenants, estates of senators, capital from
merchants

On gold standard and inflation

Now one interesting thing with all this inflation should be a great comfort to us: historians of prices in the Roman Empire have come to the conclusion that despite all of this inflation or perhaps we should say, because of all of this inflation the price of gold, in terms of its purchasing power, remained stable from the first through the fourth century. In other words, gold remained, in terms of its purchasing power, a stable value whereas all this other coinage just became increasingly worthless.. cite romes stable economy

Justinians plague myth doc . it was war. Codex Hermogenianus and petition law code found in England Note book serena conolly possess

The fragments contain a collection of responses by a series of Roman emperors to questions on legal matters submitted by members of the public," continued Dr Salway University College London

String of primary source bias theory

At the urgent request of his friend George Syncellus, Theophanes undertook the continuation of his chronicle, during the years 810-15 (P.G., CVIII, 55), making use of material already prepared by Syncellus, probably also the extracts from the works of Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, made by Theodore Lector, and the city chronicle of Constantinople.

Antoninus pius law against abuse of slaves.

Cite obligatio

Law of contract, law of inheritance and the book of prefect[note]

Justinian legal code and on natural law and law of nations[note]

I. Divisions of Things. In the preceding book we have treated of the law of persons. Let us now speak of things, which either are in our patrimony, or not in our patrimony. For some things by the law of nature are common to all; some are public; some belong to corporate bodies, and some belong to no one. Most things are the property of individuals who acquire them in different ways, as will appear hereafter.1. By the law of nature these things are common to mankind---the air, running water, the sea, and consequently the shores of the sea. No one, therefore, is forbidden to approach the seashore, provided that he respects habitationes, monuments, and buildings which are not, like the sea, subject only to the law of nations.2. All rivers and ports are public; hence the right of fishing in a port, or in rivers, is common to all men.3. The seashore extends as far as the greatest winter flood runs up.4. The public use of the banks of a river is part of the law of nations, just as is that of the river itself. All persons, therefore, are as much at liberty to bring their vessels to the bank, to fasten ropes to the trees growing there, and to place any part of their cargo there, as to navigate the river itself But the banks of a river are the property of those whose land they adjoin; and consequently the trees growing on them are also the property of the same persons.

5. The public use of the seashore, too, is part of the law of nations, as is that of the sea itself; and, therefore, any person is at liberty to place on it a cottage, to which he may retreat, or to dry his nets there, and haul them from the sea; for the shores may be said to be the property of no man, but are subject to the same law as the sea itself, and the sand or ground beneath it.6. Among things belonging to a corporate body, not to individuals, are, for instance, buildings in cities, theaters, racecourses, and other similar places belonging in common to a whole city.7. Things sacred, religious, and holy belong to no one; for that which is subject to divine law is not the property of any one.8. Things are sacred which have been duly consecrated by the pontiffs, as sacred buildings and offerings, properly dedicated to the service of God, which we have forbidden by our constitutio to be sold or mortgaged, except for the purposes of purchasing the freedom of captives. But, if any one consecrates a building by his own authority, it is not sacred, but profane. But ground on which a sacred edifice has once been erected, even after the building has been destroyed, continues to be sacred, as Papinian also writes.

Great indiction and Byzantine calender cite Byzantine calender in Byzantine research
file

Source creation magazine early fathers on the flood account Source seraphim rose on genesis

St. John Chrysostom St. John Chrysostom says clearly in his Homily "On the Cross and the Thief", that Christ:"opened for us today Paradise, which had remained closed for some 5000 years."[16]. St. Isaac the SyrianSt. Isaac the Syrian writes in a Homily that before Christ:

"for five thousand years five hundred and some years God left Adam (i.e. man) to labor on the earth."[17].

taxis
The central theme in this document is taxis. Taxis, or correct order, within Byzantine society produced the harmonious hierarchy of institutions that consituted the state. Taxis in human society mirrored that of heaven, and systems of precedence mirrored the divine hierarchy. Thus the Byzantine empire was rigidly structured, and the opposite of the world beyond the empire, the barbarian world where ataxia (disorder) reigned. However, the late antique concept of universality had been reinstituted as a principal component of imperial ideology before the tenth century, and this required that the empire introduce order to other human societies, to correct ataxia. This is evident in chapter 46, which comprises a list of Byzantine court titles which foreigners might be given; and in chapter 47, which lists not only how foreign ambassadors should be greeted, but how (exactly how) they should greet the emperor. In fact, it is most likely to have been the Logothete who delivered the greeting on behalf of the ambassadors, saving them from any potential faux pas consistent with their ataxia.

The 70 St Dionysius the Areopagite was one of the first Athenian disciples of the Apostle
Paul (Acts 17:34

Medieval forgeries file

Decretum Gelasianum is a well-known forgery, of which the oldest manuscript is
of the eighth century

Hunibald's History of the origin of the Franks is a forgery, and the only question
is whether Trithemius was deceived by some one else who ascribed these forged Annals to Hunibald or whether he [Trithemius] himself concocted this Hunibald."

IN TACITUS' GERMANIA

An Unsolved Problem of Historical Forgery: The Scriptores Historiae Augustae Arnaldo Momigliano .jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4390(1954)17:1/2%3C22:AUPOHF%3E2.0.CO;2-L On the Question of the Hellenization of Sicily and Southern Italy During the Middle Ages
Peter Charanis http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762(194610)52%3A1%3C74%3AOTQOTH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U

Silvestri constitutum forgeries his group of forgeries was Silvestri constitutum, a report of a fictitious synod convoked by Pope Sylvester, giving twenty promulgated canons, among which was a prohibition of bringing a solitary accusation upon an ecclesiastic of a degree higher than the accuser's: a bishop might only be accused by seventy-two, and a pope could not be accused by anyone. Silvestri constitutum was also an early instance of the fable that Sylvester had cured Constantine the Great of leprosy with the waters of baptism [wiki] The Symmachean forgeries are a sheaf of forged documents produced in the papal
curia of Pope Symmachus (498514) in the beginning of the sixth century, in the same cycle that produced the Liber Pontificalis.[1] In the context of the conflict between partisans of Symmachus and Antipope Laurentius the purpose of these libelli was to further papal pretensions of the independence of the Bishops of Rome from criticisms and judgment of any ecclesiastical tribunal, putting them above law clerical and secular by supplying spurious documents supposedly of an earlier age

Pseudo Methodius Prophecy--seed of Ishmael will subect the whole world in inequity-but will be vanquished by a pax romana {not actual word} reign of peace and universal harmony.

Duchesne has proved exhaustively and convincingly that the first series of biographies,
from St. Peter to Felix III (IV, died 530) were compiled at the latest under Felix's successor, Boniface II (530-532). ... The compiler of the Liber Pontificalis utilized also some historical writings, a number of apocryphal fragments (e.g. the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), the Constitutum Sylvestri, the spurious Acts of the alleged Synod of the 275 Bishops under Sylvester, etc., and the fifth century Roman Acts of Martyrs

Maximus the Confessor and His Companions: Documents from Exile By Pauline Allen, Bronwen Neil

greek version different and taken from theophanes , describes death of constans in sicily and death in exile of maximus.p42 the latin describes maximus death, but has not survived in the greekp40 greek version mentions he died in exile the invention of anastasius bibliothecarius evreesee makes these allegations mentions the lain to be different then says it cannot be from the invention from this anastasius bibliothecarius source because he only used the greek latin describes the death of maximus but in greek has not survived. The events of the trials of Maximus were recorded by Anastasius Bibliothecarius

Francesco Zambeccari: His Translations and Fabricated Translations of Libanian Letters

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0081-8658(1964)11%3C46%3AFZHTAF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

JSTOR: Two Letters from the Corpus Iulianeum

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0042-6032(196209)16%3A3%3C179%3ATLFTCI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R ? http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/LEO_LOB/LIBANIUS_AD_314_393_.html testifies forgery of letters julian and libanius by zambeccari

, Basil's laws protected small agrarian property and lowered their taxes. His reign was
considered an era of relative prosperity for the class, despite the almost constant wars. On the other hand, Basil increased the taxes of the nobility and the church and looked to decrease their power and wealth. Though

The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer By Paul Stephenson

http://books.google.com/books? id=Z0PmrXKnczUC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=michael+psellos+bulgar+slayer&source=w eb&ots=u6TdNTQBz-&sig=pBduNnPGbCX4KTZsZBn-OXvOY6s#PPA87,M1

not called voulgarotonos or bulgar slayer by primary sources. obscure synotpic histories of the 12 century refer to him as such constantine manasses calls him not by this name skylitzes synoptis does not call him bulgar slayer

kekaumenos the only 11th century source to mention bulgar blindings

porphyrongennetos is the name that is given to him in this source series of negotiated settlements seeing regional powers governing overseen by roman strategio with broad jurisdiction, was not war of retribution and conquest. chronicle of the priest of dukja a slavic source neither mention him as a bulgar slayer basil may a vow to god if he might defeat the bulgarians-- abstained from meat and intercourse for the rest of his life sergios 2 was patriarch of the bulgasr slayer ---rivalry between rome and constantinopl produced rivalry. maI and migne western sources describe him as such--written in texts concerning the schism naming greek herectics

fake martyrs even the very conservative "Catholic Encyclopedia" reduces hundreds of the more
famous saints and martyrs of old to a mere formula and rejects the most treasured legends of popular

Catholic literature legends of martyrs under the Emperor Commodus, and has found the whole of them spurious except two or three.

Bollandist

byzantine heresy must read JSTOR.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0070-7546(1971)25%3C85%3ABHAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O

third rome In 1589, Patriarch Jeremias of Constantinople gave his blessing to the Russians to establish a Patriarchate and to the Russian claims to leadership in the Orthodox world Constantinople 1919 Then in 1919, the Hellenic nation which had achieved independence one century earlier took control of Smyrna in Asia Minor. The western powers however intervened and supported Mustafa Kemal's terrorists in Anatolia who slaughtered the Greek populations of Smyrna and Pontus, and who with the assistance of the western powers seized Constantinople from the Greeks forever

Jews betray to Persia "the Jews broke into a riot, and seizing the Patriarch Anastasius,
letter from st. john chrysostom to innocent, bishop of rome. [forgery]
To my lord, the most reverend and divinely beloved bishop Innocent, John sends greeting in the Lord.

Two Greek Forgeries of the Sixteenth Century - JStor

www.jstor.org/stable/290469 by A Diller - 1936 - Cited by 3 - Related articles TWO GREEK FORGERIES OF THE SIXTEENTH. CENTURY. The geographical opuscula of Nicephorus Blemmides (Geogr. Graec. Min. II, pp. 458-470) were ..

Many prophecies of St. Joachim have been released and continue to be so. Today in Ithaka there is
a new phrase circulating which says: "Papoulakis said..." or "Just as St. Papoulakis said...". His fame and sanctity have been fully and joyously accepted in his native land and he is widely regarded as a Prophet of our last days. Listed below are a portion of these prophecies, some of which have taken place and some not. Those familiar with the prophecies of St. Kosmas Aitolos will notice a few similarites, most notably what seem to be prophecies describing the future telephone (2), airplane (8), television (20), and the restoration of Constantinople to the Greeks (13). However some of the prophecies are difficult to interpret today because we don't know the exact year they were given nor the exact context. St. Joachim lived between 1786-1868.com/descriptions_manuscripts/description_52.pdf

How Greece influenced Chinese art

The Greeks' artistic debts to the East are well documented. But less well known is how pervasively Greek art influenced India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China. http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=15943

Democritus and apatheiapointed out that if people restrained their demands and curbed

their desires, what they now possess would make them seem relatively wealthy rather than impoverished---apatheia

Cicero on law
Cicero wrote: There is a true law, right reason, agreeable to nature, known to all men, constant and eternal, which calls to duty by its precepts, deters from evil by its prohibition This law cannot be departed from without guilt Nor is there one law at Rome and another at Athens, one thing now and another afterward; but the same law, unchanging and eternal, binds all races of man and all times; and there is one common, as it were, master and ruler God, the author, promulgator and mover of this law. Whoever does not obey it departs from [his true] self, contemns the nature of man and inflicts upon himself the greatest penalties --proves greeks and romans not rationalists.

jUSTINIAN THE GREAT, THE EMPEROR AND SAINT By Asterios Gerostergios

This book is devoted to the Byzantine emperor Justinian the Great (527-565), one of the most important personalities of the sixth century. It is the first work that undertakes to relate the religious policy of that illustrious emperor to his religious beliefs. Written in a clear, concise, and scholarly manner, it deals with the most important aspects of Justinians personality, placing him in proper historical perspective. In this book, Justinian emerges as a very capable administrator, a wise legislator and codifier of law, a profound theologian, a remarkable author, a great defender, protector and preserver of the Orthodox Christian faith, an exemplary philanthropist, a strong supporter of monasticism, a builder of many magnificent churches, monasteries and philanthropic institutions, and a saint of the Orthodox Church. 1982. 312 pp., 32 plates. Second printing, 2004.

THE PHILOKALIA
Compiled by St. Macarios of Corinth and edited by St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite Writings of Holy Mystic Fathers in which is Explained how the Mind is Purified, Illumined, and Perfected through Practical and Contemplative Ethical Philosophy. Translated from the original Greek and edited by Constantine Cavarnos. 2008. 340 pp. Cloth.---suggests emphasis on virtues ties back to greek tradition

Julian apostate mission

There was a striking contrast between the reign of [Christian Emperor] Constantius and that of his pagan successor. Julian decreed universal tolerance. No Christian was visited with punishment on account of his religion. The only means he employed to combat the growing superstition was to write against it, and throughout his short but beneficent reign he afforded convincing proof of the superiority of his Paganism to the Christianity of his predecessors. His temper and his philosophy were so humane that he pardoned a band of Christian soldiers who conspired to assassinate him, and he forgave the people of Antioch for an insult such as the pious Theodosius avenged at Thessalonica by a wholesale massacre. -- Crimes of Christianity, by G W Foote and J M Wheeler

Acta Martyrum [forgery]

though their historicity is of little or no value. They are romances, either written around a few real facts which have been preserved in popular or literary tradition, or else pure works of the imagination, containing no real facts whatever--online encyclopedia admits their worthlessness http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09742b.htm

Acts of the Martyrs are accounts of the suffering and death of a Christian martyr or group of

martyrs. These accounts were collected and used in church liturgies from early times, as attested by Saint Augustine.[1] These accounts vary in authenticity.[1] The most reliable follow accounts from trials.[1] Very few of these have survived.[1] Perhaps the most perfect of these is the account of Saint Cyprian.[1] The account of Scillitan Martyrs is also based on trial records, though it has been embellished with miraculous and apocryphal material.[1]A second category, the "Passiones," are based on eyewitness accounts. These include the martyrdoms of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Saint Polycarp, the Martyrs of Lyons, the famous Acts of Perpetua and Felicitias, and the Passion of Saint Irenaeus.[1] In these accounts, miraculous elements are restricted, a feature that proved unpopular.[1] These accounts were often later embellished with legendary material.[1]A third category is accounts that are purely legendary, probably without even a kernel of historical information.[1] The Acts of Saint Catherine of Alexandria and those of Saint George fall into this category.[1]

Why Rome, one of the most tolerant of powers, persecuted...

> Christianity was detested mainly for three reasons. > First, and from the start, because its meetings were secret, and generally by night; so they were put down as orgies if not conspiracies. > Secondly, the Christians spoke with infinite scorn of the beliefs of their pagan neighbors, of the official deities of Rome. > Thirdly, as time went on, because in proportion as the difficulties of the Empire increased, the Christians became increasingly disloyal, refusing service and almost exulting in its enfeeblement.

Acta martyr and roman persecution

> No Christians were ever executed in the Colosseum (Amphitheatre). Tales of them being thrown to the lions there have been exposed as fiction. > The Acta (records of trials and execution) of the martyrs are taken entirely from fictitious lives or forged. Pagan deities were sometimes used as martyrs in these fictional stories - often sainted with their pagan names intact

Gnostic texts acts of the apostles

Several texts concern themselves with the subsequent lives of the apostles, usually with highly supernatural events. Almost half of these are said[who?] to have been written by Leucius Charinus (known as the Leucian Acts), a companion of John the apostle. The Acts of Thomas and the Acts of Peter and the Twelve are often considered Gnostic texts. While most of the texts are believed to have been written in the 2nd century, at least two, the Acts of Barnabas and the Acts of Peter and Paul are

b believed to have been written as late as the 5th century.

Acts of Andrew Acts of Barnabas Acts of John Acts of the Martyrs Acts of Paul Acts of Paul and Thecla

Acts of Peter Acts of Peter and Andrew Acts of Peter and Paul Acts of Peter and the Twelve Acts of Philip Acts of Pilate Acts of Thomas Acts of Timothy Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca

Recovered from the dark age

The Roman impact on Western and Eastern civilisations lives on. In time most of the Roman achievements were duplicated by later civilisations. For example, the technology for cement was rediscovered 17551759 by John Smeaton. also documentary on alternate flushes, warm and cold proven good for blood circulation. In conclusion, we can say that all modern States have been influenced by Roman law and their legal systems have been established accordingly. Roman law has, therefore, highly contributed to the establishment of the basic principles of todays legal systems in Europe.

The Cumaean Sibyl

Main article: Cumaean Sibyl The sibyl who most concerned the Romans was the Cumaean Sibyl near the Greek city of Naples, whom Virgil's Aeneas consults before his descent to the lower world (Aeneid book VI: 10). Burkert notes (1985, p 117) that the conquest of Cumae by the Oscans in the fifth century destroyed the tradition, but provides a terminus ante quem for a Cumaean sibyl. It was she who supposedly sold to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, the original Sibylline books (q.v.). Christians were especially impressed with the Cumaean Sibyl, for in Virgil's Fourth Eclogue she foretells the coming of a savior--possibly a flattering reference to the poet's patron--whom Christians identified as Jesus.

Tiburtine Sibyl

, written c. 380 CE, but with revisions and interpolations added at later dates [2]. It purports to
prophesy the advent of a final Emperor named Constans, vanquishing the foes of Christianity, bringing about a period of great wealth and peace, ending paganism and converting the Jews. After vanquishing Gog and Magog, the Emperor is said to resign his crown to God. This would give way to the Antichrist. This Emperor's is characterized by a period of great wealth, victory over the foes of Christianity, an end of paganism and the conversion of the Jews. After vanquishing Gog and Magog, the Emperor is said to After this he will come to Jerusalem, and having put off the diadem from his head and laid aside the whole imperial garb, he will hand over the empire of the Christians to God the Father and to Jesus Christ his Son. In doing so, he will give way to the Antichrist: At that time the Prince of Iniquity who will be called Antichrist will arise from the tribe of Dan. He will be the Son of Perdition, the head of pride, the master of error, the fullness of malice who will overturn the world and do wonders and great signs through dissimulation. He will delude many by magic art so that fire will seem to come down from heaven. ... When the Roman empire shall have ceased,39 then the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. The prophecy relates that Antichrist would be opposed by the two witnesses from the book of Revelation, identified with Elijah and Enoch; after having killed the witnesses and started a final persecuttion the Christians, the Antichrist will be slain by the power of God through Michael the Archangel on the Mount of Olives.

the Oracles of Leo the Wise (emperor 886-912).

This series of sibylline oracles concerns the fate of Greece, Byzantium, and Islam, as well as the future of good and evil. It mixes magic with religion and obscure divination with practical political expediency. By 1200, the prophecies were circulated under the name of Leo the Wise, founder of the Macedonian dynasty. The text was interpreted and applied to specific events and people as circumstances changed. The oracles not only determined the fate of Greek politics for many hundreds of years, but they were also the source for the Pseudo-Joachim of Fiore Vaticinium composed in the late thirteenth century as prophecies about the papacy The Homilies of the Emperor Leo VI By Theodora Antonopoulou

relics of st lazarus and leo's prophecy

Gibbon calculated 1500 martyrs

for the whole climatic decade of persecution in the more populous east. The western provinces were little affected and such persecutions as occurred were of brief duration. In total, then, the pagan assault on the Christians, throughout a 300 year period, claimed "somewhat less than two thousand persons." > > We might set this number against any number of comparisons. Victims of the witch trials, burnings and lynchings during the period 1300-1800 are conservatively put at 35-65,000 (and many estimates are much higher). Victims of the Inquisition, though sometimes speculatively put in the millions, in any event far exceeded anything dreamed of by the cruellest of Roman emperors. Gibbon himself draws a contrast with the 100,000 Protestant Netherlanders committed to the executioner by the Catholic Charles V. > > But the real comparison is between the thousand years of Greco-Roman civilisation and the fifteen centuries of darkness that were to follow ... > > any myths and falsehoods surround the story of the persecution of the > early Christians. The myths have it that the Christians were almost > continuously persecuted by the Roman Empire for the first three > centuries. And that they were persecuted simply because they were > Christians. Trajan > > 98-117 > amously told Pliny "not to seek out" Christians nor to act on anonymous charges. > > Pliny's ignorance of the Christians other than awareness of their name is certain evidence that there were no laws directed at the sect. > > Hadrian > > 117-138 > > Hadrian had to wage a 3-year war with Jewish fanatics and was contemptuous of the Jews and, by extension, the Christians, but continued Trajan's policy of tolerance. > > Antonius Pius > > 138-161 > > Continued Trajan's policy of tolerance. > > "Local outburst" has to be conjured up to explain the claimed martyrdom of 86-year-old bishop Polycarp in either 155, 165 or 177! > > Marcus Aurelius > > 161-180 > > Trying desperately to defend the empire against its enemies, Marcus threatened exile to those spreading morbid superstitions. > > "Local outburst" has to be conjured up to explain the lurid tale of "50 martyrs" in Lyons (Gaul) in 177. > > Claimed trial and martyrdom for Justin Priscos aka Justin Martyr (100-165?) in Rome. > > Commodus >

> 180-192 > > Dissolute son of Marcus was unconcerned by the Christians. Perhaps he should have been. One of his concubines, Marcia, a Christian, was complicit in the murder of Commodus in 192. > > Pertinax, Didius Julianus > > 192-193 > > No evidence of persecution > > Septimius Severus > > > Soldier-aristocrat from north Africa. > > During his reign, churches became major land owners and adopted the practice of giving annual 'presents' to provincial governors. > > 193-211 > > In 202 Septimius issued a decree forbidding conversion to Judaism (Iudaeos fieri). Later Christian writers reinterpreted the edict probably no more than an attempt to prohibit circumcision as a "persecution of Christianity". > > Clement of Alexandria (c150-215) makes the claim: "Many martyrs are daily burned, confined, or beheaded, before our eyes", though we have nothing to confirm this. Carthage also provides the tale of a young girl, cruelly tortured, then boiled in a kettle of burning pitch with her mother, and also the story of Perpetua, a young noblewoman, and Felicitas, a slave girl, holding hands and kissing before being thrown to wild beasts. (Interesting choice of names, don't you think?) > > Caracalla > > 211-217 > > No evidence of persecution > > (Some 25 emperors) > > 217-249 > > Decius > > > Soldier-aristocrat from the Balkans and first emperor to die fighting a foreign army in battle. > > > > 249-251 > > 250-251 > > After a half century of chaos, Decius tried desperately to restore stability and unity to the empire and the peace of the gods' (pax deorum). He appointed roving commissioners, who required all citizens to honour the traditional state gods by sprinkling incense on a brazier or pouring a libation for the health of the emperor. Loyal subjects received a certificate of compliance (libellus). > > The real consequence of Decius's policy (which was not directed specifically at Christians) was to cause division within the ranks of the brethren, isolating the extremists. > > Christian historians gleefully regard this as the "first real persecution" because some fanatics refused to toast the emperor's health and provoked the state into retaliation. > > Decius died fighting the Goths and the empire returned to chaos. > > Martyrs: Bishops Fabianus of Rome, Babylos of Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem and the x-rated martyrdom of St. Agatha, apparently at the hands of a senator! For just over a year, Rome was without a bishop. > > Gallus > > 251-253 > > 252 Arrest and imprisonment of Pope Cornelius.

> > Plague ravages Rome. > > Loss of Syrian provinces to Persia. > > Valerian > > > > Aristocrat who entrusted the western empire to his son Gallienus. Suffered the ignominy of being used as a foot stool by Sapor I, before being flayed much to the glee of the Christians. > > 253-260 > > Valerian fought a desperate war on the Persian front in which he himself was captured and killed. Disaffection in the army was a serious concern and Valerian tried to expropriate the wealth of the church for the war effort. > > 257 Edict required the clergy to sacrifice to the State gods on pain of exile, and property sequestrated. > > 258 Summary execution of clergy who refused to sacrifice. > > Martyrs: Pope Sixtus II, his deacon Lawrence, and 6 other deacons. Apparently, Lawrence was slowly roasted on a grill and as a result (really!) became the patron saint for cooks. Legend says he found the strength to tell his executioners "Turn me over. I am done on this side." Well we wouldn't want a halfcooked saint, would we? > > At Carthage St. Cyprian, exiled under the first edict, was now recalled and publicly beheaded. As a yardstick of these troubled times, during Cyprian's reign as bishop, 4 Roman emperors and their families had perished. > > "It is remarkable that, of so great a multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom." Gibbon. > > Gallienus > > 253-268 > > No evidence of any persecution for half a century. Celebrated by the Church as the "Peace of Gallienus". Church becomes a property and land owner. Bishops appear at the imperial court. > > "The emperors allowed the Christians in their service to make the freedom of the faith almost a matter of glory." > Eusebius of Caesarea > > Claudius Gothicus > > 268-270 > > Aurelian > > 270-275 > > (Several more emperors) > > 275-284 > > Diocletian > > > Diocletian, son of a freed slave who became a Roman Emperor. For 18 of his 20 year reign he tolerated the Christians. Even his wife and daughter took an interest in the cult. > > > > "The western provinces, which were under the control of Maximian and Constantius, were scarcely affected" > > Ferrill ( p202) > > 284-305 > > 303-305 >

> After the Persian war of 297-298, the caesar Galerius became increasingly concerned with disaffected Jews and fanatical oriental cults, notably Christian ones. Even his own wife (Diocletian's daughter) had been mixing with the Christ followers! He adopted a policy that soldiers and administrators in his service had to affirm their loyalty by a sacrifice to the old gods. Those who refused were obliged to quit their posts. > > During the winter of 302/303 Galerius urged upon Diocletian a tougher stance on Christianity. As a result, Diocletian and Maximian met in Rome and jointly issued their infamous laws. > > In February 303 an edict was promulgated for the destruction of churches and sacred books, the death penalty for secret assembly, and for the punishment of leading Christians by loss of public office and civil rights. > > An African bishop, Felix, was beheaded for failing to hand over books. This led to a stampede of others who did so, the so-called 'Traditors'. Some martyrs are reported from Spain but none from Britain. > > Later in 303 a further edict required the arrest and imprisonment of all Christian clergy, who, none the less, were to be released after sacrifice to the old gods. > > In April 304 a final edict required that all Christians clergy and laity were to sacrifice on pain of death. But only one year later, in May 305, after a lifetime of service to the empire, the ailing emperor retired and the persecution was halted. > > Galerius > > > > Galerius, son of a Greek shepherd who became a Roman Emperor. > > 293-311 > > 303-311 > > Persecution confined to eastern provinces and a period of 3 years. An edict issued by Galerius in 308 ordered that all men, with wives, children, and servants, were to offer sacrifice to the gods, "and that all provisions in the markets should be sprinkled with sacrificial wine." Cruel, eh?! > > Shortly before his death, Emperor Galerius issued an Edict of Toleration in April 311. > > "We have been especially anxious that even the Christians, who have abandoned the religion of their ancestors, should return to reason." > > Maximinus Daia > > > > 305-313 > > Resumed persecution after death of Galerius but within months had to abandon the policy to fight a civil war with Licinius. Lost, fled and died. > > "The defeat of Maximin soon delivered the church from the last and most implacable of her enemies." Gibbon > > Constantine > > 306-337 > Even then, emperors tried to make things as easy as possible for those > accused of being Christian. The emperor Trajan, for example, stated > the following: "To those arrested and accused; they could not be > pardoned unconditionally, as that would affect the stability of the > empire; however, should they repent, they should be freed with no > questions asked about their past."---note note sounds like a civil government to me > The "Saviour" of the Christians triumphs > > > > > > > Trajan also advised against the use of anonymous testimonies, since under Roman law, the accused had a right to know who accused him of the crime. This humane suggestion puts Trajan morally far, far above the medieval Christian inquisitors who, not only allowed anonymous accusations, but actively encouraged it. It is a known fact that more often than not, the Roman judges used

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

every legal means at their disposal to avoid punishing the Christians. But the Christians, in the morbid need for the reward of martyrdom, more often than not insisted on being sentenced. As an example, there was an incident in North Africa around the year 180 where twelve people (nine men and three women) were accused of being Christians. The proconsul Saturninus, who heard the case, pleaded with them to save their own lives by burning the pinch. He did not ask them to give up their faith, but to demonstrate that they were patriotic citizens. The accused were indignant and refused to do so. Saturninus, in a last ditch effort, gave them thirty days to think things over. After that time, they still refused. The proconsul then had no choice but to have them executed. Upon receiving the death sentence some of them yelled out: "We thank God!", "Today we are martyrs in heaven, thanks be to God." (Pagels, "The Gnostic Gospels" p97-98)

cite source Byzantine mazevo2 p69 onwards roman persecutions christians In the year 303 Diocletian issued an edict which was to lead to the > most savage and prolonged persecution of Christians in the history of > the Roman Empire. Diocletian was convinced that one of the main causes > of the crisis in the Roman Empire was the defeatism and > anti-patriotism of the Christians.The Diocletian persecution was > ferocious. During this time, Christians lost their rights as citizens,

The Roman Martyrology

was first published in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII, who in the year before had decreed the revision of the Julian calendar that is called, after him, the Gregorian calendar. A second edition was published in the same year. The third edition, in 1584, was made obligatory wherever the Roman Rite was in use. [2] The main source was the Martyrology of Usuard, completed by the "Dialogues" of Pope Gregory I and the works of some of the Fathers, and for the Greek saints by the catalogue known as the Menologion of Sirlet.[2] Its origins can be traced back to the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, which was originally based on calendars of Roman, African and Syrian provenance, but to which were gradually added names of many saints from other areas, resulting in a number of duplications, fusions of different saints into one, and other mistakes.[3]

Hieronymian Martyrology
. It is unknown to the Greek Church

on peter and paul martyrdom

The next authorities are those quoted by Eusebius in his H. E. ii. 25. Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (A. D. 170), says that Peter and Paul went to Italy and taught there together, and suffered martyrdom about the same time. This, like most of the statements relating to the death of St. Paul, is mixed up with the tradition, with which we are not here immediately concerned, of the work of St. Peter at Rome.

The Theotokos Proclaims the Papists Enemies of Her Son and Herself
>>> >>> When the Papists attacked Mt. Athos in the 13th century, the Theotokos warned a monk through her holy icon, as he was chanting to her, Rejoice! From her icon, she suddenly replied: And you rejoice, holy elder; go and warn the Elder Thomas at the Monastery that my enemies and my Sons enemies are coming

pseudo gelasian decretals fake china archaeology Oscar Muscarella's The Lie Became Great: The Forgery of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures (Groningen: Styx 2000) suggests that contemporary forgery - or merely improper attribution - of archaeological objects is common. He notes around 40% of archaeological objects tested by the Oxford Thermoluminescence Laboratory prove to be fakes.
Some estimates suggest that around 60% of antiquities from China are of contemporary manufacture.

Origen

taught baptismal regeneration, believed in purgatory, taught that all men and even Satan would eventually be saved, believed in the pre-existence of human souls, and taught that the Holy Spirit was the first creature made by God, among other heresies. Historia tripartitacassiodorus belief that the so-called Consolatio was a forgery by Sigonius. ... In 1584 Sigonius printed two Orationes defending it as t as the genuine work of Cicero http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-840X(189305)1%3A7%3A5%3C197%3AOTPC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A

vatican library treasures

Hieronymus Rornanus, a Jesuit of Toledo

Lastly, all scholars now admit that there are no grounds for supposing, that the prose treatise " Breviarium de Victoriis ac Provinciis Populi Ro-mani ad Valentinianum Augustum," ascribed to a Sextus Rufus or Rufus Festus, and the topographical compendium " Sexti Rufi de Regionibus Urbis Romae," belong to Avienus, as was at one time maintained ; while the poem " De Urbibus His-paniae Mediterraneis," quoted as his work by several Spaniards, is now known to be a forgery, executed in all probability by a certain Hieronymus Rornanus, a Jesuit of Toledo, who was notorious for such frauds. Descriptio Orbis Terrae, or, as it is variously entitled in different editions and MSS., Metaplirasis Perigeseos DlonysiiSitus OrbisAmbitus Orbis in 1394 a forgery attributing romans sacrificing humans and gladiators to the gods as accorded in this document below

ex Jesuit medieval forgery admission Peter Doeswyck

ex jesuit confessing to vatican forgeries-amazing The Apostolic Constitutions, The Donation of Constantine, The Clementine Forgeries, The Liber Pontificals (Biographical book of the popes), The Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore, symachian { something close to this.added by me the last one.} The Ignatius' epistles are actually existing in several collections, but the seven ones of the middle recension are the only one widely accepted as authentic.The seven epistles of the middle recension are:1) 'to the Ephesians' (Ephes.)2) 'to the Magnesians' (Magn.)3) 'to the Trallians' (Trall.)4) 'to the Romans' (Rom.)5) 'to the Philadelphians' (Philad.)6) 'to the Smyrnaeans' (Smyrn.)7) 'to Polycarp' 3.1 Ignatius is condemned to death in Antioch and sent to Rome for execution:Why would someone condemned "for the sake of the common Name and hope" (Ephes.1:2) be sent away to Rome? According to Ac25:10-12 and the famous Pliny's letter about Christians, Roman citizens could go to Rome for judgment, but NOT for execution after being condemned somewhere else. And answering the aforementioned letter, emperor Trajan did not reprimand Pliny for not sending to Rome the convicted Christians!Ignatius' condemnation is about becoming food for the wild beasts. Would that mean having to go to Rome for that?In the spurious 'Acts of Paul & Thecla', the heroine, Thecla, is thrown to the beasts in the arena of Antioch, the city of Ignatius. The author certainly thought this kind of things could happen there!Also, in a more realistic account, as related in Eusebius' HC, 5, 1, Christians in Gallic cities were executed there by being offered to wild beasts, towards the end of the second century. Simply, Ignatius' condemnation in Syria and then his dispatch to Rome (at great expense for the Romans) do not make any sense. Furthermore, a public execution by torture was a strong deterrent for the ones who knew the condemned, but not for strangers in a remote city.

apostolic constitutions a forgery

As early as the fifth century Augustine accused and convicted Pope Zosiums for having falsified the 5th canon of the Council of Nice (Mansi 4, 515; Migne, P. L. 50, 422). Canon laws of the Roman Church are based on The Apostolic Constitutions, a 4th century forgery purported to be a collection of apostolic writings collected by Clement I. When Protestants exposed this fraud, the fallible Church of Rome admitted the errors: The Apostolic Constitutions were held generally in high esteem and served as the basis for much ecclesiastical legislation . . .As late as 1563. . .it was contended that it was the genuine work of the apostles (C.E. 1, 636). Framing divine laws and falsifying the Word of God is not the work of innocent Christian leaders. Example: We, the twelve Apostles of the Lord, who are now together, give you in charge these Divine Constitutions concerning every ecclesiastical form, there being present with us Paul, the chosen vessel, our fellow apostle, and James the Bishop and the rest of the Elders and the seven Deacons (M

Liber Pontificalis Book of the popes forgery Duchesne

This famous, or infamous, official fabrication, ;The Book of the Popes is notorious for its spurious accounts of the early and mythical successors of St. Peter; The Liber Pontificalis purports to be a history of the popes, beginning with St. Peter and continued down to the fifteenth century, in the form of biographies of their respective Holinesses of Rome. (CE. ix, 224.) It is an official papal work, written and kept in the papal archives, and preserves for posterity the holy lives and wonderful doings of the heads of the Church universal. Historical criticism, says CE., has for a long time dealt with this ancient text in an exhaustive way ... especially in recent decades. The Liber starts off in a typically fraudulent clerical manner: In most of its manuscript copies there is found at the beginning a spurious correspondence between Pope Damasus and St. Jerome. These letters were considered genuine in the Middle Ages. ... Duchesne has proved exhaustively and convincingly that the first series of biographies, from St. Peter to Felix III (IV, died 530) were compiled at the latest under Felix's successor, Boniface II (530-532). ... The compiler of the Liber Pontificalis utilized also some historical writings, a number of apocryphal fragments (e.g. the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), the Constitutum Sylvestri, the spurious Acts of the alleged Synod of the 275 Bishops under Sylvester, etc., and the fifth century Roman Acts of Martyrs. Finally, the compiler distributed arbitrarily along his list of popes a number of papal decrees taken from unauthentic sources, he likewise attributed to earlier popes liturgical and disciplinary regulations of the sixth century. ... The authors were Roman ecclesiastics, and some were attached to the Roman Court (CE. ix, 225.) The general falsity of the Liber is again shown and the fraudulent use made of it by the later Church forgers, thus indicated: For instances, in the Liber it is recorded that such a pope issued a decree that has been lost, or mislaid, or perhaps never existed at all. Isidore seized the opportunity to supply a pontifical letter suitable for the occasion, attributing it to the pope whose name was mentioned in the Liber. (CE. v. 774.) Thus confessed forgery and fraud taint to the core this basic record for some five centuries of the official histories and Acts of Their Holinesses of the primitive and adolescent years of the Holy Church. Pope Peter and his Successors for a century or more are thus again proven pious fictions and frauds.".Sorry, nobody can use the argument on apostolic succession anymore because there is controversy in Liber Pontificalis. http://www.thebereans.net/forum2/archive/index.php/t-32946.html igne, h

Jjustinian and bishop victor forgery agnellius

Agnellus records that Justinian granted Bishop Victor of Ravenna (5 37-544) ..... of its wording in a passage of Agnellus.2 A second important forgery is a ...the story follows the bad eastern emperor fighting pope --but winning alliance with a barbarian monarch as protector http://links.jstor.org/sici? s sici=0013-8266(197901)94%3A370%3C1%3ATCORAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P Agnellus records that Justinian granted Bishop Victor of Ravenna (5 37-544) ..... of its wording in a passage of Agnellus.2 A second important forgery is a ...http://www.christiantruth.com/forgeries.htmla forgery of the catholic church and its lexi on iconoclasm The Byzantine indictment against Rome also had a strong historical component. A major reason why Orthodox writers were unsympathetic to the Roman restatement of primacy was precisely because it was so totally lacking in historical precedent. Granted that by the twelfth century papal theorists had become experts in their ability to circumvent the inconvenient facts of history. And yet, the Byzantines were ever ready to hammer home the theme that the historical evidence was quite different. Although the Orthodox may not have known that Gregorian teaching was in part drawn from the forged decretals of pseudoIsidore (850s), they were quite c certain that it was not based on catholic tradition in either its historical or canonical form another basic a article on forgeries of vatican.below. http://www.christiantruth.com/forgeries.html h http://books.google.com/books? id=THmySuXfArIC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=liber+pontificalis+forgery&source=web&ots=_reB7avF66& s sig=Nh0gtS9S92o476_Hl6bVHu291sw#PPA16,M1 may be interest-- refers to vatican forgeries."st. peters in the vatican" Agnellus of Ravenna: Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis (c. 830 - 846). Full Latin Text [At Upenn] proof a forgery coming from this document in http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook2.html

procopius fraud secret history opinion

B A. P. Schiavo Jr. (Bristol, PA United States) - See all my reviews

y I was assigned the Secret History in college but never read it. Instead, I read Procopius's historical works from the Loeb Classical Library, Vasiliev's two volume Byzantine Empire, and various other works. It was only recently that I picked up my copy of the Secret History and read it. I now understand why my professors in college assigned it--but not the actual histories of Procopius. It's short and full of titilating hearsay--perfect fodder for lazy college students. It also casts a terrible light on the Emperor Justinian, who is otherwise well remembered by history and the Empress Theodora is especially singled out for attack. Modern scholars, for the most part, seem to accept the authenticity of the "Secret History." I remain doubtful, based on the other works of Procopius I have read. In his other works, he appears to be a reasonably sober historian of the classical Greco-Roman stripe. In the "Secret History" however, he is little short of hysterical. He makes ridiculous claims--such as that Justinian was responsible for the deaths of over 1 trillion people or that the emperor was actually a demon in human form. As to this latter claim, he even goes so far as to relate an anecdote that supposedly Justinian's mother believed that he was conceived by a demon. Futhermore, he claims that several "unnamed sources" saw Justinian's head disappear or else become transformed into a shapeless lump of flesh. If we accept that the "Secret History" is authentic, it makes Procopius perhaps the most schizophrenic author in all of history. In the vast majority of his works, at least one of which was written *after* the Secret History, he praises Justinian and his works. Why he would have written something so at odds with his previous and later histories is in itself a fascinating question. Clearly, he had some axe to grind. It's important to remember that Constantinople at that time was a highly partisan place. When we reflect on some of the partisan and often fictitious scandal sheets that are written about our own leaders today, it is not surprising that similar things existed then. One wonders whether Procopius was a green or a blue... At any rate, I do not recommend reading the "Secret History" if you know little to nothing about the late Roman/early Byzantine period. You will come away with a highly skewed opinion of the time period. Now, if only Penguin would see fit to put the other works of Procopius in inexpensive paperbacks, a balanced understanding could be achieved. Until then, I recommend the Loeb editions, expensive though they are We ought to note that the Secret History of Procopius was not published during his lifetime and most certainly not during the lifetimes of those about whom he was writing. That pretty much demolishes the theory that it was a "tardy revenge of an ill-conditioned man ... for a lifetime of obsequiousness." What good is revenge if there is no one to receive it or to enjoy it? Yes, it was certainly vitriolic and pornographic in parts. For a long time, translations from Greek were only available into Latin and Gibbon - in Ch. 40 of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - wrote about Theodora that "her arts must be veiled in the obscurity of a learned language ", and then went on to quote the passage in Greek with Latin comments!Procopius tells us in the introduction to The Secret History that he is going to provide explanations and additions that he could not previously reveal for fear of retribution from Justinian and Theodora. Since both before and afterward, Procopius wrote approvingly of the emperor, (keeping in mind that the Secret History was kept secret) it was suggested in the past that he was not the author of the work. Due to expert analyses, it is now generally accepted that Procopius did, indeed, write it. The text shows no contradictions in point of fact between the Secret History and Procopius' other works and the linguistic and grammatical analysis makes this a conclusive opinion. The Secret History of Procopius is so important to our subject here that I am going to reproduce it in its entirety over the next couple of chapters. And yes, it IS pornographic in parts.=--showing indication that procopius secret is a forgery The third work of Procopius, Anecdota, or The Secret History (Historia Arcana), is distinctly different from the other two. It is a vicious libel upon the despotic rule of Justinian and his wife Theodora in which the author flings mud not only at the imperial couple but also at Belisarius and his wife, and in which Justinian is represented as the author of all the misfortunes which occurred in the Empire during this period. The contrast between this work and the other two is so striking that some scholars began to question the authenticity of The Secret History, for it seemed impossible that all three works had been composed by one and the same man. Only after a careful comparative study of The Secret History with all other sources pertaining to Justinian's epoch was it definitely decided that the work was really an authentic work of Procopius. When properly used, this work serves as an extremely valuable source on the internal history of the Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. Thus, all the works of Procopius, in spite of their exaggerations of the virtue or vice of Justinian's deeds, constitute a highly significant contemporary source for a closer acquaintance with the life of the period. But this is not all. Slavonic history and Slavonic antiquity find in Procopius invaluable information about the life and beliefs of the Slavs, while the Germanic peoples gather from him many facts about their early history. h http://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/literature-learning-art-2.asp?pg=2 make a conclusion for positive but listen to supposed experts We have the apocryphal Gospels, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, which were not exposed till Erasmuss time

tacitus forgeries
So far, then, from being surprised with Professor Schildius (Professor of History and Greek, and afterwards of Hebrew in the University of Bremen at the commencement of the seventeenth century), and induced to doubt with him, the veraciousness of the Annals, I should have been very much astonished indeed, and, certainly, called in question its fidelity as representing the spirit of the fifteenth century, if it had not recorded (to borrow the language of Schildius) "a number of the most honourable and

innocent men, the prides and ornaments of the State, coming to an ignominious end, and for no other crime, forsooth, than that which we call treason-felony":http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/tacitus/index.htm http://jcolavito.tripod.com/lostcivilizations/id13.html intriguing http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=9098

Tacitus' Germania and other forgeries

Thomas Aquinas. In 1264 A.D. Thomas authored a work entitled 'Against the Errors of the Greeks'. This work deals with the issues of theological debate between the Greek and Roman Churches in that day on such subjects as the Trinity, the Procession of the Holy Spirit, Purgatory and the Papacy. In his defense of the papacy Thomas bases practically his entire argument on forged quotations of Church fathers.... These spurious quotations had enormous influence on many Western theologians in succeeding centuries." http://www.catholicconcerns.com/Forged.html

666 and CSAR NERO

Some will suggest that the book of Revelation was written only for those living at the time, and that 666 most probably applies to Csar Nero, who ruled Rome from 54 to 68 A.D., rather than someone from latter centuries. This point of view, which suggests Revelation had an immediate application to the first century, rather than being prophetic, is known as preterism, and is commonly held by the Catholic Church. So, just how is Nero linked to 666? The preterist takes a relatively uncommon form of Nero's name, Nero Csar or Csar Nero, and adds an "n", resulting in Neron Csar. Next the Latin is transliterated into Aramaic, resulting in nrwn qsr, which when using the numeric equivalent of the letters, then adds up to 666 as follows: Nun = 50 Resh Waw Nun Qoph Samech = = = = = 200 6 50 100 60

Resh = 200 An example of this spelling has apparently been recently discovered in one of the Dead Sea scrolls. If you use the same process, but without the added "n" the result is 616. Interestingly, some early manuscripts have 616 rather than 666, but even scholars such as Irenus [A.D. 120-202] attribute the 616 to only a copyist error (Against Heresies: Book V Chapter XXX.), "this number [666] being found in all the most approved and ancient copies" [of the Apocalypse] and asserts that "men who saw John face to face bearing their testimony" [to it - 666]. There is a problem though with the above calculation. According to the rules of Jewish numerology, known as gematria, when the letter Nun appears a second time in a word, it is known as a "Final", and takes the value of 700.* So to be precise, NRWN QSR actually adds up to 1316 and not 666. *Source: Behind Numerology, by Shirley Blackwell Lawrence, copyright 1989, published by Newcastle Publishing Co., Inc., North Hollywood, California, ISBN 0-87877-145-X, page 41. So the preterist calculation which attributes 666 to Nero, however, is nothing more than a rather desperate attempt to find some likely candidate for the Antichrist other than the Papacy.

http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/666.htm
more of nero Gematria: Nero's name, when transliterated into Hebrew, is not nun/resh/waw/nun qoph/samek/resh (Nrwn Qsr) as Gentry proposes, giving a sum of 666. Rather, it is nun/resh/waw/nun-final qoph/samek/resh. This is

because the letter nun at the end of any word is changed into its final form. And since that form has a value of 700 rather than 50, the Hebrew gematria value of Nero's name is 1316, not 666. But the book of Revelation was not written in Hebrew, it was written in Greek. Conversion into Hebrew is not in view. When John chose to bring the Hebrew language into view, he did so explicitly, as in the names "Har-Megidon" and "Abbadon." Next, the ancient church father Irenaeus, in his work Against Heresies (5:30:1, ca. AD 180-190) states, "Now since this is so, and since this number is found in all the good and ancient copies, and since those who have seen John face to face testify, and reason teaches us that the number of the name of the beast occurs according to the numeration of the Greeks be the letters in it." Notice that he states that the method is according to the numeration of the Greeks, and has the reported blessing of the author of the apocalypse. This confirms what I have just said. The number is to be calculated in Greek, not in Hebrew. It should also be reiterated that the Hebrew use of Gematria did not become common until over a century later. The Greek value of Nero's name is NOT 666 in any of his various titles and assumed names. Therefore, Nero is NOT the beast. An alternate form of the number of the beast is seen in some of the old manuscripts. There the number is stated to be 616. The Greek of this statement is substantially different from the Greek of 666, so there seems to be no possibility that this number appeared by accident. Its placement was deliberate. And when transliterated into Hebrew, the alternate form Nrw Qsr has the value 616. This fact that both forms in Hebrew match ancient manuscript forms is proposed to support the identification of Nero. But, as we have noted, Hebrew transliteration is not proper. The method must apply to the name in its native form, and no Greek form of Nero adds up to 616 either. And the testimony of Irenaeus cited above tells us one other fact. The oldest manuscripts in his day did not have the alternate form. At some point after Irenaeus, but before the oldest manuscripts that we have today, someone changed the wording in the passage in his copy for unstated purposes. Because of the way that biblical manuscripts have been copied and lost, we now have old manuscripts with both wordings. Any reason proposed for the change must necessarily be speculative.

http://www.bibleonly.org/proph/rev/666.html
all files above-- Byzantium-- roman- medieval ages- medieval forgeries---

Byzantium mazevo1 reference from here on

Allegorical interpretations of genesis Gregory nazianzus

Paul's Epistle to the Galatians two children born from two wives of Abraham one hagar of slaves and other free of Jerusalem
St. Basil rejected an allegorical interpretation in his Hexameron

"I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep

to make them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. 'For I am not ashamed of the Gospel' [Romans 1:16]." ( Homily IX:1) "'And there was evening and there was morning: one day.' And the evening and the morning were one day. Why does Scripture say 'one day the first day'? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one the first which began the series? If it therefore says 'one day,' it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day -- we mean of a day and of a night; and if, at the time of the solstices, they have not both an equal length, the time marked by Scripture does not the less circumscribe their duration. It is as though it said: twentyfour hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day." ( Homily II:8)

Augustine city of god supports literal creation

Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is difficult, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind about it as new information comes up.[6] In The City of God, Augustine also defended the idea of a young Earth. Augustine rejected both the immortality of the human race proposed by pagans, and contemporary ideas of ages (such as those of certain Greeks and Egyptians) that differed from the Church's sacred writings: "Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. For some hold the same opinion regarding men that they hold regarding the world itself, that they have always been... They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed." (Augustine, Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the Worlds Past, The City of God, Book 12: Chapt. 10 [AD 419]).

Origen Alexandrian school allegorizing errors

By the 3rd century, Origen and others of the Alexandrian school had allegorized nearly every passage in the Jewish Scriptures.[citation needed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis

He was anathematized by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, specifically in its eleventh Canon: If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinarius Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, as well as their heretical books, and also all other heretics who have already been condemned and anathematized by the holy, catholic and apostolic church and by the four holy synods which have already been mentioned, and also all those who have thought or now think in the same way as the aforesaid heretics and who persist in their error even to death: let him be anathema.[1] Gibbon asserts that, at least initially, rather than generating censure, Origen's self-castration was the focus of admiration, and dryly observes that "As it was his general practice to allegorise scripture, it seems unfortunate that, in this instance only, he should have adopted the literal sense.

demetrius had been the first to introduce episcopal ordination in Egypt. The metropolitan accordingly convened a synod of bishops and presbyters which banished Origen from Alexandria, while a second synod declared his ordination invalid. Origen accordingly fled from Alexandria in 231 hus, material creation is at least implicitly of a lesser ontological category than the immaterial, or spiritual, and the heavy material bodies that man assumes after the fall will eventually be cast off. Origen, however, still insisted on a bodily resurrection, but in contrast to Athenagoras, who believed that earthly bodies would be precisely reconstituted in the hereafter, Origen argued that Paul's notion of a flourishing spiritual body is more appropriate.

Concept of church heresy

A strict adherent of the Church, Origen yet distinguished sharply between the ideal and the empirical Church, representing "a double church of men and angels",[34] or, in Platonic phraseology, the lower church and its celestial ideal. The ideal Church alone was the Church of Christ, scattered over all the earth; the other provided also a shelter for sinners. Holding that the Church, as being in possession of the mysteries, affords the only means of salvation, he was indifferent to her external organization,[34] although he spoke sometimes of the office-bearers as the pillars of the Church, and of their heavy duties and responsibilities.

Key to catholic theology

John Climacus and his works are venerated in both the East and the West. Early 20th-century Roman Catholic theologian Adrian Fortescue said that Hesychasm went against the scholastic Aristotelean metaphysics then predominant in the West.[74] Eastern Orthodox theologian John Romanides, on the other hand, states that both Thomas Aquinas' Aristoteleanism and Augustine's Neoplatonism mislead and dominated Western theology.[75]

Some herectical terminology

Chiliasm Pelagianism Novationists docetism

Apophatic theology
(from Greek from apophmi, "to deny")also known as negative theology or via negativa (Latin for "negative way")is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.[1] It stands in contrast with cataphatic theology all anti Nicene fathers were of the mind that we can only know god through his energies. Essence of gos is completely unknowable

Justin martyr forgeries

Tertullian, in his Adversus Valentinianos, calls Justin a philosopher and martyr, and the earliest

antagonist of heretics. He was flogged and beheaded with six other Christians in Rome for his beliefs. The Chronicon Paschale assigns his martyrdom to the year 165. A considerable number of other works are given as Justin's by Arethas, Photius, and other writers; but their spuriousness is now generally admitted. The "Chronicon Paschale" is a huge compilation resulting in a chronological list of events from the creation of Adam; the principal manuscript, the 10th-century Codex Vaticanus grcus 1941, is damaged at the beginning and end and stops short at AD 627 The Expositio rectae fidei has been assigned by Draseke to Apollinaris of Laodicea, but it is probably a work of as late as the sixth century. The Cohortatio ad Graecos has been attributed to Apollinaris of Laodicea, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, as well as others. The Epistola ad Zenam et Serenum, an exhortation to Christian living, is dependent upon Clement of Alexandria, and is assigned by Pierre Batiffolto the Novatian Bishop Sisinnius (c. 400). The extant work under the title "On the Sovereignty of God" does not correspond with Eusebius' description of it, though Harnack regards it as still possibly Justin's, and at least of the second century. The author of the smaller treatise To the Greeks cannot be Justin, because he is dependent on Tatian; Harnack places it between 180 and 240.

Sextus Julius Africanus creation calender reckoning

He wrote a history of the world (Chronographiai, in five books) from Creation to the year AD 221, covering, according to his computation, 5723 years. He calculated the period between Creation and Jesus as 5500 years, placing the Incarnation on the first day of AM 5501 (our modern March 25 1 BC), according to Venance Grumel, La Chronologie (1958). This method of reckoning led to several Creation eras being used in the Greek Eastern Mediterranean, which all placed Creation within one decade of 5500 BC.

apocatastasis, or purgatory
origen contradicts himself Gregory nyssa Gregory nazianzus Gnosticism The gnostic Gospel of Philip 180-350c contains the term itself but does not teach universal reconciliation: A local Synod of Constantinople (543) condemned a form of apocatastasis as being Anathema, and the Anathema was formally submitted to the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (553 Connected to purgatory

Notethe Gregory pseudo dialogues. Forgeries of Gregory jstor

Note monophysite, Gnostic and filoque charges of clements stromata

The absence of certain things definitely promised has led scholars to ask whether he wrote an eighth book, as would appear from Eusebius (VI. xiii. 1) and the Florilegia, and various attempts have been made to identify with it short or fragmentary treatises appearing among his remains. In any case, the

"excerpts" and "selections" which, with part of a treatise on logical method, are designated as the eighth book in the single (11th century) manuscript of the Stromata, are not parts of the Hypotyposes which Clement is known to have written. According to his interpretation, such are the characteristic qualities of the divine essence. Though the Logos is most closely one with the Father, whose powers he resumes in himself, to Clement both the Son and the Spirit are "first-born powers and first created"; they form the highest stages in the scale of intelligent being, and Clement distinguishes the Son-Logos from the Logos who is immutably immanent in God. Because of this Photius would later charge that he "degraded the Son to the rank of a creature." Separate from the world as the principle of creation, the Logos is yet in it as its guiding principle. Thus a natural life is a life according to the will of the Logos. Clement has also been accused of Docetism in his teachings on the Incarnation. According to him, the body of Christ was not subject to human needs. See the following passage from Stromateis which clearly denies Christ's full humanity: In regard to the Savior, however, it were ridiculous to suppose that the body demanded, as a body, the necessary aids for its maintenance. For He ate, note for the sake of the body, which had its continuance from a holy power, but lest those in His company might happen to think otherwise of Him, just as aftewards some did certainily supposed that He had appeared as a mere phantasm. He was in general dispassionate; and no movement of feeling penetrated Him, whether pleasure or pain.2--clement charges of heresy mario wrong St. Augustine described the fires of cleansing as more painful than anything a man can suffer in this life,[34] and Pope Gregory I wrote that there must be a cleansing fire for some minor faults that may remain to be purged away.[37] Origen wrote about the fire that needs to purify the soul[38]St. Gregory of Nyssa also wrote about the purging fire the belief that all people will eventually be saved, was first developed by Clement in the Stromata. He wrote that the punishments of God are "saving and disciplinary, leading to conversion."[3] However, his successor as head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, Origen, is probably better known for espousing Christian universalism

Photius has accused Clement of Docetism. Clement, however, clearly admits in Christ a real body, but he thought this body exempt from the common needs of life, as eating and drinking, and the soul of Christ exempt from the movement of the passions, of joy, and of sadness. Clement of Ancyra, Hieromartyr: January 23Clement, Pope of Rome, Hieromartyr: October 24Cleonicos, Martyr: March 3not in synaxionThe work entitled "Outlines" (Hypotyposeis) is likewise believed to be a production of the early activity of Clement. It was translated into Latin by Rufinus under the title "Dispositiones". It was in eight books, but is no longer extant, though numerous fragments have been preserved note-- catholic encyclopedia defends this charge where orthodox wiki leaves it open

**note anselm and acquinas. Byzantine suda does not mention hypatia but only as myth

**Anselms necessary incarnation satisfy wrath of god. The Eastern Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem (1672) on souls after death. declared that "the souls of those that have fallen asleep are either at rest or in torment, according to what each hath wrought" (an enjoyment or condemnation that will be complete only after the resurrection of the dead); but the souls of some "depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there, and are delivered by the Supreme Goodness, through the prayers of the Priests, and the good works which the relatives of each do for their Departed; especially the unbloody Sacrifice benefiting the most; which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church offers daily for all alike. Of course, it is understood that we do not know the time of their release. We know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their direful condition, and that before the common resurrection and judgment, but when we know not."[67]

The Letter of Lentulus

Authenticity The letter of Lentulus is regarded as apocryphal[2] for a number of reasons. No Governor of Jerusalem; no Procurator of Judea is known to have been called Lentulus and a Roman governor would not have addressed the Senate in the way represented,[3] but the Deeds of the Divine Augustus list a Publius Lentulus as being elected as a Roman Consul during the reign of Augustus (27 BC-14 AD).[4] Lastly a Roman writer would not have employed the expressions, "prophet of truth", "sons of men" or "Jesus Christ". The former two are Hebrew idioms, the third is taken from the New Testament. The letter, therefore, gives a description of Jesus such as Christian piety conceived him. The letter The purported letter reads, in translation: Lentulus, the Governor of the Jerusalemites to the Roman Senate and People, greetings. There has appeared in our times, and there still lives, a man of great power (virtue), called Jesus Christ. The people call him prophet of truth; his disciples, son of God. He raises the dead, and heals infirmities. He is a man of medium size (statura procerus, mediocris et spectabilis); he has a venerable aspect, and his beholders can both fear and love him. His hair is of the colour of the ripe hazel-nut, straight down to the ears, but below the ears wavy and curled, with a bluish and bright reflection, flowing over his shoulders. It is parted in two on the top of the head, after the pattern of the Nazarenes. His brow is smooth and very cheerful with a face without wrinkle or spot, embellished by a slightly reddish complexion. His nose and mouth are faultless. His beard is abundant, of the colour of his hair, not long, but divided at the chin. His aspect is simple and mature, his eyes are changeable and bright. He is terrible in his reprimands, sweet and amiable in his admonitions, cheerful without loss of gravity. He was never known to laugh, but often to weep. His stature is straight, his hands and arms beautiful to behold. His conversation is grave, infrequent, and modest. He is the most beautiful among the children of men. Origin The letter was first printed in the "Life of Christ" by Ludolph the Carthusian (Cologne, 1474), [5] and in the "Introduction to the works of St. Anselm" (Nuremberg, 1491).[6] But it is neither the work of St. Anselm nor of Ludolph. According to the manuscript of Jena, a certain Giacomo Colonna found the letter in 1421 in an ancient Roman document sent to Rome from Constantinople. It must be of Greek origin, and translated into Latin during the thirteenth or fourteenth century, though it received its present form at the hands of a humanist of the fifteenth or sixteenth century.[7] Christopher Mylius, the 18th century librarian of Jena, stated the letter was written in golden letters on red paper and richly bound, and lost. [8] Friedrich Mnter believes he can trace the letter down to the time of Diocletian; but this is not generally accepted. [9]

On 3 sources for period 380

Socrates of Constantinople, also known as Socrates Scholasticus,[1] not to be confused with the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, was a Greek Christian church historian, a contemporary of Sozomen and Theodoret The contemporary historians Sozomen and Theodoret were combined with Socrates in a sixth-century compilation, which has obscured their differences until recently, when their individual portrayals of the series of Christian emperors were distinguished one from another and contrasted by Hart).mut Leppin,

Von Constantin dem Groen zu Theodosius II (Gttingen 1996

Hypatia 2 sources
Ecclesiastical History, Socrates Scholasticus Chronicle, John of Nikiu[2 Note dioceses patriachates A jewish revolt that spilt over. Massacre against christians Accounts show a jewish persecution of Christians . refer wiki hypatia Her murder as incidental and a provocation of pagan idolatry to the founding of Christianity. Murder not attributed to Cyril in sources. Followers acted on their own initiative without consultation

Note Cyril and nestorius interplay. nestorius was exiled *the power to bind and loose.

Forgeries and the Papacy The Historical Influence and Use of Forgeries in Promotion of the Doctrine of the Papacy By William Webster spurious orthodox fathers by urban iv to dupe Michael palologus to falsify papacy. [I possess this pdf in medieval forgeries file] forgeries and the papacy doc
*note in possession Edward denny papalism and fathers against Vatican doc

he object of this forgery was as follows: The East had been separated from the West since the excommunication by Pope Leo IX of Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and that of the former by the latter in July 1054, in which the other Eastern Patriarchs concurred. The Latins, especially the Dominicans, who had established themselves in the East, made strenuous efforts to induce the Easterns to submit to the Papacy. The great obstacle in the way of their success was the fact that the Orientals knew nothing of such claims as those which were advanced by the Roman Bishops. In their belief the highest rank in the Hierarchy of the Church was that of Patriarch. This was clearly expressed by the Patrician Babanes at the Council of Constantinople, 869. 'God,' he said, 'hath placed His Church in the five patriarchates, and declared in His Gospel that they should never utterly fail, because they are the heads of the Church. For that saying, "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it," meaneth this, when two fall they run to three; when three fall they run to two; but when four perchance have fallen, one, which remains in Christ our God, the Head of all, calls back again the remaining body of the Church."

They were ignorant of any autocratic power residing jure divino in the Bishop of Rome. They regarded Latin authors with suspicions as the fautors of the unprimitive claims of the Bishop of Old Rome; hence

if they were to be persuaded that the Papalist pretensions were Catholic, and thus induced to recognise them, the only way would be to produce evidence provided ostensibly from Greek sources. Accordingly a Latin theologian drew up a sort of Thesaurus Graecorum Patrum, in which, amongst genuine extracts from Greek Fathers, lie mingled spurious passages purporting to be taken from various Councils and writings of Fathers, notably St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Abbot. This work was laid before Urban IV, who was deceived by it. He was thus able to use it in his correspondence with the Emperor, Michael Palaeologus, to prove that from 'the Apostolic throne of the Roman Pontiffs it was to be sought what was to be held, or what was to be believed, since it is his right to lay down, to ordain, to disprove, to command, to loose and to bind in the place of Him who appointed him, and delivered and granted to no one else but him alone what is supreme. To this throne also all Catholics bend the head by divine law, and the primates of the world confessing the true faith are obedient and turn their thoughts as if to Jesus Christ Himself, and regard him as the Sun, and from Him receive the light of truth to the salvation of souls according as the genuine writers of some of the Holy Fathers, both Greek and others, firmly assert." Urban, moreover, sent this work to St. Thomas Aquinas...The testimony of these extracts was to him of great value, as he believed that he had in them irrefragable proof that the great Eastern theologians, such as St. Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and the Fathers of the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon, recognised the monarchical position of the Pope as ruling the whole Church with absolute power. Consequently he made use of these fraudulent documents in all honesty in setting forth the prerogatives of the Papacy. The grave result followed that, through his authority, the errors which he taught on the subject of the Papacy were introduced into the schools, fortified by the testimony of these fabrications, and thus were received as undoubted truth, whence resulted consequences which can hardly be fully estimated. It was improbable that the Greeks, who had ample means of discovering the real character of these forgeries, should finally accept them and the teaching based on them; but in the West itself there were no theologians competent to expose the fraud, so that these forgeries were naturally held to be of weighty authority. The high esteem attached to the writings of St. Thomas was an additional reason why this should be the case (Edward Denny, * Papalism* (London: Rivingtons, 1912), pp. 114117). Von Dllinger elaborates on the far reaching influence of these forgeries, especially in their association with the authority of Aquinas, on succeeding generations of theologians and their

extensive use as a defense of the papacy: In theology, from the beginning of the fourteenth century, the spurious passages of St. Cyril and forged canons of Councils maintained their ground, being guaranteed against all suspicion by the authority of St. Thomas. Since the work of Trionfo in 1320, up to 1450, it is remarkable that no single new work appeared in the interests of the Papal system. But then the contest between the Council of Basle and Pope Eugenius IV evoked the work of Cardinal Torquemada, besides some others of less importance. Torquemada's argument, which was held up to the time of Bellarmine to be the most conslusive apology of the Papal system, rests entirely on fabrications later than the *pseudo-Isidore*, and chiefly on the spurious passages of St. Cyril. To ignore the authority of St. Thomas is, according to the Cardinal, bad enough, but to slight the testimony of St. Cyril is intolerable. The Pope is infallible; all authority of other bishops is borrowed or derived frorn his. Decisions of Councils without his assent are null and void. These fundamental principles of Torquemada are proved by spurious passages of Anacletus, Clement, the Council of Chalcedon, St. Cyril, and a mass of forged or adulterated testimonies. In the times of Leo X and Clement III, the Cardinals Thomas of Vio, or Cajetan, and Jacobazzi, followed closely in his footsteps. Melchior Canus built firmly on the authority of Cyril, attested by St. Thomas, and so did Bellarmine and the Jesuits who followed him. Those who wish to get a bird'seye view of the extent to which the genuine tradition of Church authority was still overlaid and obliterated by the rubbish of later inventions and forgeries about 1563, when the *Loci* of Canus appeared, must read the fifth book of his work. It is indeed still worse fifty years later in this part of Bellarmine's work. The difference is that Canus was honest in his belief, which cannot be said of Bellarmine. The Dominicans, Nicolai, Le Quien, Quetif, and Echard, were the first to avow openly that their master St. Thomas, had been deceived by an imposter, and had in turn misled the whole tribe of theologians and canonists who followed him. On the one hand, the Jesuits, including even such a scholar as Labbe, while giving up the pseudoIsidorian decretals, manifested their resolve to still cling to St. Cyril. In Italy, as late as 1713, Professor Andruzzi of Bologna cited the most important of the interpolations of St. Cyril as a conclusive argument in his controversial treatise against the patriarch Dositheus (Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dllinger, *The Pope and the Council* (Boston: Roberts, 1870), pp. 233-234). The authority claims of Roman Catholicism ultimately devolve upon the institution of the papacy. The papacy is the center and source from which all authority flows for Roman Catholicism. Rome has long claimed that this institution was established by

Christ and has been in force in the Church from the very beginning. But the historical record gives a very different picture. This institution was promoted primarily through the falsification of historical fact through the extensive use of forgeries as Thomas Aquinas' apologetic for the papacy demonstrates. Forgery is its foundation. As an institution it was a much later development in Church history, beginning with the Gregorian reforms of pope Gregory VII in the 11th century and was restricted completely to the West. The Eastern Chruch never accepted the false claims of the Roman Church and refused to submit to its insistence that the Bishop of Rome was supreme ruler of the Church. This they knew was not true to the historical record and was a perversion of the true teaching of Scripture, the papal exegesis of which was not taught by the Church fathers (For an analysis of the church father's interpretation of *the rock of Matthew 16:18*<http://www.christiantruth.com/mt16.html>please refer to the article on that subject on this web page) Dr. Aristeides Papadakis is an Orthodox historian and Professor of Byzantine history at the University of Maryland. He gives the following analysis of the Eastern Church's attitude towards the claims of the bishops of Romeespecially as they were formulated in the 11th century Gregorian reforms. He points out that on the basis of the exegesis of scripture and the facts of history, the Eastern Church has consistently rejected the papal claims of Rome: What was in fact being implied in the western development was the destruction of the Church's pluralistic structure of government. Papal claims to supreme spiritual and doctrinal authority quite simply, were threatening to transform the entire Church into a vast centralized diocese...Such innovations were the result of a radical reading of the Church's conciliar structure of government as revealed in the life of the historic Church. No see, regardless of its spiritual seniority, had ever been placed outside of this structure as if it were a power over or above the Church and its government...Mutual consultation among Churchesepiscopal collegiality and conciliarity, in short had been the quintessential character of Church government from the outset. It was here that the locus of supreme authority in the Church could be found. Christendom indeed was both a diversity and a unity, a family of basically equal sister-Churches, whose unity rested not on any visible juridical authority, but on conciliarity, and on a common declaration of faith and the sacramental life. The ecclesiology of communion and fraternity of the Orthodox, which was preventing them from following Rome blindly and submissively like slaves, was based on Scripture and not merely on history or tradition. Quite simply, the power to bind and loose mentioned in the New Testament had been

granted during Christ's ministry to every disciple and not just to Peter alone...In sum, no one particular Church could limit the fulness of God's redeeming grace to itself, at the expense of the others. Insofar as all were essentially identical, the fulness of catholicity was present in all equally. In the event, the Petrine biblical texts, cherished by the Latins, were beside the point as arguments for Roman ecclesiology and superiority. The close logical relationship between the papal monarchy and the New Testament texts, assumed by Rome, was quite simply undocumented. For all bishops, as successors of the apostles, claim the privilege and power granted to Peter. Differently put, the Savior's words could not be interpreted institutionally, legalistically or territorially, as the foundation of the Roman Church, as if the Roman pontiffs were alone the exclusive heirs to Christ's commission. It is important to note parenthetically that a similar or at least kindred exegesis of the triad of Matt. 16:18, Luke 22:32 and John 21:15f. was also common in the West before the reformers of the eleventh century chose to invest it with a peculiar 'Roman' significance. Until then, the three prooftexts were viewed primarily 'as the foundation of the Church, in the sense that the power of the keys was conferred on a *sacerdotalis ordo* in the person of Peter: the power granted to Peter was symbolically granted to the whole episcopate.' In sum, biblical Latin exegetes before the Gregorian reform did not view the New Testament texts unambiguously as a blueprint for papal sovereignty; their understanding overall was nonprimatial. The Byzantine indictment against Rome also had a strong historical component. A major reason why Orthodox writers were unsympathetic to the Roman restatement of primacy was precisely because it was so totally lacking in historical precedent. Granted that by the twelfth century papal theorists had become experts in their ability to circumvent the inconvenient facts of history. And yet, the Byzantines were ever ready to hammer home the theme that the historical evidence was quite different. Although the Orthodox may not have known that Gregorian teaching was in part drawn from the forged decretals of pseudoIsidore (850's), they were quite certain that it was not based on catholic tradition in either its historical or canonical form. On this score, significantly, modern scholarship agrees with the Byzantine analysis. As it happens, contemporary historians have repeatedly argued that the universal episcopacy claimed by the eleventhcentury reformers would have been rejected by earlier papal incumbents as obscenely blasphemous (to borrow the phrase of a recent scholar). The title 'universal' which was advanced formally at the time was actually explicitly rejected by earlier papal giants such as Gregory I. To be brief, modern impartial scholarship is

reasonably certain that the conventional conclusion which views the Gregorians as defenders of a consistently uniform tradition is largely fiction. 'The emergence of a papal monarchy from the eleventh century onwards cannot be represented as the realization of a homogenous development, even within the relatively closed circle of the western, Latin, Church' (R.A. Marcus, *From Augustine to Gregory the Great *(London: Variorum Reprints, 1983), p. 355). It has been suggested that the conviction that *papatus* (a new term constructed on the analogy of *episcopatus* in the eleventh century) actually represented a rank or an order higher than that of bishop, was a radical revision of Church structure and government. The discontinuity was there and to dismiss it would be a serious oversight (Aristeides Papadakis, *The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy *(Crestwood: St. Vladimir's, 1994), pp. 158-160, 166-167). christ as rock

anonymus valesianus on Constantine forgery jstor source

The fragments published in the so-called Anonymus Valesianus (in Latin), ...... suggests forgery in any of the documents relating to Constantine or his age. ... links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2656(1969)8%3A1%3C71%3AG%22OCAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K http://books.google.com/books?id=iovnxjsczkC&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=+pseudo+kodinus+&source=web&ots=ZaGV4mhHyr&sig=TF9 hdIZNCLeFivxhO1GLHn7juuw#PPA38,M1 The evidence shows that Constantine was still ruling the West later thanthe document is supposed to have been made, and does not show Sylvester doingso. [67-71]. The record of coinage shows no transfer - coins continue tobe struck in Latin for Constantine. The historians do not mention thechange of administration. another reference to this well known forgery of constantine's donation. http://www.mgr.org/VaticanForgery3.html

Hardouin forgeries
Hardouin declared that all the councils supposed to have taken place before the council of Trent were fictitious. It is, however, as the originator of a variety of paradoxical theories that Hardouin is now best remembered. The most remarkable, contained in his Chronologiae ex nummis antiquis restitutae (1696) and Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum, was to the effect that, with the exception of the works of Homer, Herodotus and Cicero, the Natural History of Pliny, the Georgics of Virgil, and the Satires and Epistles of Horace, all the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/a-vatican_lib/Margins_of_past.html

paduan imitations 16th century

The second section (pp. 32-68) is a concise history of forgery, beginning with the Paduan imitations of the sixteenth century that were produced in response to the Renaissance love affair with all things Roman. Here, the work of Giovanni Cavino, the most easily distinguished of the Paduans, is particularly emphasized

Historia Augusta In Latin, Ninth century The "Historia Augusta" is an amusing collection of lives
of the Roman emperors written in the fourth century A.D. The texts purport to be the work of six distinct historians, but were composed, according to most modern scholars, by a single forger. They describe many curious details of court life and provide apparent quotations from original documents, which interested many medieval and Renaissance scholars. One of the many remarkable qualities of the Vatican's manuscripts is the richness of the marginal notes in which generations of scholars discussed and evaluated their content. In the section displayed here, Petrarch calls attention in a marginal note to one of the quoted documents. http://www.jura.uni-saarland.de/Rechtsgeschichte/Ius.Romanum/english.html

Bernard de Montfaucon Palaeographia graeca Paris; Ludovicus Guerin [etc.], 1708

Belonging to a noble and ancient line, Bernard de Montfaucon (1655 1741) was destined for a military career but spent most of his youth in the family library at the castle of Roquetaillade. Ill-health and the death of his parents caused him to choose the life of a monk. Taking his vows in 1676, Montfaucon subsequently lived at various abbeys in France and Italy. His unlimited access to the manuscripts of numerous monastic libraries led to his important work Palaeographia graeca, first published in 1708. Besides establishing the foundations of Greek palaeography, the book contains a remarkable list of 11,630 manuscripts which the author consulted for its preparation. Illustrating the history of Greek writing and the variation of its characters, Palaeographia graeca is still a mine of valuable information for the classical scholar.

Palaeographia graeca pdf

http://books.google.com.au/books/download/Palaeographia_Graeca.pdf? id=zHAsAAAAYAAJ&ie=ISO-88591&hl=en&capid=AFLRE73P2ScDvPfUGInWn21QEAt3Pha1V8_MkR_DAUK5ysm9wSHcwdeSahYxwr1U0bby7mSvLNk0EzVIt8EsQhmYWLTbNYJQ&continue=http://books.google.com.au/bo oks/download/Palaeographia_Graeca.pdf%3Fid%3DzHAsAAAAYAAJ%26ie%3DISO-88591%26output%3Dpdf%26hl%3Den roman taxis

The central theme in this document is taxis. Taxis, or correct order, within Byzantine society produced the harmonious hierarchy of institutions that consituted the state. Taxis in human society mirrored that of heaven, and systems of precedence mirrored the divine hierarchy. Thus the Byzantine empire was rigidly structured, and the opposite of the world beyond the empire, the barbarian world where ataxia (disorder) reigned. However, the late antique concept of universality had been reinstituted as a principal component of imperial ideology before the tenth century, and this required that the empire introduce order to other human societies, to correct ataxia. This is evident in chapter 46, which comprises a list of Byzantine court titles which foreigners might be given; and in chapter 47, which lists not only how foreign ambassadors should be greeted, but how (exactly how) they should greet the emperor. In fact, it is most likely to have been the Logothete who delivered the greeting on behalf of the ambassadors, saving them from any potential faux pas consistent with their ataxia.

Ignatius letters
In 1498, an official of Pope Alexander VI named Annius of Viterbo claimed to have discovered lost books of Berossus. These were in fact an elaborate forgery later collections of Ignatian letters which have been preserved, the oldest is known as the "long recension". This collection, the author of which is unknown, dates from the latter part of the fourth century. It contains the seven genuine and six spurious letters, In this collection is also to be found the "Martyrium Colbertinum". The Greek original of this recension is contained in a single codex, the famous Mediceo-Laurentianus manuscript at Florence. This codex is incomplete, wanting the letter to the Romans, which, however, is to be found associated with the "Martyrium Colbertinum" in the Codex Colbertinus, at Paris. The mixed collection is regarded as the most reliable of all in determining what was the authentic text of the genuine Ignatian letters. The two letters to the Apostle St. John and the one to the Blessed Virgin, which exist only in Latin, are e unanimously admitted to be spurious.

Fraudulent forgeries of Ignatius:

1. The real Ignatius, lived about 110 AD. A total of 15 letters were allegedly written by Ignatius. We take the view that all 15 of Ignatius's letters are forgeries. The fact that neither Eusebius (300 AD) nor Jerome (495 AD) make reference to the first 8 Ignatian letters (Tarsians, Antiochians, Hero, Philippians, Maria to Ignatius, Mary, 1st. St. John, 2nd St. John, Virgin Mary) makes it likely that they were composed as late as 300-500 AD. It is this reason that all scholars reject these first 8 letters as forgeries. Some scholars, however accept that the "7 Ignatian letters" are genuine. These 7 Ignatian letters are: Polycarp, Ephesians, Magnesians, Philadelphians, Romans, Smyrnaeans, Trallians. We feel these scholars are in error and that even the 7 Ignatian letters are forgeries. (We have colour coded the quotes below.) We take the view that all of Ignatius' writings are forgeries and unreliable. There are fifteen books attributed to Ignatius. Eight are surely forgeries and spurious. Seven are considered by some as genuine, although many scholars also believe they are all forgeries. Again, we view all Ignatius' writings as forgeries. They purport to be written by Ignatius, who lived about 110 AD. We believe it is clear, however, that they are all no earlier than 220 AD, more likely 250 AD. Although they are forgeries, they do represent the views of the author in time of 250 AD. We see a clear change from the Bible pattern, from a plurality of Elders (also called bishops) , deacons and saints, to a single Bishop who ruled the congregations and under him were a plurality of elders, then deacons and saints. At this point in history, congregations were still autonomous and independent, but we also see the seeds of development for the Papal system, where one man rules over all churches world wide which first occurred in 606 AD. Within one of the "7 genuine Ignatius letters", is a powerful clue it is clearly a forgery from a later time. The very first historical reference to the "Catholic Church" is nestled warmly between very strong commands to obey the bishop as you would Jesus Christ and the only valid baptism or communion service is one by the bishop's authority. We feel that is it no coincidence that the first historical reference to the church as the "Catholic Church" is contained within one of the "7 genuine Ignatius letters". Schaff comments: "been found in this letter to the Romans, especially as in this letter we first find the use of the phrase "Catholic Church" in patristic writings." (Philip Schaff: Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, Introductory Note To The Epistle Of Ignatius To The Ephesians.) We feel it is proof enough to reject all as forgeries. "See that ye all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father ... Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid. (The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter VIII.-Let Nothing Be Done Without the Bishop.) Having said this, the Ignatian letters do represent real history for the dates they were actually written. Forgeries yes, but even the forgeries prove that there was no one bishop over the church universal.

2.

3.

4.

http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/ignatius.html Ignatius epistles forgeries

The Ignatius' epistles are actually existing in several collections, but the seven ones of the middle recension are the only one widely accepted as authentic. The seven epistles of the middle recension are: 1) 'to the Ephesians' (Ephes.) 2) 'to the Magnesians' (Magn.) 3) 'to the Trallians' (Trall.) 4) 'to the Romans' (Rom.) 5) 'to the Philadelphians' (Philad.) 6) 'to the Smyrnaeans' (Smyrn.) 7) 'to Polycarp' (Polyc.) Five of these letters are seemingly addressed to Christians in cities of the Roman province of Asia; the last one to the bishop of Smyrna. Several other recensions are also known, including the longer one with the initial seven letters greatly "updated" & embellished, plus an account ('Martyrium Ignatii') of Ignatius' condemnation by Trajan himself in Antioch (Syria), trip to Rome & martyrdom there (with a post-mortem reappearance!). But all of them are considered spurious and written not before the 4th/5th century. More so because Eusebius, writing around 315, is totally unaware of those. However he named Ignatius & the seven letters, gave two quotes and some indication on their content ('The History of the Church' (HC), 3, 36). From the seven aforementioned letters --the commentaries of the fathers, up to Eusebius included, do

not divulge much more-- very few historical items appear about Ignatius: He is a Christian from Syria: http://www.christianism.com/html/add36d.html

Ammianus forgery
We shall find a still worse forgery in Ammianus later on. It is certainly curious that not a word was ever written about Ammianus before the sixteenth century, except a short reference to a sentence from the fourteenth book in Priscianus, XI. 51, and that the work of Marcellinus, which Poggio claimed to have found at Hersfeld or Fulda, should almost begin with that sentence, FOR HE CLAIMED to have found Marcellinus only beginning with book XIV. It looks as though Poggio used the sentence in Priscianus as a basis for his fabrication.2" [148]. DO NOT DISCUSS THE CORRESPONDING PASSAGE IN TACITUS' GERMANIA, BECAUSE I SHALL ANALYZE THIS SILLY [see 1989 (clumsy)] FORGERY LATER ON." [218]. "Hunibald's History of the origin of the Franks is a forgery, from 1752 (John Henry Newman 1801 - 1890): "ALL KNOWLEDGE OF THE [GREEK AND] LATIN CLASSICS COMES TO US FROM THE MEDIEVAL TRANSCRIPTIONS OF THEM, AND THEY WHO TRANSCRIBED THEM HAD THE OPPORTUNITY OF FORGING OR GARBLING THEM. WE ARE SIMPLY AT THEIR MERCY". [note: history is also defined as: "his story"!]. from 1843 (Edwin Johnson 1842 - 1901): "WE HAVE NOT IN OUR HANDS A PURE EDITION OF THE GREEK AND LATIN CLASSICS OF THE [ROMAN] EMPIRE." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attacotti

Constantine I emperor - Constantine in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia

Because of his fame and his being proclaimed Emperor in Britain, Constantine was later also considered a British King. In the 11th century, the English writer Geoffrey of Monmouth published a fictional work called Historia Regum Britanniae, in which he narrates the supposed history of the Britons and their kings from the Trojan War to King Arthur and the Anglo-Saxon conquest. In this work, Geoffrey claimed that Constantine's mother Helena was actually the daughter of "King Cole", the mythical King of the Britons and eponymous founder of Colchester. A daughter for King Cole had not previously figured in the lore, at least not as it has survived in writing, and this pedigree is likely to reflect Geoffrey's desire to create a continuous line of regal descent. It was indecorous, Geoffrey considered, that a king might have less-than-noble ancestors. Monmouth also said that Constantine was proclaimed "King of the Britons" at York, rather than Roman Emperor. What he is striving in his usual dark way to establish is this:-Here was the failure of the Roman form of administration; the Romans were the most accomplished people in the art of government; the English, who are semi-barbarous, can know nothing about government; it is then idle on their part to imagine that they are endowed with such a vast amount of political knowledge as to be qualified by their own reflections alone to build up a new and magnificent form of government; when, too, that form of government is essentially different from our superb oligarchies in Italy, the most civilized and cultivated part of the world in everything, especially politics; the English style of government is, also, strictly based on the old Roman mode of administration

pseudo Gregory ii emperor leo and patriarch germanos letter forgery

Moving still earlier in time, the two influential letters of Pseudo-Pope Gregory II to Emperor Leo III and the one allegedly by the same pope to Patriarch Germanos, which is also a likely forgery, have been omitted, along with a couple of (synodal) letters by Methodios and Nikephoros, patriarchs of Constantinople history of byzantine empire vasilev www.nsfzxc.cn/images/stories/editorupload/cnfile209c19699291d4eac59226b724844b09.pdf

*note life of Justinian theophilus forgery in medieval forgery file about non Slavic justinian

*note"Western-Rite" Fraud in Orthodoxy *note MORE CREDIBILITY OF THE FRAUD CONNECTING BOLLANDISTS AND BENEDICTINE

MONKS

proof pope only a bishop in universal church

Dictatus papae
is a compilation of 27 statements of powers arrogated to the Pope that was included in Pope Gregory VII's register under the year 1075 Note alexius letter call for crusade forgery

Alexius call for crusade forgery

www.crusades-encyclopedia.com/alexiusI.html There survives a supposed letter from Alexius I to Count Robert of Flanders. ... letter is likely a forgery, but may be based on an original appeal from Alexius for help. ... covers her fathers dealings with the crusaders during the First Crusade.

Medieval Sourcebook: The Donation of Constantine (c.750-800)And reference to pagan innocent baby blood bath

This is perhaps the most famous forgery in history. For centuries, until Lorenzo Valla proved it was forgery during the Renaissance it provied the basis for papal territorial and jurisdictional claims in

Italy. Probably at least a first draft of it was made shortly after the middle of the eighth century in order to assist Pope Stephen II in his negotiations with the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Short. The Pope crossed the Alps to anoint the latter as king in 754, thereby enabling, the Carolingian family, to which Pepin belonged, to supplant the old Merovingian royal line which had become decadent and powerless and to become in law as well as in fact rulers of the Franks. In return, Pepin seems to have promised to give to the Pope those lands in Italy which the Lombards had taken from Byzantium. The promise was fulfilled in 756. Constantine's alleged gift made it possible to interpret Pepin's grant not as a benefaction but as a restoration.

In the name of the holy and indivisible Trinity, the Father, namely, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine in Christ Jesus, the Lord I God our Saviour, one of that same holy Trinity,-faithful merciful, supreme, beneficent, Alamannic, Gothic, Sarmatic, Germanic, Britannic, Hunic, pious, fortunate, victor and triumpher, always august: to the most holy and blessed father of fathers Sylvester, bishop of the city of and to all his successors the pontiffs , who are about to sit upon Rome and pope, the chair of St. Peter until the end of time - also to all the most reverend and of God beloved catholic bishops, subjected by this our imperial decree throughout the whole world to this same holy, Roman church, who have been established now and in all previous times-grace, peace, charitv, rejoicing, long-suffering, mercv, be with you all from God the Father almighty and from Jesus Christ his Son and from the Holy Ghost. Our most gracious serenity desires, in clear discourse, through the page of this our imperial decree, to bring to the knowledge of all the people in the whole world what things our Saviour and Redeemer the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the most High Father, has most wonderfully seen fit to bring about through his holy apostles Peter and Paul and by the intervention of our father Sylvester, the highest pontiff and the universal pope. First, indeed, putting forth, with the inmost confession of our heart, for the purpose of instructing the mind of all of you, our creed which we have learned from the aforesaid most blessed father and our confessor, Svlvester the universal pontiff; and then at length announcing the mercy of God which has been poured upon us. For we wish you to know,, as we have signified through our former imperial decree, that we have gone away, from the worship of idols, from mute and deaf images made by hand, from devilish contrivances and from all the pomps of Satan; and have arrived at the pure faith of the Christians, which is the true light and everlasting life. Believing, according to what he-that same one, our revered supreme father and teacher, the pontiff Sylvester - has taught us, in God the Father, the almighty maker of Heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord God, through whom all things are created; and in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and vivifier of the whole creature. We confess these, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in such way that, in the perfect Trinity, there shall also be a fulness of divinity and a unity of power. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and these three are one in Jesus Christ. There are therefore three forms but one power. For God, wise in all previous time, gave forth from himself the word through which all future ages were to be born; and when, by that sole word of His wisdom, He formed the whole creation from nothing, He was with it, arranging all things in His mysterious secret place. Therefore, the virtues of the Heavens and all the material part of the earth having been perfected, by

the wise nod of His wisdom first creating man of the clay of the earth in His own image and likeness, He placed him in a paradise of delight. Him the ancient serpent and envious enemy, the devil, through the most bitter taste of the forbidden tree, made an exile from these joys; and, be being expelled, did not cease in many ways to cast his poisonous darts; in order that, turning the human race from the way of truth to the worship of idols, he might persuade it, namely to worship the creature and not the creator; so that, through them (the idols), he might cause those whom he might be able to entrap in his snares to be burned with him in eternal punishment. But our Lord, pitying His creature, sending ahead His holy prophets, announcing through them the light of the future life-the coming,' that is, of His Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ-sent that same only begotten Son and Word of wisdom: He descending from Heaven on account of our salvation, being born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary,-the word was made flesh and d welt among us. He did not cease to be what He had been, but began to be what He had not been, perfect God and perfect man: as God, performing miracles; as man, sustaining human sufferings. We so learned Him to be very man and very God by the preaching of our father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff, that we can in no wise doubt that He was very, God and very man. And, having chosen twelve apostles, He shone with miracles before them and an innumerable multitude of people. We confess that this same Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets; that He suffered, was crucified, on the third day arose from the dead according to the Scriptures; was received into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father. Whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. For this is our orthodox creed, placed before us by our most blessed father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff. We exhort, therefore, all people, and all the different nations, to hold, cherish and preach this faith; and, in the name of the Holy Trinity, to obtain the grace of baptism; and, with devaout heart, to adore the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns through infinite ages; whom Sylvester our father, the universal pontiff, preaches. For He himself, our Lord God, having pit on me a sinner, sent His holy apostles to visit us, and caused the light of his splendour to shine upon us. And do ye rejoice that I, having been withdrawn from the shadow, have come to the true light and to the knowledge of truth. For, at a time when a mighty and filthy leprosy had invaded all the flesh of my, body, and the care was administered of many physicians who came together, nor by that of any one of them did I achieve health: there came hither the priests of the Capitol, saving to me that a font should be made on the Capitol, and that I should fill this with the blood of innocent infants; and that, if I bathed in it while it was warm, I might be cleansed. And very many innocent infants having been brought together according to their words, when the sacrilegious priests of the pagans wished them to be slaughtered and the font to be filled with their blood: Our Serenity perceiving the tears of the mothers, I straightway abhorred the deed. And, pitying them, I ordered their own sons to be restored to them; and, giving them vehicles and gifts, sent them off rejoicing to their own. That day having passed therefore-the silence of night having come upon us-when the time of sleep had arrived, the apostles St. Peter and Paul appear, saying to me: "Since thou hast placed a term to thy vices, and hast abhorred the pouring forth of innocent blood, we are sent by, Christ the Lord our God, to give to thee a plan for recovering thy health. Hear, therefore, our warning, and do what we indicate to thee. Sylvester - the bishop of the city of Rome - on Mount Serapte, fleeing they persecutions, cherishes the darkness with his clergy in the caverns of the rocks. This one, when thou shalt have led him to thyself, will himself show thee a pool of piety; in which, when he shall have dipped thee for the third time, all that strength of the leprosy will desert thee. And, when this shall have been done, make this return to

thy Saviour, that by thy order through the whole world the churches may be restored. Purify thyself, moreover, in this way, that, leaving all the superstition of idols, thou do adore and cherish the living and true God -- who is alone and true -- and that thou attain to the doing of His will. Rising, therefore, from sleep, straightway I did according to that which I bad been advised to do by, the holy apostles; and, having summoned that excellent and benignant father and our enlightener Svlvester the universal pope-I told him all the words that had been taught me by the holy apostles; and asked him who where those gods Peter and Paul. But he said that they where not really called gods, but apostles of our Saviour the Lord God Jesus Christ. And again we began to ask that same most blessed pope whether he had some express image of those apostles; so that, from their likeness, we might learn that they were those whom revelation bad shown to us. Then that same venerable father ordered the images of those same apostles to be shown by his deacon. And, when I had looked at them, and recognized, represented in those images, the countenances of those whom I had seen in my dream: with a great noise, before all my satraps*, I confessed that they were those whom I had seen in my dream. [* there were no such Roman officials] Hereupon that same most blessed Sylvester our father, bishop of the city of Rome, imposed upon us a time of penance-within our Lateran palace, in the chapel, in a hair garment,-so that I might obtain pardon from our Lord God Jesus Christ our Saviour by vigils, fasts, and tears and prayers, for all things that had been impiously done and unjustly ordered by me. Then through the imposition of the hands of the clergy, I came to the bishop himself; and there, renouncing the pomps of Satan and his works, and all idols made by hands, of my own will before all the people I confessed: that I believed in God the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary. And, the font having been blessed, the wave of salvation purified me there with a triple immersion. For there 1, being placed at the bottom of the font, saw with my own eyes a band from Heaven touching me; whence rising, clean, know that I was cleansed from all the squalor of leprosy. And, I being raised from the venerable font-putting on white raiment, be administered to me the sign of the seven-fold holy Spirit, the unction of the holy oil; and he traced the sign of the holy cross on my brow, saying: God seals thee with the seal of His faith in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to signalize thy faith. All the clergy replied: "Amen." The bishop added, "peace be with thee." And so, on the first day after receiving the mystery of the holy baptism, and after the cure of my body from the squalor of the leprosy, I recognized that there was no other God save the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; whom the most blessed Sylvester the pope doth preach; a trinity in one, a unity in three. For all the gods of the nations, whom I have worshipped up to this time, are proved to be demons; works made by the hand of men; inasmuch as that same venerable father told to us most clearly how much power in Heaven and on earth He, our Saviour, conferred on his apostle St. Peter, when finding him faithful after questioning him He said: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock (petrani) shall I build My Church, and the gates of bell shall not prevail against it." Give heed ye powerful, and incline the ear of .your hearts to that which the good Lord and Master added to His disciple, saying: and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound also in Heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed also in Heaven." This is very wonderful and glorious, to bind and loose on earth and to have it bound and loosed in Heaven.

And when, the blessed Sylvester preaching them, I perceived these things, and learned that by the kindness of St. Peter himself I had been entirely restored to health: I together with all our satraps and the whole senate and the nobles and all the Roman people, who are subject to the glory of our rule -considered it advisable that, as on earth he (Peter) is seen to have been constituted vicar of the Son of God, so the pontiffs, who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the earthly clemency of our imperial serenity is seen to have had conceded to it,-we choosing that same prince of the apostles, or his vicars, to be our constant intercessors with God. And, to the extent of our earthly imperial power, we decree that his holy Roman church shall be honoured with veneration; and that, more than our empire and earthly throne, the most sacred seat of St. Peter shall be gloriously exalted; we giving to it the imperial power, and dignity of glory, and vigour and honour. And we ordain and decree that he shall have the supremacy as well over the four chief seats Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople* and Jerusalem, as also over all the churches of God in the -whole world. And he who for the time being shall be pontiff of that holy Roman church shall be more exalted than, and chief over, all the priests of the whole world; and, according to his judgment, everything which is to be provided for the service of God or the stability of the faith of the Christians is to be administered. It is indeed just, that there the holy law should have the seat of its rule where the founder of holy laws, our Saviour, told St. Peter to take the chair of the apostleship; where also, sustaining the cross, he blissfully took the cup of death and appeared as imitator of his Lord and Master; and that there the people should bend their necks at the confession of Christ's name, where their teacher, St. Paul the apostle, extending his neck for Christ, was crowned with martyrdom. There, until the end, let them seek a teacher, where the holy body of the teacher lies; and there, prone and humiliated, let them perform I the service of the heavenly king, God our Saviour Jesus Christ, where the proud were accustomed to serve under the rule of an earthly king. [*at the time of the supposed date of the document, Constantinople had not been founded. Its position as "chief seat" was two centuries away.] Meanwhile we wish all the people, of all the races and nations throughout the whole world, to know: that we have constructed within our Lateran palace, to the same Saviour our Lord God Jesus Christ, a church with a baptistry from the foundations. And know that we have carried on our own shoulders from its foundations, twelve baskets weighted with earth, according to the number of the holy apostles. Which holy church we command to be spoken of, cherished, venerated and preached of, as the head and summit of all the churches in the whole world-as we have commanded through our other imperial decrees. We have also constructed the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, chiefs of the apostles, which we have enriched with gold and silver; where also, placing their most sacred bodies with great honour, we have constructed their caskets of electrum, against which no force of the elements prevails. And we have placed a cross of purest gold and precious gems on each of their caskets, and fastened them with golden keys. And on these churches for the endowing of divine services we have conferred estates, and have enriched them with different objects; and, through our sacred imperial decrees, we have granted them our gift of land in the East as well as in the West; and even on the northern and southern coast;-namely in Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa and Italy and the various islands: under this condition indeed, that all shall be administered by the hand of our most blessed father the pontiff Sylvester and his successors.

For let all the people and the nations of the races in the whole world rejoice with us; we exhorting all of you to give unbounded thanks, together with us, to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. For He is God in Heaven above and on earth below, who, visiting us through His holy apostles, made us worthy to receive the holy sacrament of baptism and health of body. In return for which, to those same holy apostles, my masters, St. Peter and St. Paul; and, through them, also to St. Sylvester, our father,-the chief pontiff and universal pope of the city of Rome,-and to all the pontiffs his successors, who until the end of the world shall be about to sit in the seat of St. Peter: we concede and, by this present, do confer, our imperial Lateran palace, which is preferred to, and ranks above, all the palaces in the whole world; then a diadem, that is, the crown of our head, and at the same time the tiara; and, also, the shoulder band,-that is, the collar that usually surrounds our imperial neck; and also the purple mantle, and crimson tunic, and all the imperial raiment; and the same rank as those presiding over the imperial cavalry; conferring also the imperial sceptres, and, at the same time, the spears and standards; also the banners and different imperial ornaments, and all the advantage of our high imperial position, and the glory of our power. And we decree, as to those most reverend men, the clergy who serve, in different orders, that same holy Roman church, that they shall have the same advantage, distinction, power and excellence by the glory of which our most illustrious senate is adorned; that is, that they shall be made patricians and consuls,-we commanding that they shall also be decorated with the other imperial dignities. And even as the imperial soldiery, so, we decree, shall the clergy of the holy Roman church be adorned. And I even as the imperial power is adorned by different offices-by the distinction, that is, of chamberlains, and door keepers, and all the guards,-so we wish the holy Roman church to be adorned. And, in order that the pontifical glory may shine forth more fully, we decree this also: that the clergy of this same holy Roman church may use saddle cloths of linen of the whitest colour; namely that their horses may be adorned and so be ridden, and that, as our senate uses shoes with goats' hair, so they may be distinguished by gleaming linen; in order that, as the celestial beings, so the terrestrial may be adorned to the glory of God. Above all things, moreover, we give permission to that same most holy one our father Sylvester, bishop of the city of Rome and pope, and to all the most blessed pontiffs who shall come after him and succeed him in all future times-for the honour and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord,-to receive into that great Catholic and apostolic church of God, even into the number of the monastic clergy, any one from our senate, who, in free choice, of his own accord, may wish to becomea cleric; no one at all presuming thereby to act in a haughty manner. We also decreed this, that this same venerable one our father Sylvester, the supreme pontiff, and all the pontiffs his successors, might use and bear upon their heads-to the Praise of God and for the honour of St. Peter-the diadem; that is, the crown which we have granted him from our own head, of purest gold and precious gems. But he, the most holy pope, did not at all allow that crown of gold to be used over the clerical crown which he wears to the glory of St. Peter; but we placed upon his most holy head, with our own hands, a tiara of gleaming splendour representing the glorious resurrection of our Lord. And, holding the bridle of his horse, out of reverence for St. Peter we performed for him the duty of groom; decreeing that all the pontiffs his successors, and they alone, may use that tiara in processions. In imitation of our own power, in order that for that cause the supreme pontificate may not

deteriorate, but may rather be adorned with power and glory even more than is the dignity of an earthly rule: behold we-giving over to the oft-mentioned most blessed pontiff, our father Sylvester the universal pope, as well our palace, as has been said, as also the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts and cities of Italy or of the western regions; and relinquishing them, by our inviolable gift, to the power and sway of himself or the pontiffs his successors-do decree, by this our godlike charter and imperial constitution, that it shall be (so) arranged; and do concede that they (the palaces, provinces etc.) shall lawfully remain with the holy Roman church. Wherefore we have perceived it to be fitting that our empire and the power of our kingdom should be transferred and changed to the regions of the East; and that, in the province of Byzantium, in a most fitting place, a city should be built in our name; and that our empire should there be established. For, where the supremacy of priests and the bead of the Christian religion has been established by a heavenly ruler, it is not just that there an earthly ruler should have jurisdiction. We decree, moreover, that all these things which, through this our imperial charter and through other godlike commands, we have established and confirmed, shall remain uninjured and unshaken until the end of the world. Wherefore, before the living God, who commanded us to reign, and in the face of his terrible judgment, we conjure, through this our imperial decree, all the emperors our successors, and all our nobles, the satraps also and the most glorious senate, and all the people in the ,A-hole world now and in all times previously subject to our rule: that no one of them, in any way allow himself to oppose or disregard, or in any way seize, these things which, by our imperial sanction, have been conceded to the holy Roman church and to all its pontiffs. If anyone, moreover,-which we do not believe - prove a scorner or despiser in this matter, he shall be subject and bound over to eternal damnation; and shall feel that the holy chiefs of the apostles of God, Peter and Paul, will be opposed to him in the present and in the future life. And, being burned in the nethermost hell, he shall perish with the devil and all the impious. The page, moreover, of this our imperial decree, we, confirming it with our own hands, did place above the venerable body of St. Peter chief of the apostles; and there, promising to that same apostle of God that we would preserve inviolably all its provisions, and would leave in our commands to all the emperors our successors to preserve them, we did hand it over, to be enduringly and happily possessed, to our most blessed father Sylvester the supreme pontiff and universal pope, and, through him, to all the pontiffs his successors -God our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ consenting. And the imperial subscription: May the Divinity preserve you for many years, oh most holy and blessed fathers. Given at Rome on the third day before the Kalends of April, our master the august Flavius Constantine, for the fourth time, and Galligano, most illustrious men, being consuls. (From Zeumer's edition, published in Berlin in 1888, v. Brunner-Zeumer: "Die Constantinische Schenkungsurkunde") translated in Ernest F. Henderson, , Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages , (London: George Bell, 1910), pp. 319-329

Historia Regum Britanniae

The Historia Regum Britanniae (English: The History of the Kings of Britain) is a pseudohistorical account of British history Reference regum brittani forgery doc in medieval forgery file

Vaticanus corruption
E HAS LEFT IN THIS PLACE ONE COLUMN ENTIRELY VACANT. IT IS THE ONLY VACANT COLUMN IN THE WHOLE MANUSCRIPT -- A BLANK SPACE ABUNDANTLY SUFFICIENT TO CONTAIN THE TWELVE VERSES WHICH HE NEVERTHELESS WITHHELD. WHY DID HE LEAVE THAT COLUMN VACANT? What can have induced the scribe on this solitary occasion to depart from his established rule? The phenomenon (I believe I was the first to call distinct attention to it) is in the highest degree significant, and admits only one interpretation. The older manuscript from which Codex B was copied must have infallibly contained the twelve verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to leave them out -- and he obeyed; but he prudently left a blank space in memoriam rei. Never was a blank more intelligible! Never was silence more eloquent! By this simple expedient, strange to relate, the Vatican Codex is made to refute itself even while it seems to be bearing testimony against the concluding verses of St. Marks Gospel, by withholding them; for it forbids the inference which, under ordinary circumstances, must have been drawn from that omission. It does more. By leaving room for the verses it omits, it brings into prominent notice at the end of fifteen centuries and a half, a more ancient witness than itself (Burgon, The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel of St. Mark Vindicated, 1871, pp. 86-87). 3) Vaticanus omits Mark 16:9-20, but a blank space is left for that section of Scripture. he Vaticanus is very strange and corrupt: (1) It was corrected by revisers in the 8th, 10th, and 15th centuries (W. Eugene Scott, Codex Vaticanus, 1996). (2) The entire manuscript has been mutilated. ...every letter has been run over with a pen, making exact identification of many of the characters impossible (Vaticanus and Sinaiticus - ww.waynejackson. freeserve.co.uk/kjv /v2.htm). This was probably done in the 10th or 11th century. All of the revision and overwriting makes precise paleographic analysis impossible (Scott, Codex Vaticanus). Dr. David Brown observes: I question the great witness value of any manuscript that has been overwritten, doctored, changed and added to for more than 10 centuries (The Great Uncials).

Diocletian persecution: exaggerated

Christian fiction claims up to 40,000 martyrs, many in Rome. Scholars have shown that there were only 20 (a score of) genuine martyrs in the whole Roman Empire, and none in Rome. A few hundred were executed, where many perished in jail - and most of them were zealous Christians who demanded death in order to become martyrs. The first 20 years of Diocletian's rule showed him to be highly tolerant of Christianity. However, Christians showed themselves intolerant.

JSTOR: Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus. British ...

The attempt of Hilgenfeld to date the Sinaiticus in the sixth century on the basis of the colophons to II Esdras and Esther was rejected by Tischendorf on ... links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0002-9475(1939)60%3A4%3C486%3ASACOTC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F

*note the acts of Andrew forgery pdf contained in medieval forgeries file

catholics deny 8th ecumenical council

This document can be found (in its English translation), by visiting the related links mentioned at the end of this article. Also in Greek (prototype) you can find it mentioned in Volume 2, pages 902-925 of the book by J. Karmiris, titled THE DOGMATIC AND SYMBOLIC MONUMENTS OF THE ORTHODOX CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Another interesting detail is also the following: The Papist Church , published the socalled Catholic Encyclopedia in 1907, in which it mentions the Ecumenical Synod of 879880, saying that: This is the "Psuedosynodus Photiana" (: the pseudo-synod of Photios), which the Orthodox count as the Eighth General Council http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04312b.htm

*Note index librorum prohibitorum list of forbidden books on file medieval forgery

acts of paul and thecla forgery

According to Ac25:10-12 and the famous Pliny's letter about Christians, Roman citizens could go to Rome for judgment, but NOT for execution after being condemned somewhere else. And answering the aforementioned letter, emperor Trajan did not reprimand Pliny for not sending to Rome the convicted Christians!Ignatius' condemnation is about becoming food for the wild beasts. Would that mean having to go to Rome for that?In the spurious 'Acts of Paul & Thecla', the heroine, Thecla, is thrown to the beasts in the arena of Antioch, the city of Ignatius. The author certainly thought this kind of things could happen there!Also, in a more realistic account, as related in Eusebius' HC, 5, 1, Christians in Gallic cities were executed there by being offered to wild beasts, towards the end of the second century. Simply, Ignatius' condemnation in Syria and then his dispatch to Rome (at great expense for the Romans) do not make any sense. Furthermore, a public execution by torture was a strong deterrent for the ones who knew the condemned, but not for strangers in a remote city

Byzantium-> ecumenism 2 on Wesley pretend theosis and herectical Wesley deification birth of Frankish civilisation
The birth of Frankish Civilisation is described in a letter of St. Boniface to Pope Zacharias (natione Graecus [4]) in 741. The Franks had rid the Church in Francia of all Roman bishops by 661 and had made themselves its bishops and clerical administrators. They had divided up the Church's property into fiefs which had been doled out as benefices according to rank within the pyramid of military vassalage. These Frankish bishops had no Archbishop and had not met in Synod for eighty years. They had been meeting as army officers with their fellow war-lords. They are, in the words of St. Boniface, "voracious laymen, adulterous clergy and drunkards, who fight in the army fully armed and who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans" [5]. Fifty three years later the successors to these illiterate barbarians condemned the East Roman Empire as "heretical" and "Greek" on Icons at their Council of Frankfurt in 794 and then on the Filioque at their Council of Aachen in 809. For 215 years the Roman Popes refused to conform to their Frankish masters on Icons and the Filioque. These Frankish bishops and their successors never understood the meaning of Apostolic Tradition and succession which they reduced to episcopal power over a system of sacramental magic which sends people either to heaven or hell. This they transferred to the Papacy when they forcefully took it over during a struggle which reached its final stages between 983 and 1046.

This .tradition of killer bishops, clergy and monks was given its near final theological foundation by "Saint" Bernard of Clairvaux in his sermons "De Laude novae militiae ad midites Templi" [10] in which he argues that the religious Knight Templer "who kills for religion commits no evil but rather does good, for his people and himself. If he dies in battle, he gains heaven; if he kills his opponents, he avenges Christ. Either way, God is pleased," [11]. Its final form was given by the Inquisition which condemned to death but usually turned executions over to laymen:

The history of the misappropriation of ancient greek theory to support English medieval tenets of medieval faith Ex nihilio

Aristotle reports a curious argument, which probably goes back to Anaximander, in which it is argued that the Boundless has no origin, because it is itself the origin. Some scholars[which?] have argued that Plethon viewed Plato as positing ex nihilo creation in his Timaeu

2012-Orthodox 2012 file

Monk as element of Byzantine society pdf On soul sleep.doc Exodus archaeology Elder paisios on secularization of monasticism Jehovahs witness abuse Why I abandoned papacy 10 reasons wh ecumenical throne is not orthodox

defence of st constantine
A popular myth arose, modified to allude to HippolytusPhaedra legend, with the suggestion that Constantine killed Crispus and Fausta for their immoralities.[225] One source, the largely fictional Passion of Artemius, probably penned in the eighth century by John of Damascus, makes the legendary connection explicit.[226] As an interpretation of the executions, the myth rests on only "the slimmest of evidence": sources that allude to the relationship between Crispus and Fausta are late and unreliable, and the modern suggestion that Constantine's "godly" edicts of 326 and the irregularities of Crispus are somehow connected rests on no evidence at all.[225] Note st Constantine and historical truth article

Defence of Byzantium

Abstract This paper examines the status afforded old age in the Byzantine Empire. Frequently neglected in accounts of state formation or comparative history, this Christian imperial state transformed the moral ordering of the lifecourse. In contrast to both classical Greek and Roman society, old age acquired a distinct moral authority in Byzantine society. This status was not confined to a few members of the elite as in Sparta or Rome. The economic vulnerability, physical frailty and social marginality accompanying old age conferred an equal moral claim upon society that the state actively addressed. A mix of institutionalised and individual charities created a prototype welfare state within which provision for old age played a significant part. Despite its neglect by most social historians of old age, the Byzantine Empire is of considerable historical significance in the development of the contemporary constructions of old age. Just as the Byzantine Empire helped erode the practice of slavery that had been widespread in the ancient Greek and Roman societies, so too did it help to create a prototype welfare state in which individual enterprise was tempered by a collective sense of inclusive Christian responsibility. The consideration extended by Byzantine society, to old age, to its weakness as well as to its wisdom and authority, instituted a step change from earlier classical traditions.

The Old Testament in Byzantium By Nicholas De Lange, Robert Nelson, Paul Magdalino

] in selected files unread

star of david or molach

Amos 5:26 - But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

Tribe of dan

According to the biblical narrative, the tribe had originally tried to settle in the central coastal area of Canaan, but due to enmity with the Philistines who had already settled there, were only able to camp in the hill country overlooking the Sorek Valley, the camp location becoming known as Mahaneh Dan ("Camps of Dan"). (Joshua 19) The region they were trying to settle included the area as far north as Joppa, and extending south into the Shephelah in the area of Timnah; as a result, the modern state of Israel, as well as some zionists, refer to the region as Gush Dan (the Dan area). However, as a consequence of the pressure from the Philistines, the tribe abandoned hopes of settling near the central coast, instead migrating to the north of the country, and after conquering Laish, refounded it as their capital (renaming it Dan). (Judges 18)

Judgement versus discernment Orthodox 2012- orthodox is file judge a tree by its fruits*

Infant baptism
Scholars disagree on the date when infant baptism was first practiced. Some believe that first-century Christians did not practice it.[8] Others believe that they did,[9] understanding biblical references to individuals "and [their] whole household" being baptized (Acts 16:15, Acts 16:31-33, 1 Corinthians 1:16) as including small children and infants. While the earliest extra-biblical directions for baptism,[10] which occurs in the Didache (c. 100),[11] speaks to the baptism of adults, rather than young children, since it requires that the person to be baptised should fast,[12] writings of the second and early third century indicate that Christians baptized infants too.[13] Irenaeus (c. 130202) speaks not only of children but even of infants being "born again to God"[14] and three passages of Origen (185c. 254)[15] mention infant baptism as traditional and customary.[16] Tertullian (c. 155230) too, while advising postponement of baptism until after marriage, mentions that it was customary to baptise infants, with sponsors speaking on their behalf.[17] The Apostolic Tradition, attributed to Hippolytus of Rome (died 235), describes how to perform the ceremony of baptism; it states that children were baptised first, and if any of them could not answer for themselves, their parents or someone else from their family was to answer for them. [18] While they acknowledge that in the third century the practice of infant baptism was believed to be of apostolic origin, some writers deny that it was in use in the first century.[19] Some of them link infant baptism with the use of baptismal methods other than total immersion, and deny, in spite of the evidence of the Didache, that those methods were used in the first century. From at least the third century onward Christians baptized infants as standard practice, although some preferred to postpone baptism until late in life, so as to ensure forgiveness for all their preceding sins. [20]

In defence of orthodoxy file

Saint nikodemos hagiorite. Doc

Note the controversial unseen warefare alleged Jesuit influence probable forgery of benetian printing press. St athanasios reconciles work

Cyprus first Christian state

Cyprus comes under the dominion of the Roman Empire . During the missionary journey of Saints Paul and Barnabas,43ad the Proconsul Sergius Paulus is converted to Christianity and Cyprus becomes the first country to be governed by a Christian. Destructive earthquakes occur during the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD and cities are rebuilt. In 313 the Edict of Milan grants freedom of worship to Christians and Cypriot bishops attend the Council of Nicaea in 325.

Cavarnos on fasting

Fasting takes into account both the quantity and thequality of food. The idea is to eat a smaller amountof food during a fasting day; to abstain from fats andoils, as these tend to fatten the body and thereby toarouse lust and make one physically and spirituallylazy; to abstain from meat, fish, and products ofanimal origin, as these tend to excite carnal desire;and also to abstain from mere delicacies, as theconsumption of these is a form of self-indulgence. St.John Climacus (c. 525-605) says: "Satiety of food is abegetter of unchastity." He also says, "Let us cutdown fatty and greasy foods that inflame carnaldesire, and foods that sweeten and tickle the larynx"(The Ladder, Migne PG 88, 864, 865). The practice of fasting is not regarded as an end initself, as something having instrinsic value, but onlyas a means, as a necessary condition for the spirituallife. It belongs to the category of what the Eastern,Byzantine Fathers call "bodily virtues," among whichare prostrations, standing, and vigils. Referring tothese, St. John Damascene (c. 676-c. 754) says thatthey "are rather instruments for the virtues; they arenecessary, in one practices them with humility andspiritual knowledge. For without them neither do thevirtues of the soul come into being, but in themselvesthey are of no benefit, any more than plants withoutfruit" (Philokalia, 2, 17). And St. Gregory theSinaite (1289-1360), speaking specifically of fasting,observes: "Constant fasting whithers lust and givesbirth to self-restraint" (Philokalia, 2, 272); whileCallistos and Ignatios Xanthopoulos remark: "Fastingand self-restraint are the first virtue, the mother,root, source and foundation of all good" (Philokalia,2, 370).

Interior of chvurch

orthodox theologyorthodox works file

list of the passions doc maximos soul after death doc poem. Female hymnographer Byzantium picture of the modern world nafpaktos [also have books] life of lazaros of galesion el'azr), literally God has helped.

THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE

In 1924, the Church of Greece ushered in the pan-heresy of Ecumenism in a form tangible to every believerby changing the Churchs traditional Julian calendar. It adopted the papal Gregorian calendar, thereby evincing a desire to concelebrate, not with the Church Triumphant in heaven, but rather with the heretics of the fallen West. About one quarter of the Greek population refused to accept the innovation and cut itself off from the hereticizing hierarchy, but it was not until 1935 that any bishops espoused the cause. In that year, three bishops of the New Calendar Church declared for the Old Calendar, and immediately assumed leadership of the movement. The New Calendarists responded by launching a violent and often bloody persecution. With the aid of the police, they brutalized and banished the leaders of the Old Calendar, and even went so far as to throw chalices to the ground and trample upon the Holy Eucharist. At this time (1935) the Old Calendar bishops issued an encyclical to the effect that the New Calendar Church had separated itself from the Body of Christ and no longer possessed valid Mysteries. Two years later, however, Metropolitan Chrysostomos (I) of Florina, later head of the Old Calendar Church, wrote a private letter to another bishop stating that, in his opinion, the New Calendarists were only in a state of potential schism and that their Mysteries were still valid. Two other bishops (of a number that had been ordained), upon learning this opinion, separated themselves from the Old Calendar Synod, believing this view to be a fall from true Orthodoxy. In 1948, one of them, Matthew of Bresthena, believing he was the last Orthodox bishop left on earth, ordained (by himself) a whole new synod of bishops, thus forming a synod parallel to the main Synod. This group is called the Matthewites and was the first schism from our Church. Eventually, as other bishops died or returned to the New Calendar, Metropolitan Chrysostomos (I) of Florina, now head of the Church, felt it necessary (in 1950) to restore unity among the Old Calendarists by synodically revoking his letter of 1937 and officially declaring (again) that the New Calendar was graceless. This, however, failed to heal the Matthewite schism, and in 1955 Chysostomos (I) died, leaving the main body of Old Calendarists without any bishops. This situation was partially remedied in 1960 and 1962, when several hierarchs were consecrated by bishops of the Russian Church Abroad. It was altogether resolved in 1969, when these private consecrations were officially recognized by the Russian Synod and full communion was established between the Greek Old Calendar Church and the Russian Church Abroad. In 1963 Auxentios, a good but incompetent man, was elected Archbishop. Under his mismanagement, numerous scandals broke out as immoral clergy were ordained or accepted from the New Calendar. Relations with the Church Abroad deteriorated, and many people quietly left the Old Calendar. Several events of this period were: 1.) In 1969, Archimandrite Cyprian and his monastery at Fili, formerly New Calendarists, joined the Old Calendar under Auxentios. 2.) In 1974, the Synod of Auxentios renewed its condemnation of the New Calendarists as graceless. 3.) In 1977, Callistos, a bishop of the Matthewite Synod, joined the Synod of Auxentios, in order to be in communion with the Russian Church Abroad. Discouraged because of the scandals taking place in the Church, a number of bishops stopped attending synod meetings and, in February 1979, two of the remaining five bishopsof the Synod (the above-mentioned Callistos and his cohort Anthony) proceeded to consecrate eight new bishops, one of whom was Cyprian of Fili. These ordinations were made without the permission or even the vote of the Synod, were performed by a minority of the Synods members, and took place at nighttime in the monastery of Fili. The breakaway bishops claimed they had the oral permission of Archbishop Auxentios, but Auxentios denied ever having made such a statement and with his hierarchs immediately condemned and deposed the ten new bishops. The new bishops declared themselves to be the only legitimate synod of Old Calendarists and immediately invited the hierarchs who had been avoiding synod meetings to join them, but the other bishops (such as Petros of Astoria and Chrysostomos (II), the future Archbishop) refused to join the schismatic group. In 1983, the president of the new synod Callistos retired. Shortly thereafter, all the surviving bishops consecrated by Callistos and Anthony, except for Cyprian (one had died), repented of their uncanonical consecrations and were accepted back into Auxentios Synod. At this time (1984), Metropolitan Cyprian presented his own ecclesialogical theories in a coherent form, stating definitively that the New Calendarist Church was the Mother Church and that its mysteries were valid until condemned by a pan-orthodox council. On the basis of this position, he refused to rejoin the bishops under Auxentios. He remained by himself and, with the help of John of Sardinia (the only other bishop remaining of the Callistos groupnot one of the original schismatics, but consecrated later), organized his few followers into what he called the Synod in Resistance. We should note that Cyprian joined the Old Calendar knowing that the official position of the Church was that the New Calendar was graceless. He accepted consecration to the episcopacy, not in objection to that position (since Callistos, who ordained him, was the most avid and public proponent of the idea), but rather hoping new and more responsible bishops would restore order to the Church. It was not until several years later that Cyprian, already a bishop, began using the issue of grace as an excuse to remain separate from the other hierarchs of the Old Calendar. He claimed that it was impossible for him or any of his followers to have communion with a church holding the official doctrine that the New Calendar was without grace. In Cyprians eyes, thus, his is the canonical Old Calendarist Church, while the true Synod is schismatic for holding to the same thing it has declared since 1935 when the Old Calendar first received its episcopacy. At no time before did anyone feel it necessary to create a schism in order to defend the mysteries of the New Calendarists. Cyprian himself never declared invalid the Old Calendar movement as it was in 1935 or 1950 or 1974 (the years when proclamations were made about the gracelessness of the New Calendar). Had he done so, the entire movement from its very inception and throughout its whole history would have been (following his line of reasoning) fanatical, extremist, and impossible to join with, as he now calls the Synod under Chrysostomos. Meanwhile, in the canonical Synod, the ineptitude of Auxentios soon became an issue again, and he was deposed for having made a notoriously immoral man bishop without synodal approval. In his place, the revered Chrysostomos (II) was chosen to the Archbishopric (in 1986), which post he occupies to this day.

The difference between the Matthewites, the Cyprianites, and the canonical True Orthodox Church of Greece can be summed up as follows: the Matthewites say that the New Calendar is graceless and heretical, and that anyone who ventures a private opinion to the contrary (as did Chrysostomos in 1937) is graceless and a heretic as well. The Matthewites are also uncanonical, being schismatic and having their ordinations from only one bishop, which the canons strictly forbid. The Cyprianites state that the New Calendar is the Mother Church of the Old Calendarist Church; that its mysteries are fully valid until condemned by a Pan-Orthodox council, and that anyone who says otherwise is a gravely mistaken fanatic with whom it is impossible to have communion. The Cyprianites are also schismatic, having their roots in the Callistos schism. Finally, the canonical Church of Greece, which comprises about 70% of the Old Calendarist movement, maintains the traditional position that the New Calendar is graceless; but actual opinion in the Church is not necessarily unilateral on this question. Its bishops reject the New Calendar church not so much because they view it as graceless, but because it has abandoned the truth. Since it does not adhere to an Orthodox confession of faith, it is impossible for the True Orthodox to recognize it, a schismatic body, as the Mother Church, or officially to declare it, a schismatic and hereticizing group, to possess the fullness of the grace of Christas Cyprian teaches. We admire the pastoral and anti-ecumenical activities of the Cyprianites, as well as the zeal and piety of the Matthewites, and we look forward to the day both groups will end their schisms and return to the canonical Church. In this way, our united forces will present a coherent opposition to Ecumenism, which, with Gods help, will prove impossible for the heretics to ignore or withstand.

Orthodox theology catholic errors

Augustine error unbaptised children go to hell further study

were children who had died in the state of original sin delivered from hell, since only by baptism children are delivered from original sin and from hell, but not by Christs descent into hell, since baptism can be received only in earthly life, not after death

anselms false atonement

hat theology emphasises that the substitutionary atonement of Christs death fulfills the juridical requirements for the lifting of Adams curse, for it appeased the Fathers anger. In this non-Orthodox theological construct, Christs Resurrection is not as central to redemption as it is in Orthodoxy, since atonement was complete on the Cross. As Orthodox, however, we believe Christ died *not* to satisfy the Fathers offended justice but to slay death by death e rejected the view of the Atonement that saw it as the settlement of a lawsuit between God and the devil. Anselms hypothesis was that all human beings had sinned in and with Adam. Gods honor demanded that every creature should subject itself to him so that his eternal purposes should be complet Cur Deus Homo and Satisfaction Atonement The Satisfaction (or Commercial) theory of the atonement was formulated by Anselm of Canterbury in his book, Cur Deus Homo (lit. Why the God Man).[53] He has introduced the idea of satisfaction as the chief demand of the nature of God, of punishment as a possible alternative of satisfaction and equally fulfilling the requirements of justice thus opening the way to the assertion of punishment as the true satisfaction of the law. In his view, Gods offended honor and dignity could only be satisfied by the sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Anselm undertook to explain the rational necessity of the Christian mystery of the atonement. His philosophy rests on three positionsfirst, that satisfaction is necessary on account of God's honour and justice; second, that such satisfaction can be given only by the peculiar personality of the God-man Jesus; and, third, that such satisfaction is really given by this God-man's voluntary death. According to this view, sin incurs a debt to Divine justice, a debt that must be paid somehow. Thus, no sin, according to Anselm, can be forgiven without satisfaction. However, the incurred debt is something far greater than a human being is capable of paying. All the service that a person can offer to God is already obligated on other debts to God.[53] By Anselm's time the suggestion has been made that some innocent person, or angel, might possibly pay the debt incurred by sinners. That, however, we would put the sinner under obligation to that deliverer and the sinner would become indebted to a "mere creature."ed. Since finite man could never make satisfaction to the infinite God,

no one but one who is God-man can make the satisfaction by which man is saved. The voluntary death of the sinless Christ on the cross was the only way and the only acceptable satisfaction. The second innovation in Anselm's thinking which opened the way for the Immaculate Conception was his understanding of original sin.[56] Anselm affirmed that original sin is simply human nature without original justice, and that it is transmitted because parents cannot give original justice if they do not have it themselves; original sin is the transmission of fallen human nature. In contrast, Anselm's contemporaries held that the transmission of original sin had to with the lustful nature of the act of sexual intercourse. Anselm was the first thinker to separate original sin from the lust of intercourse. This enabled later thinkers to see that God might keep Mary free from original sin, even though she was conceived through normal sexual intercourse. From catholic errors anselm file

Clericalism a problem in the new calender

an impression that only the clergy are truly "in the Church" and lay people are merely spectators, is not part of Orthodox life. When it is sometimes encountered, it is almost always due to Western influence, particularly from Roman Catholicism. In Orthodoxy, the priesthood is not a tool of power, much less a social or administrative class. Rather, it is the agent through which the experience of God in the Holy Mysteries is made available to the members of the Body of Christ. It is a dignity of service, not of superiority. The youngest child present at a Divine Liturgy has a function, one might even say a priestly function, just as much as the man in vestments standing at the altar. The only difference is that the Church has chosen that particular man to fulfill that particular function. This situation is most clearly seen in village life in Orthodox countries. Here a priest is likely to be a farmer, like almost everyone else in the village. According to the canons, he may not be a shopkeeper, a banker, an innkeeper, or anything else that would involve competition, moneymaking, or special interest. Competition, even on a commercial level, is deemed to be incompatible with the priestly life. On Sundays and feast days, this man heads for the church instead of for his fields, as he does the rest of the week. He may have no more knowledge of theology than the other villagers, and may even have to read the liturgical texts phonetically, without much understanding. Nevertheless, he is the priest, and he is usually given the benefit of the doubt by the other members of the village. He does not hear confessions, and he does not preach. These two tasks require special training and a blessing from the bishop. However, the priest performs all the other necessary functions of the priesthood for his flock When such a man dies, the village might send his son off to the Bishop for ordination, or they might choose one of their number they lsider suitable for the task. This pattern of Orthodox life is fast disappearing, as university credentials and other professional training are developed through most of the Orthodox world. It has to be remembered, though, that professionalism leads to clericalism, and clericalism is at odds with Orthodox experience. As the many hundreds of years of history of the Orthodox Church testify, most Orthodox priests have been trained not in seminaries, but rather, "on the job," directed by bishops and more experienced presbyters (priests). Academic rigor or accomplishment may, in certain circumstances, deemed desirable, but it is not a prerequisite to ordination in the Orthodox Church. Indeed, there is a danger that the priesthood may looked upon as simply one profession among many, if the main emphasis is on qualifications and social standing. As with everything e to do with the Orthodox Church, the significance and importance of the priesthood is deeply grounded in mystery. On occasion, bishops, who are the ministers of this Mystery and must correspondingly take responsibility for their sacred acts, choose to ordain people the world (etna, etc) might find quite unsuitable. Such charismatic actions may indeed come to fruition, since the power of ordination is through the work of the Holy Spirit, and that power is without limit. - Fr. Meletios (Webber)

Manuscript of the Malleus maleficarum, witch trial

"the most influential and widely used handbook on witchcraft." The classic evocation of this deranged misogyny is the Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published by Catholic inquisition authorities in 1485-86. "All wickedness," write the authors, "is but little to the wickedness of a woman. ... What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours. ... Women are by nature instruments of

Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation." (Quoted in Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context, Vol. I, pp. 438-39.) "The importance of the Malleus cannot be overstated," argues Ben-Yehuda: It was to become the most influential and widely used handbook on witchcraft. ... Its enormous influence was practically guaranteed, owing not only to its authoritative appearance but also to its extremely wide distribution. It was one of the first books to be printed on the recently invented printing press and appeared in no fewer than 20 editions. ... The moral backing had been provided for a horrible, endless march of suffering, torture, and human disgrace inflicted on thousands of women. (Ben-Yehuda, "The European Witch Craze," p. 11.) No data on orthodox witch trials, but prddominant in Switzerland and germany and france

Apostle paul die in rome question

_ The Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 275- 339) was the first to write that Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero.[186] He states that Nero's persecution led to Peter and Paul's deaths, but that Nero did not give any specific orders. Several other accounts have Paul surviving his two years in Rome and traveling to Hispania.[18

1182 Maronites (formerly Monothelite heretics) submit to Rome.

Knights tempular first bank corporation

Based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. They acquired large tracts of land, both in Europe and the Middle East; they bought and managed farms and vineyards; they built churches and castles; they were involved in manufacturing, import and export; they had their own fleet of ships; and at one point they even owned the entire island of Cyprus. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the world's first multinational corporation.[13][15][16]

Reconciling God and Mammon: Adam Smith and how religion shaped his

i ideas

How was Adam Smiths vision of a free market order shaped by his theological background? We know that Stoicism, Newtonian natural theology, and Calvinist ideas of divine providence were important to Smith in his eighteenth century Scottish context, but how exactly did they influence his economics? These questions are important and hotly contested, and this session bring together international experts in the field to debate the links between Smiths theology and his economics. We will also consider contemporary relationships between economics and religion. P Panelists:Professor Paul Oslington, joint chair in economics and theology, Australian Catholic University. A published author with forthcoming volumes Adam Smith as Theologian (Routledge), Political Economy as Natural Theology (Routledge), and Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics (OUP). Recipient of a Templeton Foundation grant to explore the formation of an international economics and religion research centre in Sydney. Professor Gavin Kennedy,

Gilles de Rais nut case medieval

Gilles de Rais, seigneur et baron de Rais (14041440) was a Breton knight, a leader in the French army and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known as a prolific serial killer of children. A member of the House of Montmorency-Laval, Gilles de Rais grew up under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather and increased his fortune by marriage. Following the War of the Breton Succession, he earned the favour of the Duke and was admitted to the French court. From 1427 to 1435, Gilles served as a commander in the Royal Army, and fought alongside Joan of Arc against the English and their Burgundian allies during the Hundred Years War, for which he was appointed Marshal of France.

In 1434/5, he retired from military life, depleted his wealth by staging an extravagant theatrical spectacle of his own composition and dabbled in the occult. After 1432 Gilles engaged in a series of child murders, his victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings came to an end in 1440 when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investigation which brought Gilles' crimes to light. At his trial the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Gilles' own confederates in crime testified against him. Gilles was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440. Gilles de Rais has had some cultural impact and is one among several candidates believed to be the inspiration for the 1697 fairy tale Bluebeard by Charles Perrault. His life is the subject of several modern novels, and referenced in a number of rock bands' albums and songs.

Pope blasphemy
The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, he is Jesus Christ himself, hidden under the veil of flesh." Catholic National July 1895.

The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade and the schismatic medieval inquisition
(12091229) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate the Cathar heresy in Languedoc. The Crusade was prosecuted primarily by the French and promptly took on a political flavour, resulting in not only a significant reduction in the number of practicing Cathars but also a realignment of Occitania, bringing it into the sphere of the French crown and diminishing the distinct regional culture and high level of Aragonese influence. When Innocent III's diplomatic attempts to roll back Catharism[1] met with little success and after the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered (allegedly by an agent serving the Cathar count of Toulouse), Innocent III declared a crusade against Languedoc, offering the lands of the schismatics to any French nobleman willing to take up arms. The violence led to France's acquisition of lands with closer cultural and linguistic ties to Catalonia (see Occitan). An estimated 200,000 to 1,000,000 people were massacred during the crusade.[2][3] The Albigensian Crusade also had a role in the creation and institutionalization of both the Dominican Order and the Medieval Inquisition.

Cyprus under Frankish feudal fiefdom. Note the book of Venetians showing ill treatment
against greeks in aegean On May 6th 1191, Richard the Lion-hearted invaded and captured Cyprus on his way to Jerusalem to take part in the Third Crusade. From this day on the people of Cyprus were ruled by non-Orthodox foreigners until 1958. Richard the Lion-hearted sold Cyprus to the monastic order of the Knights Templars, who in turn sold it to the deposed King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan, in 1192. The Franks introduced the Feudal system and all Cypriots became serfs. The Orthodox Church was persecuted and all educated people and most bishops were forced to leave. Using similar methods in Southern Italy and in Sicily, the Papacy forced the people to become Roman

Catholic Gnosticism and dualism. Note self flagellation rituals and ceremonies
Western Europeans during the Early Middle Ages were inclined to believe the most outlandish ideas, particularly where religious matters were concerned. For instance, they believed Satan was every-

where; thus one monk wrote that the whole air is but a thick mass of devils. Another chronicler told of how a wicked priest tried to take sexual advantage of a womanto be taken to ensure that a cat or dog did not walk across the corpse in the coffin, lest the dear departed turn into a vampire. Some superstitions have survived from medieval timesfor instance, saying bless you when someone sneezes, since sneezing was viewed as an opportunity for a demon to enter the body. The Medieval Mind Catholics.

Orthodox theology orthodox quotes and pieces

Note fathers against vaticanism doc

Orthodox theology ecumenism file

2006 Pope Benedict XVI drops title Patriarch of the West; 1926 The Benedictine monastery Chevetogne Abbey is founded in Belgium, dedicated to Christian unity, being a double rite monastery having both Western (Latin rite) and Eastern (Byzantine rite) churches holding services every day.

The new world church and the duplicitous issue of primacy of honour in the newly formed church

the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue reached the agreement in a meeting in Ravenna, Italy in October 2007. This is not the same as saying, as some press reports of the document have suggested, that "the Pope has primacy over all bishops, though disagreements about the extent of his authority still continue From the time of the first Ecumenical Council on, Byzantine canon law had always assigned primacy of honor to Rome, for example Nicea canon 6.34 Even when the capital of the Empire was moved to Constantinople, the "new Rome," the priority of the old Rome was safeguarded. Constantinople 3 states: "As for the Bishop of Constantinople, let him have the prerogatives of honor after the bishop of Rome, seeing that this city is the new Rome."35 Even when Anna Comnena, daughter of Emperor Alexis I, tried to interpret "after" in a purely chronological sense, she was corrected by both Zonaras and Balsamon, who maintained that "after" certainly shows hierarchical inferiority.36 Meyendorff summarizes the "privileges" spoken of in Constantinople canon 3: this ministry was always understood in moral terms, rather than in terms of formal power, or rights. The actual exercise of this power depended upon political circumstances, as well as the orthodoxy, the wisdom, and the prestige of the "first bishop" himself it is only when the "Old Rome" decisively and

consistently pretended to transform its moral "privilege" into actual jurisdictional and doctrinal power that the Orthodox East refused to allow it.37

primacy is equal and another source in book accords it favourably towards constantinople
Chalcedon canon 28 is also notable. It says, in part: The fathers in fact have correctly attributed the prerogatives to the see of the most ancient Rome because it was the imperial city. And thus moved by the same reasoning, [we] have accorded equal prerogatives to the very holy see of New Rome, justly considering that the city is honored by the imperial power and the senate and enjoying the prerogatives equal to those of old Rome, the most ancient imperial city, ought to be elevated as Old Rome in the affairs of the Church, being in the second place after it.38

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Primacy_and_Unity_in_Orthodox_Ecclesiology prophecy Theodore of Russians against communism, at this point satan. Ecumenism nafpaktos. Doc Ecumenism in new calender Western rite by Russia church of abroad fr. Michael,estabvlishment New calender priest theodoros zissis speaks against ecumenism, new calender priest anti ecumenist

Archdioceses pronounced betrayal of Christ

The claim of exclusivism has been rejected by many Orthodox scholars as untenable. This is not done in the interests of facilitating missionary endeavors or to foster world peace. Exclusiveness is rejected as a matter of Truth. [10] The majority of Orthodox scholars would accept inclusivism. Some Orthodox scholars espouse the view characterized as cultural pluralism but with qualifications. Relativism and syncretism are denied. And the view that Christianity is simply one of the world religions offering the blessing of salvation is not accepted. The focus, rather, is on the Spirit of God, the Paraclete, who leads us "Into all the truth," where in Christ all become one. [11] Is catholic orthodox unity is site 2009? Within 2 months kirill comment Kalormiros against f alse union ch 1 Loukaris of crete Calvinism frank and church condemned Calvinism 16th century,loukaris orthodox betrayer doc Banned crosses in Greece doc and note greek identity card issue and mark of beast Gallican liturgy Toledo Statement ecumenism 2003 World orthodoxy canonical definition Uniates wiuth Bartholomew who denies previous statement uniates can have double union Elder paisios old calender and mention philotheos zervakos Cyprian synod bishop ambrose and a wolf in sheep clothing

Union of Brest founding of the uniates

The Union of Brest was the 1595-1596 decision of a number of Orthodox bishops in the region of what is modern Ukraine, Poland and Belarus ("Rus'") to depart from the Orthodox Church and place themselves under the Pope of Rome in order to avoid being ruled by the newly established Patriarch of Moscow. Thus was formed the Unia, from whence derives the term Uniate. At the time, the church in the area included most Ukrainians and Belarusians, under the rule of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The hierarchs of the Kievan church gathered in synod in the city of

Brest to compose the union's 33 articles, which were then accepted by the Roman Catholic pope. At first widely successful, within several decades it lost much of its initial support. In Austrian Galicia, however, the church fared well and remains strong to this day, most notably in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The union was strongly supported by the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, Sigismund III Vasa, but opposed by some bishops and prominent nobles of Rus' and perhaps most importantly by the nascent Cossack movement for Ukrainian self-rule. The result was "Rus' fighting against Rus'" and the splitting of many traditionally Orthodox Christian people from their ancestral Church. Background

A large area in the southwest of the Rusyn Empire became absorbed by Lithuania and Poland after the destruction of Kievan power by the Tartars. This southwestern part of Rus' was known as Little Rus' (which in Latin became Ruthenia); this is the territory that is present day Ukraine. In 1386, the kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania were united under a single ruler. The monarch of the united realm was Roman Catholic, and a substantial minority of the population were Orthodox. These Orthodox were in a difficult situation because the Patriarch of Constantinople, to whose jurisdiction they belonged, could exercise no control in Poland, as the former Byzantine capital had fallen to the Muslim Turks. The bishops were appointed not by the Church but by the Roman Catholic king of Poland. The authorities in Poland always tried to make the Orthodox submit to the pope to reunify Christianity. With the arrival of the Jesuits in 1564, pressure on the Orthodox increased. The state of the church in the area was poor; clergy were uneducated and the bishops were without the funds they needed to properly run the church. Many priests were ordained without basic training and new rites were developing that were neither Latin nor Greek in their character. Constantinople was under Muslim rule and Moscow had recently been elevated to the status of patriarchate. The bishops of the Rus' were stuck between a population converting to Roman Catholicism on the West and a rising Muscovite force in the East. At the synod in Brest six out of eight Orthodox bishopsincluding the Metropolitan of Kiev, Michael Ragozasupported the union, but the remaining three bishops from the extreme west of Ukraine and eastern Poland (Lviv, Lutsk, and Przemyl) would not join the union until later (1700, 1702, and 1693 respectively). The Cossack forces of Ukraine felt the union was a betrayal to the Polish rulers and united with the Russian Empire to fight against Poland and all who supported the empire, including the Greek-Catholics. In 1620 Patrarch Theophanes III of Jerusalem arrived in Kiev and ordained an Orthodox hierarchy for the church and thus there emerged a situation of both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic bishops coexisting in the same territory in Ukraine from that point onwards.

Hopko ecumenist for new world order under pope

cunningly suggesting pope as the new world leader of orthodoxy based on deficient notion of primacy http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/HopkoPope.php

the following is in in defence of orthdox file Byzantine orthodox history

Hesychasts and Zealots :

Spiritual flourishing and social crisis in 14th century Byzantium by Protopresbyter fr. George Metallinos (f. Dean of the Athens University School of Theology) Hellenism combatting, Tinos Publications, Athens 1995 in defence of orthodoxyearly church

calvary. Proven in a documentary and university study that the place of sepulture is the genuine
place of burial and resurrection

didache two documents in file

Sister Churches Five Hundred Years After Florence.doc

Chapter 9 World Orthodoxy's Sister Church to Canonize Slayer of the Serbian Orthodox People? IS MOUNT SINAI IN SAUDI ARABIA?

Gordon Franz

On chosen race

Thus the Christians, both Jews and Gentiles, are a chosen race, a holy priesthood, a holy nation, a people whom he has gained (I Peter 2.9)

Did Jesus and the Apostles Speak Greek? Several sects and churches claim that Jesus Christ and the apostles only spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, and that the original monographs of the New Testament were all written in Hebrew, and later translated into Greek. They consider Greek to be a pagan language. What is the real truth of the matter? Did Jesus speak Greek? The September-October 1992 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review contains several fascinating articles which bear heavily on the questions posed for this article. For centuries, scholars have believed -assumed -- that very few Jews of the first century spoke Greek. They have believed, and taught, that ancient Judea was a "backwater" area of the Roman Empire, and the people were ignorant as a whole of the Greek language, although it is admitted that Greek was the "lingua franca" and "language of commerce" throughout the Roman Empire.

Today, however, new archaeological discoveries have undermined the speculations of scholars and brought into clear light the fact that Greek was well known among the Jews, especially the priesthood, leadership class, and the merchant class. In particular, Greek was well understood in "Galilee of the Gentiles," the region where Jesus Christ of Nazareth was raised, and grew up as a young lad. There is no doubt, therefore, that Jesus and the original apostles all spoke Greek -- commonly, as a "second language."

Philosophy and theology

Philosophy and nature of things important to understanding theology because virtue and reason is accorded to its proper place. And any perceived notion of a sinful pleasure is good is infact tainted reason which is driven by a parasitical passion that always leads to unhappiness. So god therefore desires our true happiness as he knows us and we as children can be deceived and lead astray

Fragment of epiphany
The fragment of an eighth-century mosaic, the Epiphany is one of the very rare remaining bits of the medieval decoration of Old St. Peter's Basilica

Philistines doc
Philistines as greek Coptic is greek

. day of the lord Sunday kiriaki

Many Sabbatarians actually argue that this meeting took place on the Sabbath, then say it was the Lords supper, not a common meal. Some over-zealous, but under-learned Sabbath keepers, will state the actual Greek words used in Acts 20:7 & 1 Cor 16:1 actually refer to the weekly Sabbath, not the first day of the week. They say "first day of the week", is a mistranslation. The only ones who say this are those who have no knowledge of Greek. All translations of the Bible say "first" of the week. We know of no Bible of any kind that says "seventh" day of the week. (Note: Seventh-day Adventists dont usually make this argument.) Although Seventh-day Adventists never make this argument, the fact that other Sabbath keepers do make the argument proves that it is quite possible that this "breaking bread" refers to a communion service of the church, It proves that a church communion service is the natural reading of the text. It also proves that there is nothing preventing it from being a church communion service. This proves that it is quite possible that this "breaking bread" refers to a communion service of the

church, Those Sabbatarians who say this was a 1st day meeting always argue it was a common meal.

Did jesus and apostles speak greek..doc

Yes a jews collequiel language everyday transaction

Golgotha and sepltura doc

Early baptism
Early Baptism was three-fold immersion or three-fold pouring while reciting the trinitarian formula. Refer didcache

A Cypriot converts the british barnabas brother

. THE HOLY APOSTLE ARISTOBULUS, ONE OF THE SEVENTY APOSTLESBorn in Cyprus, Aristobulus was
the brother of the Apostle Barnabas. He followed the Apostle Paul, who mentions him in his Epistle to the Romans saying, "Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus" (Romans 16:10). When the great apostle appointed many bishops throughout the various parts of the world, he appointed Aristobulus as bishop for the British, that is, England. In Britain the people were savages, heathen and wicked. Aristobulus endured many indescribable tortures, misfortunes and evil among them. They struck and beat him mercilessly, dragged him about the streets, ridiculed and mocked him. Finally this holy man succeeded by the power of the Grace of God. He enlightened the people, baptized them in the name of Christ the Lord, built churches, ordained priests and deacons and, in the end, died there peacefully and entered into the Kingdom of the Lord, Whom he faithfully served.(*)(*) In the Greek Synaxarion the Venerable Christodulos is also mentioned on this day. He lived a life of asceticism on the island of Patmos, where he build a monastery dedicated to St. John the Theologian. He died in the year 1111 A.D. Many miracles occured over his relics. In defence of orthodoxy to orthodox sayings

There must be heresies amongst you doc against ecumenism in translation from apostle paul words.
Not only does the Apostle Paul call Christians to oneness of mind, he even warns them of such people who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which they have learned (Rom. 16:17) and urges them to avoid them, saying that they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple (Rom. 16:18).

What evangelicals should know Tertullian what Athens to do with Israel possible forgery
Tertullian wrote: For philosophy is the material of the worlds wisdom, the rash interpreter of the nature and dispensation of God. Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem? What has the Academy to do with the Church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our instruction comes from the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that the Lord should be sought in simplicity of heart. Away with all attempts to produce a Stoic, Platonic, and dialectic Christianity! We want no curious disputation after possessing Christ Jesus, no inquisition after receiving the gospel! When we believe, we desire no further belief. For this is our first article of faith, that there is nothito believe besides.(1)

holy martyr Catherine

1. The Holy Great-martyr CatherineCatherine was the daughter of King Constus. After the death of her father, she lived with her mother in Alexandria. Her mother wassecretly a Christian who, through her spiritual father, broughtCatherine to the Christian Faith. In a vision, St. Catherine receiveda ring from

the Lord Jesus Himself as a sign of her betrothal to Him.This ring remains on her finger even today. Catherine was greatlygifted by God and was well educated in Greek philosophy, medicine,rhetoric and logic. In addition to that, she was of unusual physicalbeauty. When the iniquitous Emperor Maxentius offered sacrifices tothe idols and ordered others to do the same, Catherine boldlyconfronted the emperor and denounced his idolatrous errors. Theemperor, seeing that she was greater than he in wisdom and knowledge,summoned fifty of his wisest men to debate with her on matters offaith and to put her to shame. Catherine outwitted and shamed them. Ina rage, the emperor ordered all fifty of those men burned. By St.Catherine's prayers, all fifty confessed the name of Christ anddeclared themselves Christians before their execution. After Catherinehad been put in prison, she converted the emperor's commander,Porphyrius, and two hundred soldiers to the true Faith, as well asEmpress Augusta-Vasilissa herself. They all suffered for Christ.During the torture of St. Catherine, an angel of God came to her anddestroyed the wheel on which the holy virgin was being tortured.Afterward, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appeared to her and comfortedher. After many tortures, Catherine was beheaded at the age ofeighteen, on November 24, 310. Milk, instead of blood, flowed from herbody. Her miracle-working relics repose on Mount Sinai.

bishop dies trying to flee demons

1949 Archbp. Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos) of the State Church dies a sorrowful death in a Greek hospital. In the posture of an animal, on his hands and knees, he constantly tries to flee visions of demons, until his death. Nurses who attend him convert to the old calendar.

Averkys three levels of apostacy and ecumenism What is orthodoxy averky Verses of Christ prophecy old testament Orthodox works 2 file the following

Notes on the orthodox study bible Lord why you forsake me meaning doc Historical development of greek orthodoxy constantelos Schisms 1054 short historia History of true orthodoxy stavros markou Sons of god pdf

in orthodox works file demonstrates the literal fallen angels interbred with man amongst early Christians Orthodox tradition and modernism cavarnos

In defence of orthodoxyOrthodox defence file Marriage and sex doc point of view
Perhaps I might begin by mentioning how other churches tend to view this question. In the Roman Catholic Church, for example, artificial birth control is forbidden under any circumstances. The reason is because the Roman Catholic Church officially teaches that the primary purpose and function of marriage is to have children; thus, procreation is the primary reason for sexual intercourse. This teaching is rooted in the augustinian tradition, which treats sexuality, even within marriage, as basically sinful, and therefore procreation is held to be a necessary justification for the marriage act, as it serves to fulfill God's command to be fruitful and multiply. In Old Testament times there was a legitimate concern to perpetuate the human race. Today, however, that argument is unpersuasive, and many Roman Catholics feel justified in disregarding it. http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/orthodoxchristianmarriage.aspx

Paul the Apostle and the Lord's Supper defence liturgy in early church

In his First Epistle to the Corinthians (c 54-55), Paul the Apostle gives the earliest recorded description of Jesus' Last Supper: "The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me'." [8] Transaction in the past---that debt has already been paid and therefore no mass according to evaleglical debt paid in instalment than paid in full.

Early Christian sources

The Didache (Greek: teaching) is an early Church order, including, among other features, instructions for Baptism and 1 JOHN 1:7b The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. the Eucharist. Most scholars date it to the early 2nd century,[15] and distinguish in it two separate Eucharistic traditions, the earlier tradition in chapter 10 and the later one preceding it in chapter 9. [16][17] The Eucharist is mentioned again in chapter 14.[18] Ignatius of Antioch, one of the Apostolic Fathers and a direct disciple of the Apostle John, mentions the Eucharist as "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ",[19] and Justin Martyr speaks of it as more than a meal: "the food over which the prayer of thanksgiving, the word received from Christ, has been said ... is the flesh and blood of this Jesus who became flesh ... and the deacons carry some to those who are absent."[20] [edit] acts 2:42 devoted to breaking of bread the apostles after Pentecost the breaking of bread with prayers on lords day rev 1:10 cor 10-11 st paul gives detailed instruction to church of Corinth to conduct mass st ignatius of Antioch 107 confessing eucharist the flesh of lord christ

Socrates and plato on monotheism

We'll look at details and quotes in a bit, but let's start with a big picture look at ancient monotheism -there were two kinds. One was the philosophers' monotheism. As early as the fifth century BC, in Greece, fellows like Socrates and Plato doubted and attacked the old village myths, the fables about the many Gods living up on Mount Olympus. They denied the fables and replaced them with the notion of a single God. This was pure monotheism

Christ on doctrine

We Mean by the Word

Saint John of Shanghai & San Francisco

Orthodox?

Shortly after the doctrine of Christ began to be propagated among the Gentiles, the followers of Christ in Antioch began to be called Christians (Acts XI:26). The word "Christian" indicated that those who bore this name belonged to Christ-belonged in the sense of devotion to Christ and his Doctrine. From Antioch the name of Christian was spread everywhere. The followers of Christ gladly called themselves by the name of their beloved Teacher and Lord; and the enemies of Christ called His followers Christians by carrying over to them the ill-will and hatred which they breathed against Christ. However, quite soon there appeared people who, while calling themselves Christians, were not of Christ in spirit. Of them Christ had spoken earlier: Not everyone that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven (St. Matt. VII:5). Christ prophesied also that many would pass themselves off for Christ Himself: Many shall come in my name, sayings I am Christ (Matt. XXIV:5). The Apostles in their epistles indicated that false bearers of the name of Christ had appeared already in their time: as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists (I John II:19). They indicated that those who stepped away from the doctrine of Christ should not be considered their own: They went out from us but were not of us (I John II:19)" Warning against quarrels and disagreements in minor matters (I Cor. I:10-14), at the same time the Apostles strictly commanded their disciples to shun those who do not bring the true doctrine (II John I:10). The Lord, through the Revelation given to the Apostle John the Theologian, sternly accused those who, calling themselves faithful, did not act in accordance with their name; for in such a case it would be false for them. Of what use was it of old to call oneself a Jew, an Old Testament follower of the true faith, if one was not such in actuality? Such the Holy Scripture calls the synagogue of Satan (Apocalypse II:9). In the same way a Christian in the strict sense is he only who confesses the true doctrine of Christ and lives in accordance with it. The designation of a Christian consists in glorifying the Heavenly Father by one's life. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven (St. Matt. V:16). But true glorification of God is possible only if one rightly believes and expresses his right belief in words and deeds. Therefore true Christianity and it alone may be named "right-glorifying" (Ortho-doxy). By the word "Orthodoxy" we confess our firm conviction that it is precisely our Faith that is the true doctrine of Christ. When we call anyone or anything Orthodox, we by this very fact indicate his or its non-counterfeit and uncorrupted Christianity, rejecting at the same time that which falsely appropriates the name of Christ.

Church of Constantinople 1st amongst equals

But 25 years ago the Ecumenical Patriarchate took the initiative to initiate academic dialogues with the other monotheistic religions as well, Israel and Judaism. And we have convoked several conferences, meetings with them, some of them in Istanbul in my seat under the title "Peace and Tolerance." CHARLIE ROSE: You are considered first among equals of the nine patriarchs. Why is there? ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW: This is out of historical reasons, because Constantinople, today Istanbul, was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. And as such, the ecumenical councils, especially the second one, 381, and the fourth ecumenical council, 451, gave some prerogatives to the Church of Constantinople, which are always valid.

Cyril of patriarch Constantinople doc in greek

Apostolic constitutions allowing fleeing from heretical bishops and shepherds

I shall judge the bishop and the layperson. The sheep are rational and not irrational, so that no layman may ever say that, I am a sheep, and not a shepherd, and I give no account of myself, but the shepherd shall see to it, and he alone shall pay the penalty for me. For even as the sheep that follows not the good shepherd shall fall to the wolves unto its own destruction, so too it is evident that the sheep that follows the evil shepherd shall acquire death; for he shall utterly devour it. Therefore, it is required that we flee from destructive shepherds. Apostolic Constitutions, 10:19 (PG1, 633)

Also refer st basil first canon and quotes from fathers and saints who admit to separating from heretical bishop or patriarch

Nikodemos and theophan the recluse and Jesuit story

lso, remember that Nicodemos himself borrowed from Latin works, such as, for instance, his famous edition of Unseen

Warfare which is his partial revision of an earlier Italian Jesuit spirituality textbook, but apparently he still retained sufficient western influence in it for Bishop Theophan the Recluse to feel the need to correct and revise it significantly more before issuing a Russian translation Refer venetian printing press propaganda against st nicodemos and when he saw his works retranslated in Venice hje cried Like the following below is a alteration trying to say economia means recognition of hetrodox

Mary Magdalene
was one of the myrrh-bearing women and "equal to theapostles". She was born in the town of Magdala along the shore of LakeGennesaret and was from the tribe of Issachar. She was tormented byseven evil spirits from which the Lord Jesus freed her and made herwhole loukaris cretan protestant. More on Cyril betrayer doc

armenaisn betrayal of romans to franks

The victorious Franks will be guided to Armenia by descendants of those Armenian soldiers who stayed behind in Rome on the occasion of Trdats visit. Thus will Armenia be liberated.55 And those hoping for Western intervention in later centuries, even down to modern times, echo similar aspirations.56 To return to the Crusaders. Their immediate impact in Cilicia was of course allembracing; Western traditions deeply inuenced Armenian social life, religious practice, legal codes, linguistic idiom, and artistic achievement. Little of this is reected in Armenian historiography of the time. Islam is political and orthodoxy separates politics from theology Thus Miloslavskaya and Miloslavsky write: "At the base of the socio-political doctrine [of Islam] lies the idea that society must be ruled by the commands of Allah, and not by the laws of men, since Allah is the only source of power. People are only conducters of the divine will, whose realization is the basic function of earthly power. The second fundamental thesis declares that the caliphate's secular and spiritual powers (the sultanate and the imamate) are indivisible."[200] Thus there is no separation between secular and religious power in Islam corresponding to the separation between Church and State that we find in Orthodox Christianity. Whereas the Orthodox Church forbids bishops and priests to engage in political activity and receive political posts, since this involves being subject to two masters (Apostolic Canons 30, 81), the sight of imams at the head of Islamic states has become familiar to us since the Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. And although there has never been a time, since the early caliphates, when all Muslims have been united under one religio-political power, the ideal of such a unity remains a powerful force in the Islamic world.

holy spirit made you overseers

NWT: Pay attention to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the holy spirit has appointed YOU overseers, to shepherd the congregation of God, which he purchased with the blood of his own [Son]. NIV: Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. NASB: Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. KJV: Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. Refer also powers given to loose and bind to apostles and power to forgive sins. Represents the honour accorded to saints accorded by the incarnation

doctrine and faith intrinsically linked

.6]. From the above it is clear that the doctrines of faith are inextricably linked to the salvation of man, since the non-acceptance of doctrines a discount from the Church, which means the discount and the salvation in Christ. Thus, doctrinal differences with the heterodox are not merely theoretical significance or marginal religious implications, but a crucial and fundamental nature soteriology.

On heretical origen and his errors

However, Origen's negatives seem to far outweigh the positives. He denied the inerrancy of the Bible, at least in practice. He taught universalism contrary to Scripture. He taught the preexistence of the soul in contrast to the orthodox teaching of creation. He engaged in highly allegorical interpretations of Scripture, undermining important literal truths. He held an aberrant view on the nature of Christ, which gave rise to the later Arian heresy. He denied the tangible, physical nature of the resurrection body in clear contra

Orthodox church and the heretics

st to the teaching of Scripture (Luke 24:39; Acts 2:31; 1 John 4:2).

Sacraemental theology
18) Epistle 188.

(19) The use of the notion "sacramental economy" with the understanding it has until today is linked to the great personality of St Nicodemus of Holy Mountain (1748-1809). In his work Pedalion (1800), St. Nicodemus reintroduces the old canonical terminologies "acrivia" and "economy" but giving them a new nuance compared to the meaning these notions had in the early church. He was a great supporter of the council of Constantinople in 1755 and of the ecclesiological line of St. Cyprian. Very soon, the Greek speaking Orthodoxy borrowed and used his newly defined canonical terminology. The sacramental economy came to be understood as a kind of retroactive recognition of the validity of certain sacraments done outside the Orthodox Church but which in reality were invalid and void of grace when celebrated outside the Church. Although this term has been adopted and used in the late Orthodox canonical language, it has to be stressed that this new understanding was an innovation at that time and is not in continuity with the canonical prescriptions of the Early Church. On the other hand, the acceptance without discernment of this new concept poses serious theological problems. The way it is used gives the impression that the hierarchy would be entrusted with miraculous charismatic powers on the basis of which it could accept as valid what is invalid and charismatic what in fact has been void of any grace. This mechanical approach, from the Orthodox sacramental theology, has no consistence and is even contradictory. It is imperative today to do afresh a profound study on this subject and to articulate it within the realities and challenges of our times. An excellent description on the evolution of this problem in baptism and sacramental economy in An Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, St Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary, Crestwood NY, 1999, cf. Internet: www.usceb.org/seia/agreed.htm.

Dogma and doctrine verses dogma and yper doc

Polish persecutions of orthodox

Website about Destruction of Ukrainian Orthodox Churches in Kholm andPidliashshia Regions Created 12.11.2008, [21:45] // Foreign relations //LublinThis year, the 70th anniversary of the destruction of Orthodoxchurches in Kholm and Southern Pidliashshia regions by Polishauthorities is marked. For two months in 1938, 127 Orthodox churcheswere disassembled within the framework of the so-called

polonization-revindication action. To present the events of that time, the Lublinand Kholm Orthodox Eparchy created a website called The Destructionof Orthodox Churches in Kholm and Southern Pidliashshia regions.The new website contains information about the course of the event ofdestruction and about the position of Ukrainians in Poland. One canget acquainted there with recollections of witnesses, presspublications of that time, historians' thoughts and also one can viewa number of unique photos from that time.According to the initiators, that tragic page in the history ofPolishUkrainian relations of the 20th c. is one of the keys tounderstanding later Polish-Ukrainian conflicts, especially, duringWWII.Address of the new site:http://www.kholm1938.net h h http://www.risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;25841/

Reliability of Byzantine texts

fact that must be emphasized is this: The Byzantine text-type has overwhelming support from the extant Greek manuscripts (over 95%)! The early papyri are distinctively Byzantine in reading. P45, P46, the Chester Beatty Papyri and P66 of the Bodmer Library Collection contain such readings. 150 Byzantine readings can be clearly in indubitably seen in the early papyri. The conclusion: the Byzantine readings can be traced as far back as the second century, contrary to the assertion of Westcott and Hort that the Byzantine family of manuscripts are an inflated ecclesiastical edition of the fourth century. Tradition of red eggs easter . SAINT MARY MAGDALENEMary Magdalene was one of the myrrh-bearing women and "equal to the apostles". She was born in the town of Magdala along the shore of LakeGennesaret and was from the tribe of Issachar. She was tormented byseven evil spirits from which the Lord Jesus freed her and made herwhole. She was a faithful follower and servant of the Lord during Hisearthly life. Mary Magdalene stood beneath the Cross on Golgotha andgrieved bitterly and mourned with the All-Holy Birth-giver of God.After the death of the Lord she visited His sepulchre three times.When the Lord resurrected she saw Him on two occasions: once alone andthe other time with the other myrrh-bearing women. She traveled toRome and appeared before Tiberias Caesar and presenting him with a red colored egg, greeted him with the words: "Christ is Risen!" At thesame time, she accused Pilate before Caesar for his unjustcondemnation of the Lord Jesus. Caesar accepted her accusation andtransferred Pilate from Jerusalem to Gaul where, this unjust judge, indisfavor with the emperor, died of a dread disease. After that, MaryMagdalene returned from Rome to Ephesus to St. John the Theologianwhom she assisted in the work of preaching the Gospel. With great lovetoward the resurrected Lord, and with great zeal, she proclaimed theHoly Gospel to the world as a true apostle of Christ. She diedpeacefully in Ephesus and, according to tradition, was buried in thesame cave in which seven youths were miraculously put to sleep forhundreds of years and, after that, were brought to life and then died (August 4). The relics of St. Mary Magdalene were later transferred toConstantinople. There is a Russian Orthodox convent dedicated to St.Mary Magdalene near the Garden of Gethsemane.

Strickness and economia doc george grabbe Astasi croats against orthodox Orthodox papers file

A Refutation of Arguments for Augustines Veneration doc from orthodox papers file

St basil address to young doc pdf Romanity spirit of capitalism oodgr

http://www.oodegr.com/english/koinwnia/politika/kapitalismos1.htm

The Toll-House Myth: The Neo- Gnosticism of Fr. Seraphim Rose,

by Fr. Michael Azkoul

The person in the orthodox tradition

Ecumenism file starts now Intellectualizing of franks or westernized greeks

At my next noteworthy meeting with Kontoglou, which took place at his home in the evening of Sunday, April 20, 1958, our conversation was chiefly on contemporary Creek theologians and on Byzantine art in the West. Kontoglou spoke of certain scientific (epistemones) theologians, men who had studied theology in Europe and brought to the Greek universities a rather cerebral and so- called liberal mode of theologizing. Theocletos Pharmakidis (1784-1862), he noted, was the first Greek theologian of this type. Of recent ones, he cited Demetrios Balanos. Such theologians, he said, regard traditional Orthodox theology, which comes from the roots of Christianity and from the Greek Fathers, as ossified, and they come as renewers of it. Actually, they lack real faith, lack interior, spiritual life. They view theology as a science, comparable to chemistry and physics, which employ discursive reason as their instrument and give rationalistic explanations. In criticizing theologians of this type, he quoted a statement of St. Dionysios the Areopagite, that one cannot gain possession of the truths of Christianity in a purely intellectualistic manner, that these have to be experienced, lived. He also read the following passage from St. Symeon the New Theologian (11th century), the greatest of the mystics of Byzantium: He who thinks that because he has been disciplined in secular wisdom he knows everything will never succeed in beholding the mysteries of God, until he first wills to humble himself and become a fool, divesting himself both of his pride and of the knowledge which he has acquired. For he who does this, and follows with unhesitating faith those who are wise in things divine, and is guided by them, comes together with them to the city of the living God. And led and illumined by the Holy Spirit he sees and is taught those things which no other man can behold and learn. And then he becomes one taught by God (Kontoglou, Pege Zoes, Fount of Life, 1951, p. 82). In a book which was published four years after our meeting, he wrote about such theologians: Todays theologians have become scientists, like the doctors, chemists and engineers, because by presenting themselves as such they will be honored by the world. And they go to Europe, the place of spiritual darkness, to receive a degree. They stuff their heads with a multitude of ungrounded and vain philosophies, and come to our land to transmit their unbelief instead of the Faith. They do not enter into the Heavenly Kingdom, and hinder others from entering, as our Lord has said. Their punishment is that they do not see any of the wondrous things that are seen by believers, and hence they lack contrition and are cold. They are separated from God and His Kingdom, because they love the glory of men, instead of the glory of God (Semeion Mega, A Great Sign, 1962, pp. 16-17). In another book, Papa-Nicholas Planas, which was published three years later, again emphasizing the importance of faith and piety, he says: They endeavor today, with the plight of the Church, to find its causes, and hold that the answer is to be found in scientific theological education. But the evil is to be remedied only by education in piety (eusebeia). What will it benefit the Church if students go to (say) Geneva? They will return with Protestant principles. We are told by these same persons that our Church has remained behind a whole century. How good it would have been if the members of the Church today had the piety of those who lived a century ago! External [secular], scientific education is fine when it is joined to piety (Athens, 1965, p. 46).

From Meetings with Kontoglou, by Constantine Cavarnos (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1992), pp. 128-130.

Canon of the third holy synod Cyprian cathage

 St basil first canon Mystery of inequity from against false union An Excerpt from Wounded By Love: The Life and Wisdom of Elder Porphyrios Canon economia doc
epitimia rule of correction to strict canons economia by disposition of soul through priestly judgement

canonical churches doc against world orthodoxy foolish definition of canonical. Catholicos of Armenian church Crusaders history against orthodox jerusalem

The Crusaders, trampling every agreement with the Emperor Alexios, captured Jerusalem, and carried out what for them was a "Christian" act, the slaughter of 60,000 fighters as well as non-fighters and created the Latin Patriarchate in Jerusalem. When the Patriarch of Jerusalem Symeon went to the Church of the Resurrection to perform the Divine Liturgy, the Latin forbade him to enter, with the result the true owner of the Sacred Shrines was forced to abandon Jerusalem and go to Bethlehem and from there to Cyprus where he reposed. From then start the great hardships of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and of the Patriarchs, for they had to face many claims of the Latin but also of the Armenians and of the rest of the Monophysites, namely the acquisition and consolidation of rights on the Most Holy Church of the Resurrection but also on the Basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem. Following the capture of Constantinople and the fall of Romiosini (Greek culture), the heterodox had an abundance of gold for the purchase of the rights from the Turkish conquerors. The Latin in their efforts were strengthened by the West and especially by the Government and ambassadors of France. The Patriarchate having no support except from the enslaved Genus Romeans (the Greek Orthodox) and the help of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, continued the titanic struggle for the preservation and securing of the inalienable rights of the pious Genus of Romeans (the Greek Orthodox) on the most Holy Shrines of our blameless Faith. These struggles continue to this day. The objective is the same, but only the method has changed. Perhaps one would expect the progress and advance of the contemporary civilization to generally influence the lives of the people and to blunt the divisive conditions, cultivating a spirit of inclusiveness and unity. The Patriarchate of Jerusalem looks forward on people, respects the right of freedom of opinion and faith, co-operates in social areas with every well intentioned person, seeking the improvement of the standard of living of man and generally of the world.

Fr. John Romanides - Patristic Theology

On unjust ex communications
Truly, the hierarchs have authority to excommunicate, but to excommunicate only those who have already died spiritually. No matter how many excommunications, anathemas, depositions may be showered on an Orthodox and just man, even from Orthodox hierarchs, he remains alive and unshaken within the Church of Christ, reproving others, yet being reproved by no man. If, contrary to the intention of God, a hierarch issues an excommunication, the judgment of God does not follow to fulfill this decree, says Saint Maximus the Confessor, who knew something about such excommunications. Saint Dionysius the Areopagite writes: Thus, the hierarchs, as expounders of the divine statutes, also have powers to excommunicate not that the All-wise Divine Principal, so to speak, servilely obeys their irrational impulses but being prophetically moved by the Supreme initiating Spirit, they excommunicate, as is due, those who have been judged by God.

- Dr. Alexander Kalomiros: The Touchstone

file ecumenism 2

Menologion (catalogue of lives of the saints

In Western Europe hagiography was one of the more important areas in the study of history during the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend of Jacob de Voragine compiled a great deal of medival hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. In the 10th century, the work of St. Simeon Metaphrastesan Orthodox monk who had been a secretary of statemarked a major development and codification of the genre. His Menologion (catalogue of lives of the saints), compiled at the request of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus while Simeon was still a civil servant, became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers. Over the years, hagiography as a genre absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables, short stories and anecdotes. Simeon's contribution was to collect these saints' lives from written and oral traditions, copying directly from some sources and reworking others, then arranging them in order of the saints' feast days. The genre of lives of the saints was brought to Russia by the South Slavs together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, the Russians began to compile the original life stories of the first Russian saints. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compilation of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalogue ( -, or "Grand monthly readings"), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of the year

May we pray for hetrodox Ecumenism appeal by philotheos zervakos

by St. Philotheos ZervakosTranslator's Preface: The author of this appeal is the best-known father-confessor and preacher of Greece"truly, a new St. Cosmas of Aitolia"who has traversed Greece on foot countless times in his 67 years of priesthood, being now in his 97th year. His spiritual children number in the thousands, not only in Greece, but in the United States, Australia, Europe, and other parts of the world as well. A truly apostolic man filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he is known especially for exorcising demons and giving spiritual direction. According to report, he has worked many miracles. He most vividly prophesied the destruction of Asia Minor in the early twenties, at a time when no one could believe what he was saying. Therefore the terribleness of his utterance in the present letter (p. 20), in which he foresees the terrible fall of the Ecumenical Patriarch if he does not repent.Until recently Father Philotheos was many times invited by both Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Iakovos to visit Constantinople and the United States in order to hear confessions and to preach. On all occasions he refused, saying that he did not wish to concelebrate with shaven clergy who do not respect the traditions of the Church. Many times he has written his spiritual children, especially in the United States, to cease attending the churches of the Greek Archdiocese, and to attend rather the churches of the Russian Church Outside of Russia. He has written numerous books and articles, among which are: A Great and Marvelous Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, The Wayfarer (his autobiography), Sacred War Against Blasphemy, and The Errors of Apostolos Makrakis

ON THE CONDEMNATION OF HERETICS

By the estranged ecclesiology of Cyprian resistance

On the deviation of Western "Christendom" from the Orthodox e ethosby Protopresbyter John S. Romanides

Caesarpapism file On caesarpapism doc Augustine Gnostic views of state

More on prophecy file from orthodox 2012orthodox in defence of orthodoxy[heaps of files showprophecy file In Augustine file

Bishop Augustine of HippoHis Life and His Heresies TABLE OF CONTENTSfor Article onAUGUSTINE OF HIPPO A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THELIFE OF BISHOP AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Augustine and baptism Augustine heresy Grace kingdom glory of god

In orthodoxy predestination 8th eternal day

In addition to these Memorials, our holy Church has ordained that the Sabbath (Saturday) be a day of commemoration of the Holy Martyrs and of all the deceased. For the Sabbath, as the seventh day from the beginning of creation, is the day which saw bodily death, imposed upon man by the righteous God. This day is continued, in as much as the death of man is also continued at the same time, Sunday, however, is the "day of the Resurrection, the eighth day, which symbolizes the anticipated age of eternity, the resurrection of the dead and the endless kingdom of God."

orthodox theology prophecy roman prophecy and roman myths doc sulla bans black magic
In 451 bc the roman council lead by Lucius Cornelius

Sulla, created the Twelve tables, to prevent the widespread use of harmful magic. The The Roman council created the Law of Cornelia [Concerning Assassins and Poisoners] which said: ".. soothsayers, enchanters and those who make use of sorcery for evil purposes, those who conjure demons, who disrupt the elements, who employ waxen images destructively, shall be punished by death".

Orthodox ecclesiology flee from bishop

it is better to be led by no one than to be led by one who is evil. For the former indeed are often saved and often in peril, but the latter will be altogether in peril, being led into the pit of destruction. How then does Paul say: 'Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves' (Heb. 13.17)? Having said above, 'Whose faith follow, considering the end of their behaviour' (Heb. 10.7), he then says, 'Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves'. 'What then,' you say, 'when he is evil, should we obey?' Evil? In what sense? If indeed in regard to faith, flee and avoid himl not only if he is a man, but even if he is an angel come down from heaven. But if in regard to life, do not be over-curious. St. John Chrysostom, On Hebrews 34.1.

In defence of orthodoxyorthodox theology prophecy the following Apokalyse doc. Says little Synopsis of the end times slide 18 heretics wait antichrist

The rapture and the awaiting of the antichrist as they believe jews will convert and jesus will reign on earth 1000yrs

1929 new founded Vatican state

However the new Italian control of Rome did not wither, nor did the Catholic world come to the Pope's aid, as Pius IX had expected. In the 1920s, the papacy then Pius XI renounced the bulk of the Papal States and signed the Lateran Treaty (or Concordat with Rome) of 1929, which created the State of the Vatican City, forming the sovereign territory of the Holy See.

Modern Israel prophecy.pdf and Christian Zionism supports the rapture which awaits for the
antichristian kingdom of the world.

Byzantium and the 1000 yr kingdom

And the seventh angel sounded and there were great voices in heaven saying the kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdoms of our lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever

A Prophesy of Future Lawlessness by St. Anatoly the Younger

a letter of the Optina Elder [and New Martyr] St. Anatoly the YoungerSOURCE: Orthodox Life, #3, 1993And from that heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many people.The enemy of the human race will act with cunning in order to drawinto heresy, if possible, even the elect.He will not begin by crudely rejecting the dogmas of the Holy Trinity,the divinity of Jesus Christ and the virtue of the Theotokos, but hewill begin imperceptibly to distort the teachings and statutes of theChurch and their very spirit, handed down to us by the Holy Fathersthrough the Holy Spirit.Few will notice these wiles of the enemy, only those more experiencedin the spiritual life. Heretics will seize power over the Church and will place their servants everywhere; the pious will be regarded withcontempt. He (the Lord) said, by their fruits ye shall know them, andso, by their fruits, as well as by the actions of the heretics, striveto distinguish them from the true pastors.These are spiritual thieves, plundering the spiritual flock, and theywill enter the sheepfold (the Church), climbing up some other way,using force and trampling upon the divine statutes. The Lord callsthem robbers (cf. St. John 10:1). Indeed, their first task will be the persecution of the true pastors, their imprisonment and exile, forwithout this it will be impossible for them to plunder the sheep.Therefore, my son, when you see the violation of patristic traditionand the divine order in the Church, the order established by God, knowthat the heretics have already

(+1922)From

appeared, although for the time beingthey may conceal their impiety, or they will distort the Divine Faithimperceptibly, in order to succeed better in seducing and enticing theinexperienced into the net. The persecution will be directed against not only pastors but againstall servants of God, for all those ruled by heresy will not endurepiety. Recognize these wolves in sheep's clothing by their proud dispositions and love of power. They will be slanderers, traitors,everywhere sowing enmity and malice; therefore the Lord said that bytheir fruits you will know them. True servants of God are humble, love their neighbor and are obedient to the Church.Monastics will be greatly oppressed by the heretics and monastic lifewill be scorned. Monasteries will become scarce, the number ofmonastics will decline, and those who remain will endure violence.These haters of monastic life, however, having only the appearance ofpiety, will strive to attract the monks to their side promising themprotection and worldly goods, and threatening those who oppose themwith expulsion.These threats will cause great despair among the fainthearted, butyou, my son rejoice that you have lived until that time, for then thefaithful who have not shown any other virtues, will receive crownsmerely for standing firm in the faith, according to the word of theLord (cf. St. Matthew 10:32).Fear the Lord my son. Fear to lose the crown prepared (for you), fearto be cast by Christ into the outer darkness and eternal torment.Stand bravely in the faith, and if necessary, endure persecution andother sorrows, for the Lord will be with you... and the holy martyrsand confessors, they will look upon you and your struggle with joy.But woe to the monks in those days who will be bound with possessionsand riches, who because of love of peace will be ready to submit tothe heretics. They will lull to sleep their conscience, saying, "Weare preserving and saving the monastery and the Lord will forgive us."The unfortunate and blind ones do not at all consider that throughheresy the demons will enter the monastery and then it will no longerbe a holy monastery, but merely walls from which grace will depart.God, however, is mightier than the enemy, and He will never leave Hisservants. True Christians will remain until the end of this age, onlythey will choose to live in secluded, deserted places. Do not fearsorrows, rather fear pernicious heresy, for it strips us of grace andseparates us from Christ. This is why the Lord commanded us toconsider the heretic as a pagan and a publican.And so my son, strengthen yourself in the grace of Jesus Christ. Hasten to confess the faith, to endure suffering as a good soldier ofJesus Christ (cf II St. Timothy 2:13), Who has said, Be faithful untodeath, and I will give thee a crown of life (Rev.2:10).To Him, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be honour, glory, anddominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Kingdom of Christ ends and siege of city god loves

Absolved of sin, and saved from the "second death", which apparently means the destruction of the soul, are only those "who have revived", whereas the rest have yet to make their final choice. The "kingdom of Christ" ends in insurrection: "The nations in the four quarters of the earth... marched over the breadth of the land and laid siege to the camp of God's people and the city that He loves. But fire came down on them from heaven and consumed them". 20:7-9.

1948 The modern State of Israel is established. The first country to recognize it is the Soviet Union.

Byzantium in revelation
Verse 6 of Revelation 20 reiterates the blessedness of those who are raised to life in the first resurrection, and tells us again that they reign with Christ a thousand years, It speaks of them as being both kings and priests. Revelation 5:9,10 explains that these are redeemed from among men, and that their reign is on the earth. Kings exercise authority over subjects, and priests are those who serve and bless the people.

Nero persecution of Christians not widespread

A number of competent modern scholars doubt if there ever was a persecution under Nero. ...The passage in which the Roman historian Tacitus describes the persecution half a century later is strongly suspected of Christian adulteration. It speaks, not only of Jesus being crucified under Pontius Pilate, but of the martyrdom of "an immense multitude" of Christians at Rome. There were only a few thousand (as we shall see) two centuries later, so the phrase is very doubtful Romans 13 supports bishops also Galatians speaks of 7 churchs of asia minor.

The Byzantine apocalyptic tradition By Paul Julius Alexander, Dorothy deF. Abrahamse

Elder pambo prophesy

In those times the love for God in most souls will grow cold and a great sadness will fall onto the world. One nation shall face-off against another. Peoples will move away from their own places. Rulers will be confused. The clergy will be thrown into anarchy, and the monks will be inclined more to negligence.

The church leaders will consider useless anything concerned with salvation, as much for their own souls as for the souls of their flocks, and they will despise any such concern. All will show eagerness and energy for every matter regarding their dining table and their appetites. Theyll be lazy in their prayers and casual in their criticisms. As for the lives and teachings of the Holy Fathers, theyll not have any interest to imitate them, nor even to hear them. But rather they will complain and say, if we had lived in those times, then wed have behaved like that. And the Bishops shall give way to the powerful of the world, giving answers on different matters only after taking gifts from everywhere and consulting the rational logic of the academics. The poor mans rights will not be defended; theyll afflict widows and harass orphans. Debauchery will permeate these people. Most wont believe in God; theyll hate each other and devour one another like beasts. The one will steal from the other; theyll be drunk and will walk about as blind. His disciple again asked, Abba, what can we do in such a state? And Elder Pambo answered, My child, in these times whoever will save his soul and prompt others to be saved will be called great in the Ruling Power [ Vasileia = often translated Kingdom) of Heaven.

Jews in prophecy Roman pagan power, for all its antichristian excesses, did not support the Jewish revolution, but rather restrained it, through the destruction of Jerusalem and the suppression of successive Jewish rebellions.[126] The same could be said of the Catholic and Islamic powers, which, although apostate and antichristian in the sense that they converted nations that had formerly been Orthodox Christian into enemies of God, remained hostile to the ambitions of the still more apostate and antichristian Jews. Thus it was Arabic Islamic power that cast the Jews out of Babylon in 1040, and Tatar Islamic power that threw the Jews out of Khazaria in the thirteenth century (whence they migrated to Catholic Poland). And it was English Catholic power that threw the Jews out of England in the Middle Ages, and Spanish and Portuguese Catholic power that threw the Jews out of the Iberian peninsula in the fifteenth century.[127] For all these powers, antichristian or heretical though they were, understood from bitter experience (and their reading of the Talmud) that the Jews recognized no other authority than their own, and were essentially revolutionaries bent on establishing Jewish dominion over all other nations.[128] It is extremely significant that the first political power in history that recognized and supported the Jewish revolution was the European socialist revolution in its major successive stages: the English revolution of 1642, the French revolution of 1789 and the Russian revolution of 1917. Thus Cromwell, after killing King Charles I and introducing the Puritan revolution with its heavily socialist and communist overtones, invited the Jews back into England. Again, the French Jacobins gave full rights to the Jews, and these were confirmed and extended by Napoleon. This was followed, in the course of the nineteenth century, by the emancipation of the Jews in all the countries of Europe except Spain and Portugal in the West and Russia and Romania in the East. Thus immediately after the Orthodox Balkan nations were liberated from the Turks, they gave the Jews the privileges that the Ottoman Turks had denied them. It was in 1917 that the Jewish revolution first emerged fully out of the underground, and seized significant political power - and not only in Russia. For by one of those extraordinary coincidences by which God reveals His mysteries to those with eyes to see, the October revolution in Petrograd and the promise of a homeland to the Jews in Palestine by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour took place at exactly the same time, being reported on the very same column of newsprint in the London Times of November 9, 1917

Divided NationsorThe Ten Divisions of Western Rome

The AlemanniThey inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni penetrated across the Danube and through the Rheatian Alps into the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome [cir. A.D. 260]. And then, laden with spoil, they retired into Germany; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the unwarlike Romans. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, chap. 10, pars. 26, 27. More information is available in chapters 9 and 10 of the same book by Gibbon.

The FranksThe Franks were very closely connected to the Alemanni.About the year 240 A.D., a new confederacy was formed under the name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the Weser. The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these Germans; the enjoyment of it, their best treasure; the word that expressed that enjoyment, the most pleasing to their ear. They deserved, they assumed, they maintained, the honourable epithet of Franks, or Freemen, which concealed, though it did not extinguish, the peculiar names of the several States of the confederacy.The Rhine, though dignified with the title of safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist, the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years [A.D. 256-268], the greatest part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the theatre of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost destroyed...When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain, and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and complexion were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, chap. 10, pars. 22, 24. Speaking of the Alemanni and the FranksThe Alemanni were established in the modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of Brabant... chap. 19, par. 20. Further information found in chapters 12, 14, 19, 26, 31, 36 of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Italy and Her Invaders Vol. 1, part 1, chap. 3, par. 6. The Suevi, Vandals, BurgundiansThe Burgundians actually settled first with the Suevi and Vandals continuing to move on. The Suevi and Vandals had disagreements, war was waged, and the Suevi eventually settled where Portugal now is, with the Vandals finally moving on to conquer the northern parts of Africa.The victorious confederates pursued their march, and on the last day of the year [406], in a season when the waters of the Rhine were most probably frozen, they entered, without opposition, the defenceless provinces of Gaul. This memorable passage of the Suevi, the Vandals, the Alani (about 417 A.D. they sought refuge under the banner of the Vandals) and the Burgundians, who never afterward retreated, may be considered as the fall of the Roman Empire in the countries beyond the Alps; and the barriers which had so long separated the savage and the civilized nations of the earth, were from that fatal moment levelled with the ground. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 30, pars. 15-19. In the southeast of Gaul, the Burgundians, after many wars and some reverses, established themselves, with the consent of the Romans, in the district then called Sapaudia and now Savoy. Their territory was somewhat more extensive than the province which was the cradle of the present royal house of Italy, since it stretched northward beyond the lake of Neufchatel, and southward as far as Grenoble....The lands they divided by lot, each one receiving half the estate of the Roman host or hospes. Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chap. 3, par. 14. ....conquered from the Romans the whole valley of the Rhone, in which they henceforth settled. Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Germany, part 2, Confederation of Tribes, par. 2. ....the whole of the Saone and the Lower Rhone from Dijon to the Mediterranean, and included the western half of Switzerland. Middle ages, chap. 1, part 1, sec. 9, note 8. And in 476, when the last vestige of the Western Empire vanished, the Burgundian kingdom included all of Switzerland that lies west of that part of the Rhine that flows from the south into the lake of Constance. The Empires of Prophecy, A. T. Jones, pg 612. The Vandals and the Suevi went on to Spain. At length the barbarians, satiated with carnage and rapine, and afflicted by the contagious evils which they themselves had introduced, fixed their permanent seats in the depopulated country. The ancient Galicia, whose limits included the kingdom of Old Castile, was divided between the Suevi and the Vandals. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 31, par. 36. Galicia is now situated to the north of Portugal. Thus the kingdom of the Vandals was permanently fixed in Africa, where it remained as long as it was a kingdom at all, and as long as the Vandals were a nation. Empires of Prophecy, A. T. Jones, pg 619.

....the Vandals, as we know, ruled Africa from Carthage;....the Burgundians were settled in the valley of the Rhone, and their chief capital was Lyons; The Suevi held the greater part of southern and western Spain, and their capital was Astorga. Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chap. 4, par. 7. Speaking of the Suevi, held the kingdom of Galicia....small part of the peninsula which now forms Portugal. Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Germany, Confederation of Tribes, par. 2. The VisigothsSpeaking of the Visigoths, His victorious Goths, forty-three years after they had passed the Danube, were established [A.D. 419], according to the faith of treaties, in the possession of the second Aquitaine, a maritime province between the Garonne and the Loire, under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bordeaux....The Gothic limits were enlarged by the additional gift of some neighbouring dioceses; and the successors of Alaric fixed their royal residence at Toulouse, which included five populous quarters, or cities, within the spacious circuit of its walls.Speaking of Euric and the Visigoths, He passed the Pyrenees at the head of a numerous army, subdued the cities of Saragossa and Pampeluna, vanquished in battle the martial nobles of the Tarragonese province, carried his victorious arms into the heart of Lusitania, and permited the Suevi to hold the kingdom of Galicia under the Gothic monarchy of Spain. The efforts of Euric were not less vigorous or less successful in Gaul; and throughout the country that extends from the Pyrenees to the Rhone and the Loire, Berry and Auvergne were the only cities, or dioceses, which refused to acknowledge him as their master.Later the Visigoths yielded to the Franks the greater part of their Gallic possession; but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest and secure enjoyment of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Galicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some national vanity. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chaps. 30, pars. 23-25; 31, pars. 7-39; 36, par. 22; 38, par. 29. The Angles and Saxons, or, Anglo-SaxonsHengist and Horsa, who, according to the Anglo-Saxon historians, landed in the year 449 on the shore which is called Ypwinesfleet, were personages of more than common sort. They were the sons of Wihtgils; Wihtgils, son of Witta, Witta of Wecta, Wecta of Woden. So says the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, and adds, From this Woden sprung all our royal families. These descendants, in the third generation from the great Saxon divinity, came over in three boats. They came by invitation of Wyrtgeone Vortigern king of the Britons. The king gave them land in the southeast of the country, on condition that they should fight against the Picts; and they did fight, and had the victory wheresoever they came. And then they sent for the Angles, and told them of the worthlessness of the people and the excellences of the land. This is the Saxon narrative. History of England, Knight, chap. 5, par. 6. The work for which the mercenaries had been hired was quickly done, and the Picts are said to have been scattered to the winds in a battle fought on the eastern coast of Britain. But danger from the Pict was hardly over when danger came from the Jutes themselves. Their fellow pirates must have flocked from the Channel to their settlement in Thanet; the inlet between Thanet and the mainland was crossed, and the Englishmen won their first victory over the Britons in forcing their passage of the Medway at the village of Aylesford. A second defeat at the passage of the Cray drove the British forces in terror upon London; but the ground was soon won back again, and it was not till 465 that a series of petty conflicts which had gone on along the shores of Thanet made way for a decisive struggle at Wippedsfleet. Here, however, the overthrow was so terrible that from this moment all hope of saving northern Kent seems to have been abandoned, and it was only on its southern shore that the Britons held their ground. Ten years later, in 475, the long contest was over, and with the fall of Lymme, whose broken walls look, from the slope to which they cling, over the great flat of Romney Marsh, the work of the first English conqueror was done. Larger History of England, Green, chap. 1, par. 18. And from that time until now, the history of the Angles and Saxons the Anglo-Saxons is but the history of England Angle-land. The Empires of Prophecy, Jones, pg 651. The OstrogothsThe Ostrogoths came under the power of the Huns when Attila was ruling, Decline and Fall chap. 26, par. 12. It wasnt until the death of Attila, in 453, that they reclaimed their independence. This also lead to the war against Ellak and the Huns, with the Huns being defeated and Ellak also dying in battle. After the victory over the Huns by the Ostrogoths and Gepidae, the remnant of the Huns went back to Scythia in the southern parts of Russia. Further information on this point see Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 35, par. 16. Italy and

Her Invaders, book 3, chap. 1, par. 3. Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Goths, par. 14. Such triumphs, however, were productive only of fame, and the invincible Ostrogoths were reduced to extreme distress by the want of clothing and food. They unanimously resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments, and boldly to advance into the warm and wealthy neighbourhood of the Byzantine court, which already maintained in pride and luxury so many bands of confederate Goths. After proving by some acts of hostility that they could be dangerous, or at least troublesome, enemies, the Ostrogoths sold at a high price their reconciliation and fidelity, accepted a donative of lands and money, and were trusted with the defence of the Lower Danube, under the command of Theodoric, who succeeded, after his fathers death [A.D. 475], to the hereditary throne of the Amali. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 39, par. 2, and note. Although Gibbon says they resolved to desert their Pannonian encampments, it must not be understood that this is spoken of the whole nation, but rather the principle warriors; nor that these renounced either their claim or their possessions there; because the history that follows clearly shows that the Ostrogoths dwelt in Pannonia, and that their superior power was exercised and greatfully acknowledged over all that province during the whole fifty-one years (A.D. 475-526) of the reign of Theodoric.This was so even after the seat of the kingdom had been removed to Italy, as it was, in A.D. 489. The Empires of Prophecy, Jones, pg 660. He reduced under a strong and regular government, the unprofitable countries of Rhaeetia, Noricum, Dalmatia, and Pannonia, from the source of the Danube and the territory of the Bavarians, to the petty kingdom erected by the Gepidae on the ruins of Sirmium....The Alemanni were protected, an inroad of the Burgundians was severely chastised, the conquest of Arles and Marseilles opened a free communication with the Visigoths, who revered him as their national protector, and as the guardian of his grandchild, the infant son f Alaric [II].His domestic alliances a wife, two daughters, a sister, and a niece united the family of Theodoric with the kings of the Franks, the Burgundians, the Visigoths, the Vandals, and the Thuringians, and contributed to maintain harmony, or at least the balance, of the great republic of the West.... The Gothic sovereignty was established from sicily to the Danube; from Sirmium, or Belgrade, to the Atlantic Ocean; and the Greeks themselves have acknowledged that Theodoric reigned over the fairest portion of the Western Empire. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 39, pars. 10, 11. Further information, Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chaps. 26, par. 12; 34, par. 5; 35, par. 4, 7, 9, 11, 15, 16. The LombardsOn the Danube above Vienna, and as best we can make out, possessing, for a while at least, both banks of the river, were seated the Lombards, who regained their independence at the death of Attila, A.D. 453. Some time afterward, at the command of the daughter of the king of the Lombards, a brother of the king of the Heruli was assassinated while a royal guest at the Lombard palace, apparently as a suitor for the hand of the Lombard princess. This brought on a war, and the Heruli were successful on imposing upon the Lombards a tribute, the price of blood. We know not to a certainty how long the tribute was paid. We only know that the success of the Heruli made them insolent, and that their insolence was paid for by their ruin. The Empires of Prophecy, Jones, pg 665. The assassination of a royal guest was executed in the presence, and by the command, of the kings daughter, who had been provoked by some words of insult, and disappointed by his diminutive stature; and a tribute, the price of blood, was imposed on the Lombards by his brother, the king of the Heruli. Adversity revived a sense of moderation and justice, and the insolence of conquest was chastised by the signal defeat and irreparable dispersion of the Heruli, who were seated in the southern provinces of Poland. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 42, par. 2. This expedition carried the main body of the Lombards beyond the Danube for a while, but the exploit only the more firmly established their power, which was afterward displayed in the extirpation of the Gepidae. Later, A.D. 526-536, they took entire possession of Normicum and Pannonia, which they held till A.D. 566.In A.D. 567 the Lombards, under their great king, Alboin, removed from Pannonia to Italy. And, whatever might be the grounds of his security, Alboin neither expected nor encountered a Roman army in the field. He ascended the Julian Alps, and looked down with contempt and desire on the fruitful plains to which his victory [ A.D. 568-570] communicated the perpetual appellation of Lombardy....From the Trentine Hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the

Lombards....Delighted with the situation of a city which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan; and Pavia, during some ages, was respected as the capital of the kingdom of Italy. So wide-spread in Italy was the Lombard rule, that Lombardy was, indeed, for a time the name for Italy itself. From that time to this the history of the Lombards is but the history of Italy; and Lombardy is still the name of the finest province of that country, which, itself, might almost be called the key of history. The Empires of Prophecy, Jones, pg 666. Further information see, Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chaps. 5, par. 8; 35, par. 16; 39, par. 2, 10 note; 36, par. 29; 45, pars. 5-7, 14, 15. Outlines of Universal History, sec. 180. Dr. George Weber was professor and director of the High School of Heidelberg, Germany. The Heruli....the confederates of Italy would not have elected him for their general, unless the exploits of Odoacer had established a high opinion of his courage and capacity. Their military acclamations saluted him with the title of king [Aug. 23, A.D. 476]; but he abstained, during his whole reign, from the use of the purple and diadem....Royalty was familiar to the barbarians, and the submissive people of Italy was prepared to obey, without a murmur, the authority which he should condescend to exercise as the vicegerent of the emperor of the West. But Odoacer had resolved to abolish that useless and expensive office....Augustulus....signified his resignation to the Senate....An epistle was addressed, by their unanimous decree, to the emperor Zeno, the son-in-law and successor of Leo, who had lately been restored, after a short rebellion, to the Byzantine throne. They solemnly disclaim the necessity, or even the wish, of continuing any longer the imperial succession in Italy....they consent that the seat of universal empire shall be transferred from Rome to Constantinople....Odoacer was the first barbarian who reigned in Italy over a people who had once asserted their just superiority above the rest of mankind. Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chap. 36, pars. 28-33. Further study see, Decline and Fall, Gibbon, chaps. 10, pars. 10, 37, 38; 25, par. 31; 35 par. 9; 34 par. 12; 36 par. 12, 28; chap. 33 last sentence. All information plus sources, can be found in The Empires of Prophecy A. T. Jones, pgs. 599-696. To my knowledge this book is out of print and out of circulation, and near impossible to find.

The ten divisions of Rome 1. Alemanni - Germany. 6. Visigoths - Spa 2. Franks - France. 7. Anglo-Saxons - En 3. Burgundians - Switzerland. 8. Ostrogoths - Exterm 4. Suevi - Portugal. 9. Lombards - Ita 5. Vandals - Exterminated. 10. Heruli - Extermin History is very clear that the Western Roman Empire divided into ten separate kingdoms, Alemanni, Franks, Burgundians, Suevi, Vandals, Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons, Ostrogoths, Lombards, and the Heruli; this is the order that they came into prominence in the western empire. History is also unmistakably clear as to who uprooted the three exterminated kingdoms. It can be attributed to one power only and this power is the little horn of Daniel 7, which is synonymous with the beast from the sea in Revelation 13 and the power that enforces the mark of the beast, the Papal Church of Rome. pROPHECIES by St. Nilos the Myrrhstreamer of Mount Athos (16th Century)
These Prophecies were made posthumously, in 1817 A.D. to a nearly illiterate Athonite monk, Theophanes, using the dates of the Calendar from Creation, from which there has been much confusion! After the 4 quarters of a century from now (i.e.1917),for three quarters of a century, ( 1992) the people of that time will become unrecognizable. When the time of the advent of the antichrist approaches, people's minds will grow cloudy from carnal passions, and dishonor and lawlessness will grow stronger. Then the world will grow unrecognizable. People's appearances will change, and it will be impossible to distinguish men from women due to their shamelessness in dress and style of hair. These people will be cruel and will be like wild animals because of the temptations of the antichrist. There will be no respect for parents and elders, love will disappear, and Christian pastors, bishops, and priests will become vile men, completely failing to distinguish the right-hand way from the left.

At that time, the morals and Traditions of Christians and of the Church will change. People will abandon modesty, and dissipation will reign. Falsehood and greed will attain great proportions, and woe to those who pile up treasures. Lust, adultery, homosexuality, secret deeds, and murder will rule in society. At that future time, due to the power of such great crimes and licentiousness, people will be deprived of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which they received in Holy Baptism, and equally of repentance. The churches of God will be deprived of God-fearing and pious pastors, and woe to the Christians remaining in the world at that time; they will completely lose the true faith because they will lack the opportunity of seeing the light of knowledge from anyone at all. They will separate themselves out of the world in holy refuges in search of lightening of their spiritual sufferings, but everywhere they will meet obstacles and constraints. ...And this will result from the fact that the Antichrist wants to be lord over everything and become the ruler of the whole universe, and he will produce miracles and fantastic signs. He will also give depraved wisdom to an unhappy man so that he will discover a way by which one man can carry on a conversation from one end of the earth to the other. At that time, men will also fly through the air like birds and descend to the bottom of the sea like fish. And when they have achieved all this, these unhappy people will spend their lives in comfort without knowing, poor souls, that it is the deceit of the antichrist. And the impious one! - he will so complete science with vanity, that it will go off the right path and lead people to lose faith in the existence in God. ...Then God will see the downfall of the human race and will shorten the days for the sake of those few who are being saved, because the enemy wants to lead even the chosen into temptation, if that is possible. ...Then the sword of chastisement will suddenly appear to kill the perverter. Note. 1917 is precisely the year of the Deposition of the Orthodox Emperor, and the end of the flow of Slavic monks to Athos, which caused a decline of more than 50% in number, and a worse spiritual invasion of " Modernists." Perhaps the worst of these is Bartholomew, elected in 1992, who hates Sacred Tradition, and is striving every single day to achieve union with every kind of heretic, Papist, Anglican, Monophosite, Nestorian or whatever, since he is a disciple of Freemasonry. Several other evil events came to pass in 1992 ( 7,500 A.C.) from which the world will never recover. Please note the prophecy of the total confusion of the bishops and other clergy, so that now it is necessary for the Faithful to travel hundreds of miles to find an Orthodox pastor to save one's soul. These things should not overly dismay us, as they were prophesied a a century and more in advance, by the Spirit of God. "For those that love God, all things work together unto good."(Rom:8:28) Suffering these things and persevering we will save our souls.

The 7 texts referring to the 1260-year period are as follows:

Daniel 7:25 Daniel 12:7 Revelation 11:2 Revelation 11:3 Revelation 12:6 Revelation 12:14 Revelation 13:5

Prophecy byzantium
A verse for today Is. 9:6 For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

The point is that accordingly the Revelation of St. John the "kingdom of Christ" is not eternal, because the victory over evil is not final and full.

The revived holy roman empire mimics the 10 kingdoms after the falling away and resumed power of the pope in 2nd phase and he wound was healed.

Prophecies of St. Joachim "Papoulakis" of Ithaka (13)

Isaiah prophecy of jews

A verse for today Is. 53:2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

Isaiah temple mount and state of Israel 1948 prophecy fulfilled

Exactly 2,485.479 years from 536 B.C. is the prophetic date of May 15, 1948. On this date, Israel became a nation just as promised in the Bible (Isaiah 66:8). The return of the Jews to Israel is the key to Bible prophecy. Israel is the timepiece by which we can watch and know that Jesus is coming soon.

Patriarch Jacob and the expectation of nations also st nectarios

The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ December 25Reading:The incomprehensible and inexplicable Nativity of Christ came to pass when Herod the Great was reigning in Judea; the latter was an Ascalonite on his fathers's side and an Idumean on his mother's. He was in every way foreign to the royal line of David; rather, he had received his authority from the Roman emperors, and had ruled tyrannically over the Jewish people for some thirty-three years. The tribe of Judah, which had reigned of old, was deprived of its rights and stripped of all rule and authority. Such was the condition of the Jews when the awaited Messiah was born, and truly thus was fulfilled the prophecy which the Patriarch Jacob had spoken 1,807 years before: "A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a prince from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him; and he is the expectation of the nations" (Gen.49:10).

Tiburtine sibyl and prophecy of Christ and Constantine defeat magog and to end paganism
An apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy exists, attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl, written c. 380 CE, but with revisions and interpolations added at later dates [2]. It purports to prophesy the advent of a final Emperor named Constans, vanquishing the foes of Christianity, bringing about a period of great wealth and peace, ending paganism and converting the Jews. After vanquishing Gog and Magog, the Emperor is said to resign his crown to God. This would give way to the Antichrist. Ippolito d'Este rebuilt the Villa d'Este at Tibur, the modern Tivoli, from 1550 onward, and commissioned elaborate fresco murals in the Villa that celebrate the Tiburtine Sibyl, as prophesying the birth of Christ to the classical world.-note incorrect according to other jstor source that relays this altered by the renaissance to ignore the original.

Also leo the wise prophecy reference In consensus with the fathers on the falling away and antichrist
Constantine defeats magog part 2
In doing so, he will give way to the Antichrist: At that time the Prince of Iniquity who will be called Antichrist will arise from the tribe of Dan. He will be the Son of Perdition, the head of pride, the master of error, the fullness of malice who will overturn the world and do wonders and great signs through dissimulation. He will delude many by magic art so that fire will seem to come down from heaven. ... When the Roman empire shall have ceased,39 then the Antichrist will be openly revealed and will sit in the House of the Lord in Jerusalem. The prophecy relates that Antichrist would be opposed by the two witnesses from the book of Revelation, identified with Elijah and Enoch; after having killed the witnesses and started a final persecuttion the Christians, the Antichrist will be slain by the power of God through Michael the Archangel on the Mount of Olives.

Daniel prophecy of jesus and event of city destroyed . is this kewish revolt of 70AD also propheised by christ
Dan. 9:26 Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The royals and antichirst

Prophecy leo wise and 1000 yr muslim upon city?

his was the time when those in the city, and also those in the fleet, began to be afraid, since we feared that they intended to make a general attack on that very day; it was generally believed that Turkish turbans would soon be seen inside the city; but our merciful Lord Jesus Christ, who is full of compassion, was willing to delay the end, so that the prophecy might be fulfilled, and brought to pass, the prophecy which was made by Saint Constantine son of Saint Helen, who was Emperor of Constantinople

Tertullian (2nd-3rd Century)antichrist and falling away of rome

For the mystery of iniquity doth already work; only he who now hinders must hinder, until he be taken out of the way." What obstacle is there but the Roman state, the falling away of which, by being scattered into ten kingdoms, shall introduce Antichrist upon (its own ruins)? "And then shall be revealed the wicked one, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming: even him whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish."Source: http://newadvent.org/fathers/0301.htm CHAP. XXXII.There is also another and a greater necessity for our offering prayer in behalf of the emperors, nay, for the complete stability of the empire, and for Roman interests in general. For we know that a mighty shock im (43) pending over the whole earth--in fact, the very end of all things threatening dreadful woes---is only retarded by the continued existence of the Roman empire. We have no desire, then, to be overtaken by these dire events; and in praying that their coming may be delayed, we are lending our aid to Rome's duration.

The Cumaean Sibyl

was especially venerated by early Christians not only for her prophetic gift but also because she had specifically prophesied the birth of Christ -- the fact of which most of today's Christians remain unaware

Oracle of leo prophecy pdf

Roman prophecy and romans myths.doc

More about summarizing book abnout some myths of romans value is medium to poor

Powers of Church and State gelasius forgery

During the Acacian schism, Gelasius went further than his predecessors in asserting the primacy of Rome over the entire Church, East and West, and he presented this doctrine in terms that set the model for subsequent popes asserting the claims of papal supremacy. In 494, Gelasius wrote a very influential letter, known from its incipit as Duo sunt, to Anastasius[3]. This letter established the dualistic principle that would underlie all Western European political thought for almost a millennium. In the letter Gelasius expressed a distinction between "two powers", which he called the "holy authority of bishops" (auctoritas sacrata pontificum) and the "royal power" (regalis potestas). These two powers, auctoritas lending justification to potestas, and potestas providing the executive strength for auctoritas were, he said, to be considered independent in their own spheres of operation, yet expected to work together in harmony.

. The Holy Prophet Hosea prophecy

Hosea was the son of Beeri of the tribe of Issachar. Hosea lived andprophesied more than eight hundred years before the birth of Christ.His divinely inspired words are found in his book, which containsfourteen chapters. He strongly rebuked Israel and Judah for theiridolatry and also foretold God's punishment for their sins, thedestruction of Samaria and Israel for their apostasy, and God's mercyon the tribe of Judah. He foretold the abolition and the end of thesacrifices of the Old Testament. He foretold the coming of the Lord,and the richness of gifts that He would bring with hyebrew 13:8 jesus Christ is the same today tomorrow forever. Refrence to consensus of saints

st cosmas prophecies

You will see people flying in the sky like blackbirds and hurling fire on the earth. Those alive then will run to the graves and shout: "Come out, you who are dead, and let us who are living in."The cause of t the general war will come from Dalmatia. Austria will be dismembered first and then Turkey.That which is desired [i.e., freedom] will come in the third generation. Your grandchildren will see it.France w will liberate Greece, [while] Italy (will liberate) Epiros.The villages of the plain will suffer destruction, w while people at the foot of (Mount) Kissavo will go to sleep slaves and will awaken free.The time will come when your enemies will take away from you even the ashes from your fires, but don't give up y your faith as others will do.The red hats [ie., the French] will come here [Kephallenia], and then the E English for fifty-four years, and then this place will become Roman [i.e., Greek Orthodox].The time will come when people will speak from one far place to another, for example, from Constantinople to R Russia, as though they were in adjoining rooms.A time will come when the harmony that exists now b between clergy and laymen will not be.Clergymen will become worse and more impious than e everyone.People will become impoverished because they will have no love for trees.You will see in the P p plain a carriage without horses which will run faster than a rabbit.The rich will become poor and the p poor will die.The time will come when the Romans [i.e., the Greek Orthodox] will fight among t themselves. I recommend harmony and love.A foreign army will come. It will believe in Christ, but it w will not speak the (Greek) language.After the general war, the wolf will live with the lamb.People will A b become poor because they will become lazy.They will ask for your rifles. Retain two. Give one and k keep the other. A single rifle will save a hundred souls.Out of schools will come things which your mind can't imagine. Over 300 prophecies pdf.,

Justin prophecies J Justin talks of the following fulfillments of Bible prophecy

The prophecies concerning the Messiah, and the particulars of His life. [17] [ The destruction of Jerusalem. [18] [ The Gentiles accepting Christianity. [19] [ Isaiah predicted that Jesus would be born of a virgin. [20] [ Micah mentions Bethlehem as the place of His birth. [21] [ Zephaniah forecasts His entry into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass. [ Second coming and Daniel 7 Justin connects Christ's second coming with the climax of the prophecy of Daniel 7. "But if so great a power is shown to have followed and to be still following the dispensation of His suffering, how great shall that be which shall follow His glorious advent! For He shall come on the clouds as the Son of man, so Daniel foretold, and His angels shall come with Him." [Then follows Dan. 7:9-28.] [23] [edit]

Antichrist The second glorious advent Justin places, moreover, close upon the heels of the appearance of the Antichrist, or "man of apostasy."[24] Justin's interpretation of prophecy is, however, less clear and full than that of others who follow. [edit] Time, times, and a half Daniel's "time, times, and a half", Justin believed, was nearing its consummation, when Antichrist would speak his blasphemies against the Most High. And he contends with Trypho over the meaning of a "time" and "times". Justin expects the time to be very short, but Trypho's concept is interesting. "The times now running on to their consummation; and he whom Daniel foretells would have dominion for a time, and times, and an half, is even already at the door, about to speak blasphemous and daring things against the Most High. But you, being ignorant of how long he will have dominion, hold another opinion. For you interpret the 'time' as being a hundred years. But if this is so, the man of sin must, at the shortest, reign three hundred and fifty years, in order that we may compute that which is said by the holy Daniel--'and times'--to be two times only. [25]

wrote a history of the world (Chronographiai, in five books) from Creation to the year AD 221, covering, according to his computation, 5723 years. He calculated the period between Creation and Jesus as 5500 years, placing the Incarnation on the first day of AM 5501 (our modern March 25, 1 BC), according to Venance Grumel, La Chronologie (1958). This method of reckoning led to several Creation eras being used in the Greek Eastern Mediterranean, which all placed Creation within one decade of 5500 BC. You will live to see antichrist. Russian prophecy also mentioning the temple build in jerusalem

THE HOLY PROPHET EZEKIEL and jeremiah

Ezekiel was the son of a priest from the town of Sarir. He was takento Babylon into captivity with King Joachim's along with many otherIsraelites. Living in captivity, Ezekiel prophesied for twenty-seven years. He was a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah. While Jeremiahtaught and prophesied in Jerusalem, so Ezekiel taught and prophesiedin Babylon. The prophecies of Jeremiah were known in Babylon and theprophecies of Ezekiel were known in Jerusalem. Both of these holy menagreed in the prophecies of each other. Both were mistreated andtortured by the unbelieving Jewish people. St. Ezekiel had frighteningand unimaginable visions. By the river Chebar, Ezekiel saw the heavensopen, "a great cloud and a fire infolding itself and a brightness wasabout it" (Ezekiel 1:4) and four wild creatures like molten copper[burnished brass]. One creature had the face of a man, the second the face of a lion, the third the face of a calf [ox], the fourth the faceof an eagle [Ezekiel 1:10]. The face of the man signifies the LordIncarnate as a man, the face of the lion, His divinity, the face ofthe calf, His sacrifice and the face of an eagle, His resurrection andascension. At another time he was shown the vision of the resurrectionof the dead. The prophet saw a valley full of dry dead bones and whenthe Spirit of God descended upon them, they came to life and rose totheir feet [Ezekiel 37:1-10]. He also saw the most terribledestruction of Jerusalem when the wrath of God mowed down all, exceptthose who were earlier marked with the Greek symbol called Tau[Ezekiel 9: 1-7]. This mark is like our letter T which is also thesign also of the Cross. The evil of the Jews did not even spare thisholy man. Infuriated at him because he rebuked them, the Jews tied himto the tails of horses and ripped him in two. He was buried in thesame sepulchre with Shem, the Son of Noah.

Orthodox view antiochrist

This view assumes the identity of Paul's "Man of Lawlessness" with Daniel's "Little Horn" in Daniel 7. This "horn" grows up out of the fourth beast (generally regarded to be the Roman Empire). The little horn appears to begin its career of blasphemy and persecution after the fall of the Roman Empire that is, when the beast has been killed and burned (Dan.7:11, 23-25). Based upon this prophecy, the early church expected an antichrist power to arise upon the fall of the Roman Empire (though they did not live to see the fall of the empire, so they never identified any entity with the little horn). This view informed their interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 2. The Man of Sin was seen as the little horn, expected to rise upon the fall of the Empire, and the Empire itself was seen as the restraining power preventing that development. Among the church fathers expressing this view in their writings were Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Cyril of Jerusalem, Lactantius, Jerome, Ambrose, Chrysostom. There was apparently no dissenting opinion about this in the first four centuries of the Church.

Lactantius Firminianous (4th Century) on antichrist

Divine Institutions (Divinae Institutiones)Book VII, Chapter 25, OF THE LAST TIMES, AND OF THE CITY OF ROME: These are the things which are spoken of by the prophets as about to happen hereafter: ... The subject itself declares that the fall and ruin of the world will shortly take place; except that while the city of Rome remains it appears that nothing of this kind is to be feared. But when that capital of the world shall have fallen, and shall have begun to be a street, which the Sibyls say shall come to pass, who can doubt that the end has now arrived to the affairs of men and the whole world? It is that city, that only, which still sustains all things; and the God of heaven is to be entreated by us and implored -- if, indeed, His arrangements and decrees can be delayed -- lest, sooner than we think for, that detestable tyrant should come who will trader-take so great a deed, and dig out that eye, by the destruction of which the world itself is about to fall. Source: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07017.htm

V VICARIVS FILII DEI(Vicar of the Son of God)

V I C A R I V S

5 1 100 0 0 1 5 0

(+1891)SOURCE: St. Ambrosy, Elder of Optina, "End Times and Now Collection ofWritings"

[edited from the original translation to improve sentence structure]Saint Ambrosy (also known as
Starets Ambrosy) is one of the betterknown starets of Optina. The Russian Orthodox Church declared him asaint in 1988 and his memory is celebrated on October 10th.My child, know that in the last days hard times will come; and as theApostle says, behold, due to poverty in piety heresies and schismswill appear in the churches; and as the Holy Fathers foretold, then onthe thrones of hierarchs and in monasteries there will be no men to befound that are tested and experienced in the spiritual life. Wherefore, heresies will spread everywhere and deceive many. The enemyof mankind will act skillfully, and whenever possible he will lead thechosen ones to heresy. He will not begin by discarding the dogmas onthe Holy Trinity, the divinity of Jesus Christ, or the Theotokos, butwill unnoticeably start to distort the Teachings of the Holy Fathers,in other words the teachings of the Church herself. The cunning of theenemy and his "tipics" (ways) will be noticed by very few -- onlythose that are most experienced in spiritual life. Heretics will takeover the Church, everywhere, and they will appoint their servants, andspirituality will be neglected. But the Lord will not leave Hisservants without protection. Truly, their real duty is persecution oftrue pastors and their imprisonment; for without that, the spiritualflock may not become captured by the heretics. Therefore, my son, whenyou see in the Churches mocking of the Divine act, of the teachings ofthe Holy Fathers, and of God's established order, know that theheretics are already present. Be also aware that, for some time, theymight hide their evil intentions, or they might covertly deform thedivine faith, so that they better succeed by deceiving and trickingthe inexperienced.They will persecute pastors and the servants of God alike, for thedevil who is directing the heresy cannot stand the Divine order. Likewolves in sheep skin, they will be recognized by their vaingloriousnature, love for lust, and lust for power. All those will bebetrayers, causing hatred and malice everywhere; and therefore theLord said that one will easily recognize them by their fruits. Thetrue servants of God are meek, brother-loving and obedient to theChurch (order, traditions).At that time, monks will endure great pressures from heretics, and themonastic life will be mocked. The monastic families will beimpoverished, the number of monks will decrease. The ones remainingwill endure violence. These haters of the monastic life, who merelyhave the appearance of piety, will strive to draw monks to their side,promising them protection and worldly goods (comforts), butthreatening with exile those who do not submit. From these threats,the weak at heart will be very humiliated (tormented).If you live to see that time, rejoice, for at that time the faithfulwho possess no other virtues will receive wreaths for merely remainingsteadfast in their faith, according to the Word of the Lord, "Everyonewho confesses Me before men, I will confess before My HeavenlyFather". Fear the Lord, my son, and don't lose this wreath so as tonot be rejected by Christ into the utter darkness and eternalsuffering. Bravely stand in faith, and if necessary, joyfully endurepersecutions and other troubles, for only then will the Lord stand byyou...and the holy Martyrs and the Confessors will joyfully watch yourstruggle.But, in these days, woe be to monks tied to possessions and riches,and who, for the sake of love of comfort, agree to subjugatethemselves to the heretics. They will lull their conscience by saying:we will save the monastery, and the Lord will forgive us. Unfortunateand blinded, they are not even thinking that through heresies andheretics the devil will enter the monastery, and then it will nolonger be a holy monastery, but bare walls from which Grace willdepart forever.But God is more powerful than the devil, and will never abandon Hisservants. There will always be true Christians, till the end of time,but they will choose lonely and deserted places. Do not fear troubles,but fear pernicious heresy, for it drives out Grace, and separates usfrom Christ, wherefore Christ commanded us to consider the heretic andlet him be unto thee as a heathen man and publican.And so, strengthen yourself, my son, in the Grace of Christ Jesus.With joy, hasten to confession and endure the suffering like JesusChrist's good soldier who was told: "Be faithful unto death, and Iwill give you the wreath of life".

mother mary said papists are the enemy

>>> >>> When the Papists attacked Mt. Athos in the 13th century, the Theotokos warned a monk through her holy icon, as he was chanting to her, Rejoice! From her icon, she suddenly replied: And you rejoice, holy elder; go and warn the Elder Thomas at the Monastery that my enemies and my Sons enemies are coming. >>>

st constantines defence and destiny of the roman empire

Cicero's instinctu divino and Constantine's ... - 7:48am 83 Constantine refers directly to Cicero's De divinatione in his defense of the Sibylline prophecy concerning the birth of Christ.

Nicholas lazarou on icons

iT man become holy is that not the purpose of christ is and was not moses a holy man.

Did not god use the apostles to write his gospels which is gods word. Did not he authorise the apostles, the first bishops, to forgive sins.? Is not the purpose of Christ is to be glorified in his name and to struggle to become like him. Was not made in the image and likeness of god and Christ came to restore the person of man? Is man not a creation of god as a special person that gods wills to inherit the kingdom of god as co inheritors? Sons be adoption what he is by nature??? Does not those against icons preach the aversion of the man and material world to be sanctified like the witch hunting medieval west And did not god become man? So was the flesh worn by Christ non existant like the Monophysites say and cannot be merged with the spirit of god? Christ came in the flesh so that man can become like god?? Does it not speak of this in consensus of the holy bible through mans goal of taking up his own cross and struggling to reach perfection or paradise? Has not god given us the special gift of the holy spirit by which we are enlightened and glorified in his name?? The holy trinity, the mystery of love that constantly illuminates man and creation. God has given man, the rulers of creation, the devine archtype, so we might the learn a small glimse of the whole love he has for us by us experiencing the gift of being fathers ourselves? Those against icons, diminish the importance of man as a special creation of god in his image. Being the temple of the holy spirit, they would say that icons wrongly attest man as having any interaction of love from chriost and the holy spirit at all. Man cannot be sanctified and holy and of course the old testament jews must have been wrong in revering moses coming down from the mountain. When the whole point of the church revolves around being enlightened so that we way receive the holy spirit, the love of god which is the movement of god throughout all creation especially in the church Icons attestify to the personal communion with god and our direct relationship with god . Priests do not arbitrate or deny this personal relationship. However a true personal relationship is truly founded with the communion of the church and the holy bishops and priests that god initiated and permitted to guide the flock of the church to enlightenment and true therapeutic healing Who wrote the bible the saints the fathers. Being the word of god, they will state the bible magically came from heaven because humans are vile or not capable of being the temples of the holy spirit of capable of being the image and likeness of Christ. Their reasons are barbaric Ant iconclasts deny the interaction of the loving moving interaction of the holy spirit with man and his capacity to respond and interact with the energies of the love of god. As god had a son and became through the incarnation and as he desires for our sanctity and happiness, so to man as a created archtype forms this ability kinisis to respond to this movement of love from the incarnation and the illumination present within the world and within him. And forming within himself this unceasing memory of god , as the archtype of god is within him, he too has been given the experiences of love with the opportunity of forming relationships , kinships and having a family so that man might grasp even a portion of the total love god has for us. As through experience we see how community interacts , interdepends and how the expression of love is so natural through this natural activitiy of everyday life, so too Christ within the trinity that is defined by love, man emulates this archtype of love through his very relations on earth. Love is not a lone way thing with Christ. Loving Christ demands a love in return as this is the proof. You cannot just love Christ through believing in him and expecting that he has satisfied our sins. The act of love on the cross demands of every one of us to take up our own cross to bear for the one that died for us.

On holy icon of ressurection in defence of orthodoxycanonical icons

To summarize this work we have an excerpt from the Seventh Ecumenical Council in regards to what may be depicted in icons. Read in the context of what the Fathers have said, the meaning of the following paragraph is clear: the Father, the Holy Spirit or Trinity may not be painted: "We therefore, following the royal pathway and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Catholic Church, define with all certitude and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, so also the venerable and holy images should be set forth...the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our Lady, the Mother of God, of the honorable Angels,

On icon hospitality of Abraham.doc

of all Saints and of all pious people." Nowhere does it mention God the Father or Holy Spirit. Centuries later, the Trinity portraitures infiltrated the Church everywhere, especially in Russia. This kind of religious art was condemned by two Councils: the Great Council of Moscow in 1666 an the Council of Constantinople [1780]. To quote from the decree of the Russian Synod: "We synodically declare that the so-called icon of the Holy Trinity, a recent [my emphasis] invention, is alien and unacceptable to the Apostolic and Catholic Orthodox Church. It was transmitted to the Orthodox Church from the Latins." According to the Council of 1666 and the council of Constantinople of 1780 the "icon" of the Trinity is referred to as "improper", "ignorant", "unbefitting" "unacceptable", and "base". It would seem contradictory to reverence such an icon so described. What sense does it make? Even if the "icon" has not been officially declared a heresy it seems by these words to be nothing else. If these words do not mean heresy then what do they mean? Refer matthewitte statement on validity of trinity icon below next page

Source: http://www.traditionaliconography.com/hospitality.asp

Revisiting the jesus descent icon doc

WITHIn the historical parameters of this development, during which, as we have said, the language of Orthodox iconography was lost, the Latin type gradually came to prevail in depictions of the Resurrection. This type was created in the eleventh century in the West and became familiar through Giotto (Giotto di Bondone, 1266-1337), although its different forms, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, vary quite widely: The Resurrection of Christ is simultaneously also the Resurrection of humanity; the Resurrection is not only the Resurrection of Christ, but a majestic universal event, a cosmic event;21 Christ does not come out of the tomb but out from among the dead, ek nekron, coming up out of devastated Hades as from a nuptial palace.

Ancient of days theology doc statement wuote from genuine orthodox

The icon of the Holy Trinity of "the three persons", that is, ofthe Beginningless Father, as the "Ancient of days," the Son as "Heappeared in the flesh," and the Holy Spirit in the appearance of adove, we venerate and honor. Of course, it is not as a circumscriptionof the uncircumscribable divinity that we depict Him, in as much as"it is impossible to depict and paint the nature of God" (Gregory III,Pope of Rome, Epistle to Leo III, In Session 7 of the 7th Ecum.Council, Mansi 963D) but as the Beginningless Father, as He wasrevealed in a vision to the prophet Daniel (Dan.7:13) and to theProtomartyr Stephen (Acts 7:55), and the Holy Spirit as He wasrevealed to John the Forerunner at the Baptism of the Lord in theJordan and as He is depicted in the icon of the Annunciation of theTheotokos. It is appropriate to remind ourselves that the Holy 7thEcumenical Council, in the 5t Note a the Matthewite Encyclical

, The Holy Synod of the Hierarchy ofthe Genuine Orthodox Church.PRESIDENT:Archbishop of Athens
and all Greece, ANDREASFOR THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF CYPRUS:Metropolitan of Citium, EPIPHANIOSTHE MEMBERS:Gregory of Messinia,Matthew of Attica and Megaris,Nicholas of Peiraeus, Pachomios of Argolis,Theodosios of Phthiotis,Titos of Servia,Chrysostom of Thessalonika,Archsecretary of the Holy Synod: Archimandrite Kirykos (Kontoyiannis) Chancellor

the 5th Ecumenical Council condemned the idea of universal salvation [Origenism

holy light stops when calender changed

...People of all faiths from the world over-Jews, Copts, Armenians,

Jacobites, Latins, Moslems, Protestants, etc.-flock every year to the Holy City to witness for themselves this living connection between the earthly and the Heavenly realms, which only takes place according to true ecclesiastical chronology, viz., the Orthodox Church Calendar. Testifying to the uncanny connection between the miracle of the Holy Fire and the Church Calendar, Archimandrite Sergius (Iazadjiev) relates the following: In August of 1971, Nikolai [now Hieromonk Theophan] and I were coming back from rest and medical treatment at Narechen. Passing through the town of Plovdiv, we called in at the Metochion of Zographou to venerate the tomb of the Holy King Boris [ 906]. Schemamonk Seraphim of Zographou was in attendance at the tomb. He told us that recently (1969-70), under pressure from the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, the Jerusalem Patriarchate had introduced the 'New Julian' Calendar (as had the Bulgarian, Macedonian, and other Patriarchates, since there was overwhelming pressure at the time to introduce the New Calendar). That same year, on Great Saturday, when from time immemorial the Holy Fire descends on the Lord's Sepulchre, this year the Fire did not appear. Shocked, Patriarch Benedict of Jerusalem commanded that the Old Calendar, which had been in use until then, be restored immediately in the jurisdiction of his Patriarchate. The next year, the Holy Fire once again descended on the Lord's Sepulchre on Great Saturday; the same occurs even until the present.

Holy fire denies latins

J. Mischaud, Histoire des Croisades, Paris 1856, Vol.1, page 291. The event is narrated as follows by Archbishop and Professor Chrysostom Papadopoulos. A Latin eyewitness, Poulherios relates that he who after this event became a Patriarch, that in that year the Holy Light would not appear at all, despite the litanies performed, during which the "Lord have mercy" was chanted by all who took part in the Litanies: "We were overcome with great sadness and sorrow. How many vociferous invocations to the Lord! How many sighs and lamentations! For in the lamentations everybody chanted the "Lord have mercy" asking with our chanting the mercy of the Lord. However, despite our supplications we never received what was asked. And already came the evening and the day came to an end and because we thought that what did not happen in the previous years was because of our sins, everyone of us decided inwardly to make good all of our transgressions to God. When the Holy Light still did not appear even during the morning of Pascha (Easter), the King, Baldwin, in despair started to pray in front of the Holy Sepulchre, while the Latin clergy found themselves in a very unpleasant situation and could not decide whether to perform or not the ceremony of Pascha (Easter) without the Holy Light. The Latin, finding themselves in such a predicament, decided to exit the Church of the Resurrection. However, the Greeks, followed by the Jacobites and the Armenians who remained inside prayed fervently, and performed the litany and entreated God and the Holy Light appeared, flooding the whole Church. With joyous cries the Latin run to the Greeks to receive the Light. We repeat that the event was narrated by a Latin eyewitness, and however one wishes to interpret it, it is incontrovertible that the Greeks, who were humiliated and ignored by the Crusaders, were elevated by this. Since then the ceremony of the Holy Light has remained a purely Greek ceremony, even during the period of the Crusaders

Istar isis descent into hades paganism and toll house myth

Recites the story descent into hades and pays toll houses in hades pays first with jewels, garment and then she is naked. She does this to find her loved one

The first testimony holy light

34 (?) A.D. Apostle Peter according to s. Fathers see Holy Light See S. Georg Nissky (+394). The second word about Resurrection. Ioann Damaskin. Oktoih. The first Resurrection sedalih. Voice eight.

S. Georg Nissky (+394). In the second word about Resurrection write about apostle Peter (I c.) see Holy Light. The second word about Resurrection. IV c. In proceedings of church historian Evsevi (IV c.) is described, as in the presence of patriarchy Narcice (II c.) there was not enought oil in icon-lamp. Man filled it with water from Siloam spring. Oillamp was lighted with holy fire and was on fire during all the Easter service. See Evsevi Pamfil. Church history. Book 6. Chapter 9. 1-3.

Feodosi the Great (+395), who visited secretly, according to tradition, Jerusalem, enter the Church of Holy Sepulchre and then all icon-lamp put on fire. "This miracle amazed patriarchy, but ab Angel revealed him that this prayer was not a simple man but holy king Feodosi". Bishop Porfiri (Uspensky). The book of mine beign, P. 3. S-Pb., 1896, p. 299-300. (in Russian) Silvia of Aquitania, 385. Writing "Pilgrimage of Silvia" - opened for reading in the Library of Rossano Abbay (Calabria, Italy). Later edition in english: The pilgrimage of S. Silvia of Aquitania to the holy places (circa 385 AD), Palestine pilgrims text society, London, 1891. Reverend Ioann Damaskin (780) in his church canticle, quite often mentions about the Light, miraculous fulgent on Holy Sepulchre. For example: "Peter be at the Sepulchre and see light in it and was horrified" See. Oktoih. The first Resurrection sedalih, Voice 8 . Arab muslim Al-Djahis (+869) in his writing "The book of animals" place critical mention about Holy Fire. Krachkovsky I. "Holy Fire" according narration of al-Biruni and other muslim writers of X-XIII cc. - Christian East. V.3. Edition 3. 1915, p.231. (in Russian) Latin monac Barnard, (865) write: "t is unnecessary to write a great deal about this sepulchre because Bede says quite enough about it in his history [of the English Church]. But it is worth saying what happens on Holy Saturday, the Vigil of Easter. In the morning the office begins in this Church. Then, when it is over they go in singing Kyrie eleison till an angel comes and kindles light in the lamps which hang above the sephulcre. The patriarch passes some of this light to the bishops and the rest of the people, and each one has light where he is standing. " Mabilon. Acta Sancta. T. III. P. II. p. 473. Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Codex Jerusalem Patriarchate Hagios Stauros 43 [HS 43]. (IX c.) Well known Arabian jurist Ahmed ibn al-Kassa (died in 936) "Signs of Quibla" wrote: "People go out of place of sepulcher to a rock on the Great Saturday, galleries are round it. Staying there they watch at the place of sepulcher, pray and kneel before the God the most High from early prayer till the sunset. Emir and imam of a mosque greet. The governor close a door to the sepulcher and sit down nearby. They all have staying in this manner till the light, which is like white fire, appears out of the sepulcher. Than the governor opens the door and goes in. He holds a candle, put out from this fire, in his hand... He gives it to the imam, who carries the candle and puts out oil-lamps in a mosque The repot is written to the ruler about it, informing that fire appeared in so time and so day. If it appeared till the morning prayer it is considered as a sign that a year will be not fruitful, but not droughty too; if it appears at noon, it indicates that the year will be fruitless. Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 231-232. Abu l-'Abbas Ahmad (died in 947 - ed.) - like a contemporary tenth-century Greek polemicist recounts that Jerusalem's Muslim governor shuts the Tomb's door before the fire's appearance and, when the fire's white light becomes viable within the Tomb, he unlocks its door enters the Tomb and kindles a candle from the fire. Cited: Zsolt (EDT) Hunyadi, Jozsef (EDT) Laszlovszky, The Crusades and the Military Orders: Expanding the Frontiers of Medieval Latin Christianity - History - 2002 - 606 p. P. 90. Well known Arabian jurist Ahmed ibn al-Kassa (died in 936) "Signs of Quibla" wrote: "People go out of place of sepulcher to a rock on the Great Saturday, galleries are round it. Staying there they watch at the place of sepulcher, pray and kneel before the God the most High from early prayer till the sunset. Emir and imam of a mosque greet. The governor close a door to the sepulcher and sit down nearby. They all have staying in this manner till the light, which is like white fire, appears out of the sepulcher. Than the governor opens the door and goes in. He holds a candle, put out from this fire, in his hand He gives it to the imam, who carries the candle and puts out oil-lamps in a mosque The repot is written to the ruler about it, informing that fire appeared in so time and so day. If it appeared till the morning prayer it is considered as a sign that a year will be not fruitful, but not droughty too; if it appears at noon, it indicates that the year will be fruitless. Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 231-232. Metropolitan of Cesaria Cappadocian Arefa in his message to the emir of Damascus (beginning of X c.) writes: Every year until now on the day of His holy Resurrection His holy and precious tomb works miracles.... [All lights in Jerusalem having been extinguished, and] ...with the door [of the Holy Sepulchre] being sealed ...and the Christians standing outside it in the nave of the Anastasis [the rotunda Church that housed the edicule] crying Kyrie eleison, there being a sudden flash the lamp alights, and again all the inhabitants [of] Jersualem take from this light and light [their] flame. Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Arabian historian Masudi (+ 957), dated Holy Fire. Krachkovsky I. Y. "Holy Fire" according narration of al-Biruni and other muslim writers of X-XIII c. - Christian East. V. 3. Ed. 3. 1915, p. 223224. (in Russian) A cleric of the imperial court of Constantine VII Porphyrigenitu[o]s Niketas, 947. ...Sent a letter to the emperor recounting the attempt of an enraged amir to put an end to the rite of the Holy Fire... "[The amir] ...demanded of the Patriarch, under the threat of prohibiting the popular feast of the Resurrection of Christ, a payment of 7,000 gold pieces. This payment would not have been made except for an immediate disbursement by the secretaries of 2,000 gold pieces with a guarantee of the remaining 5,000. While the patriarch was being held in custody in the Pretorium, the God of miracles filled two of the lamps of the triple lamp suspended at the place where they said the body of Christ was taken down from the cross to be washed. When the news of the wonder came to the Pretorium, Christians and Muslims ran pell-mell to the church. But the Muslims came filled with bloody thoughts and murderous designs, armed and ready to slay every Christian carrying a lighted lamp. The Patriarch arrived, followed by the clergy, and having determined that the illumination of the sacred fire had not yet taken place, with the help of the Muslims had the Holy Sepulcher closed and began to pray with

the Christians. Toward the sixth hour, fixing his gaze on the Holy Sepulcher, he saw the supernatural appearance of the light. He entered the Holy Sepulcher whose entrance was shown to him by an angel. At the moment when he took a taper to give of the divine fire to all of those in the church who had torches, scarcely had he come out of the tomb, when he saw the church suddenly filled with a divine light. The faithful were standing on the right and the left, some near the door, some by Calvary, others near the cruciform chain suspended from the ceiling and all around which they had hung their lamps, the chain, that is, which passes for representing the center of the world and which is there as a sign, so that all men might be astonished at the apparition of the divine fire. The Muslims themselves were filled with astonishment since up to that point the apparition of the light annually occurred only at one of the lamps inside the Holy Sepulcher, while on this day the entire church was filled with light. The amir, who was looking on from above on one of the tribunes, was witness to an even greater miracle. The largest of the lamps suspended in front of him let escape the oil and water which it contained and was suddenly filled with a divine fire even though it had no wick at all." Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Muslim Al-Farag ibn Salih from Baghdad, about X c. is cited by al-Biruni Muslim historian al-Biruni, 1000The Christians have extinguished their lamps and torches already prior to this and wait, until they see a pure white fire, which causes a lamp to ignite. From this fire, the lamps in the mosques and in the churches are lit. Then a report is written to the Caliph about the time, at which the fire descended. If it occurred soon after the noon hour, a fertile year is expected, but if it is delayed until the evening or later, then an infertile one is expected. The same source also tells that a governor brought a copper wire instead of a wick, in order that it won't ignite and the whole thing would fail to occur. But as the fire descended, the copper burned. The descent of this fire from above on a day, which recurs after a specified time span, gives us occasion to be astounded..Krachkovsky I. Y. "Holy Fire" according narration of al-Biruni and other muslim writers of XXIII c. - Christian East. V. 3. Ed. 3. 1915 (in Russian). Chronology of the Muslim scholar Al-Biruni (973 1048). Al Biruni / In the Garden of Science / Reklam - Leipzig 1991. English translation. Rome church chronicler Baroni, (XI .) write that western Christians after concerning of Jerusalem saw the miracle, when on The Great Saturday near The Holy Sepulchre candles itself go to (editor translation) Baroni, (chronicles) page 1304 on back. Ali al-Kherevi mention about "scene of Holy Fire, which man may see in Jerusalem Church" Krachkovskij I. JU. // Khristianskij Vostok. T.3. Vyp.3. Pg., 1915; Ch. Schefer, Description des lieux saints de la Galile et de la Palstine, Gnes 1881, p. 21. Cp. de Goeje, op. cit. 55, . 4 , op. cit. () 961. Fulcher (Fulk) of Chartres - chaplain of the first Jerusalem king Baldwin (XI-XII c.) write write about an accident when Holy Fire had not appear while Latin monks and clergy went away from the church of Holy Sepulcher. Avdulovsky F.M. Holy Fire Coming From Holy Sepulchre of Our God and Savior Jesus Christ on The Great Saturday in Jerusalem. Moscow, 1887, P. 37-41. (in Russian). Fulcher (Fulk) of Chartres - chaplain of the first Jerusalem king Baldwin (1101) write about popular belief, that muslims in a case holy fire would had not appear threatened to eleminate all Christians of Palestin. Dmitrievsky A.A. The grace of Holy Fire on Holy Sepulchre on the Great Saturday. S.Petersburg, 1908, p. 96 (in Russian). Archimandrite Arsenius 1345. ..According to custom, ...the Patriarch celebrates a litia near the Holy Sepulchre at noon on Great Saturday for the sake of the Holy Fire. The Patriarch came and with him Metropolitan Germanos from Egypt and Bishop Mark of Damascus... and Abbot Stephen from St. Sabbas (Monastery) with all the clergy. They went around the Tomb of the Lord twice and after the third circling there appeared above the Holy Sepulchre a small cloud of smoke. Then they opened the Tomb (the Kuviklion) and the Patriarch went in with the Armenian bishop, for the cave was filled with holy Light and all the lamps which had been extinguished and prepared since Holy Friday were lit. The Patriarch lit candles from the Holy Fire and from the Patriarch the entire church and a mighty cry arose from the entire church at the appearance of the Light. After a short time the candles which everyone keeps as a blessing were put out. Then the Patriarch began the Liturgy of Great Saturday.. Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Unknown chronicler of Rome church (Text will be added later) Steven Runciman, "Eastern schism", Oxford, 1955. Papa Urban II said in speech (writen) before crusader in city of Clermont 1095: "And yet in that place (I say only what you already know) rested the Lord; there He died for us; there He was buried. How precious would be the longed for, incomparable place of the Lord's burial, even if God failed there to perform the yearly miracle! For in the days of His Passion all the lights in the Sepulchre and round about in the church, which have been extinguished, are relighted by divine command. Whose heart is so stony, brethren, that it is not touched by so great a miracle?" Baldricus, in Gesta Dei per Francos. p. 87. The 12th century Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa tells us that in 1102 the Holy Fire refused to descend after the Franks had seized the holy places from the local priests and kicked the Greeks out of their monasteries. The newcomers got the point and restored the properties; the fire appeared, a day late. Abbot Daniil, who traveled in Holy Land in times of the prince Sviatopolk Iziaslavovich, when the king Balduin I reigned in Jerusalem, soon after crusades since 1093 till 1112. Ibn-al'-Kalanisi (+1162) (was not a witness). Criticized the miracle Holy Fire as fraud. Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 231-232. Theoderich, who wrote his account in 1172, says that sometimes the Holy Fire appeared about the first hour, sometimes about the third hour, the sixth, the ninth hour, or even so late as the time for Compline. Hvidt N.C. Miracles - Encounters Between Heaven And Earth, Gyldendal. Pp. 203-229.

Gautier Vinisauf, English chronicler, describe story which relates to the Holy Fire descend in 1187. In 1187, the Saracens under the direction of Sultan Salah ad-Din took Jerusalem. In that year, the Sultan desired to be present at the celebration, even though he was not a Christian. Gautier Vinisauf tells us what happened: "On his arrival, the celestial fire descended suddenly, and the assistants were deeply moved... the Saracens on ... said that the fire which they had seen to come down was produced by fraudulent means. Salah ad-Din, wishing to expose the imposture, caused the lamp, which the fire from heaven had lighted, to be extinguished, but the lamp relit immediately. He caused it to be extinguished a second time and a third time, but it relit as of itself. Thereupon, the Sultan confounded cried out in prophetic transport: 'Yes, soon shall I die, or I shall lose Jerusalem.'" Hvidt N.C. Miracles - Encounters Between Heaven And Earth, Gyldendal. Pp. 203-229. al'-Djubari (+ 1242) (was not a witness). His book, devoted to explanation of different mysteries and focus, contains a chapter: "Ruse of monks when lighting fire in church of Resurrection". Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 235-238. Ibn-al'-Djauzi (+ 1256) (was not a witness) surmised that a secret source of fire exists which is used to light candles and oil-lamps. Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 235-238. Arabian geographer al-Kazvini (+ 1283) narrates critically about Holy Fire. Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 235-238. Akhmed-ibn-al-Khariri, Ibn-al-'Arabi, Khadzhzhi-Khalif. Sources and details will be added later. Jakut (+ 1299). Cited: Krachkovskij I. JU. "Blagodatnyj ogon'" po rasskazu al-Biruni i drugikh musul'manskikh pisatelej X-XIII vekov // Khristianskij Vostok. Spb., 1915, T. 111. Vyp. 3. S. 235-238. Ierodeacon Zosima, monac of Segieva Lavra, who have traveled in Jerusalem in 1420 Paul Walther 1481. In 148l, it was the custom to have the doors of the Church of the Resurrection opened by Muslims, and three priests or bishops entered the Sepulchre of Christ. One was from the Greeks, the other from the Armenians and the third one from the Ethiopians, and they were shut up in the Sepulchre for the time during which one could recite the Placebo, approximately fifteen to twenty minutes. The next thing, which Walther noticed, was an Armenian bishop coming out of the Holy Sepulchre with a burning light, and after all lights were lit, the 'nations' made their procession three times around the Holy Sepulchre.Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Trifon Korobeinikov, Moscow merchant with companions traveled according to the special decree of the Great prince Ioann Vasilievich in 1583. See Traveling of Trifon Korabeinikov 1593-1594. Orthodox Palestinian collection, ed. 27, St.-Petersburg, 1888. (in Russian) Vasili Jakovlevich Gagara. See: Life and traveling in Jerusalem and Egypt of Kazanian Vasili Jakovlevich Gagara (1634-1637). - Orthodox Palestinian collection, ed. 33, St.-Petersburg, 1891. (in Russian) Henry Maundrell, English chaplain (1696). Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Patriarchy Nektari confirms that when he had been in Jerusalem, Holy Fire was taken from Holy Sepulchre by Patriarchy Paisi. Arsenia Suhanova. Prosclinitary (17 part). (in Russian) Celibate priest Ippolit Vishensky. See: Traveling of celibate priest Ippolit Vishensky in Jerusalem, Sinai and Afon. (1707-1709). - Orthodox Palestinian collection, ed. 61, St.-Petersburg, 1914. (in Russian) Lukjanov Ioann, Moscow priest traveling during Peter I reign from 1710 till 1711. Avdulovsky F.M. Holy Fire Coming From Holy Sepulchre of Our God and Savior Jesus Christ on The Great Saturday in Jerusalem. Moscow, 1887, P. 37-41. (in Russian) Barsky V.G. (Plaki-Albov). Antiohian monk - pedestrian pilgrim from 1724 till 1727 Avdulovsky F.M. Holy Fire coming from Holy Sepulchre of our God and Savior Jesus Christ on the Great Saturday in Jerusalem. Moscow, 1887. P. 35-37. (in Russian) Constantine Volnez (1784). French skeptik mentioned about miracle of Holy Fire and comparative beleives. Cited: Bishop Auxentios of Photiki. The Paschal Fire in Jerusalem: A Study of the Rite of the Holy Fire in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Celibate priest Melety, monk of Sarovskaya hermitage, who had traveled from 1793 till 1794 (in Russian) Metropolitan Dionisi narrates about pecular appearance of Holy Fire in 1799Avdulovsky F.M. Holy Fire coming from Holy Sepulchre of our God and Savior Jesus Christ on the Great Saturday in Jerusalem. Moscow, 1887. (in Russian)

. Regarding the flashes of lightning

So, we are told that phosphorus powder can cause flashes of lightning. Well, not even Kalopoulos has made such an assertion! Where did you hear where exactly did you see it written, that phosphorus powder can cause flashes of lightning? I beg you to show me. I would also like you to provide some evidence as to WHO are the ones that sprinkle phosphorus powder within the Holy Sepulcher and over the heads of bystanders, when that kind of activity could put them at risk of being burnt alive I am assuming that for you to write something this serious which no-one else has ever said you must have seen it with your own eyes, or perhaps even recorded it in a video or at least a photograph. If that is the case, then please, delay no more in presenting that evidence! Mr. Kalopoulos could easily present it for you, given his access to the Media (after all, he does appear on TV without fail, every Christmas and Easter, with his discoveries) The flashes that appear in the Holy Sepulcher have very specific characteristics: quite often they begin their course from a low point and climb upwards, while they sometimes have a spherical shape, like a ball of light, and they meander through the crowd without burning anyone, making their candles ignite spontaneously. Phenomena like these are reminiscent of what Physics calls ball lightning and are still being examined by Science, and as far as I know, they cannot be reproduced artificially with powders, especially when others who have tried to reproduce the phenomenon with other methods were in fact electrocuted (see: http://www.physics4u.gr/faq/lightningball.html ). Generally speaking, there is no chance that ball lightning will not harm anyone who is in its proximity; furthermore, it is accompanied by a sensation of emanated heat and a characteristically bad odour like the odour of ozone, or of sulphur burning, or of nitric acid - side effects that have never been reported by those present at the Holy Sepulcher. There are some who maintain that the flashes are produced by the flash bulbs of cameras. Although certain bright flashes can be attributed to cameras, the fact remains that this cannot explain the spheres of light that pass through the crowd and veer upwards or collide against pillars and then ignite candles, or the white light that perceptibly collects in a certain spot, leaving other areas in total darkness (as opposed to the camera flashes, which normally illuminate the entire space proportionately). Therefore, neither the explanations of ball lightning, cameras flashing, nor the phosphorus powder can be deemed satisfactory, when it comes to identifying the flashes and balls of light within the Holy Sepulcher. This is an entirely different thing altogether. Now lets take a look at certain events within the Old Testament, given it is a special time of the

year

Heterodox denied holy light

Every time heterodox have tried to obtain the Holy Fire they have failed. Three such attempts are known. Two occured in the twelfth century when priests of the Roman church tried to force out the Orthodox church but by their own confession these ended with God's punishment. [3,4] But the most miraculous event occured in the year 1579, the year when God clearly testified to whom alone may be given His miracle. "Once the Armenians (monophysites - ed.) paid the Turks, who then occupied the Holy Land, in order to obtain permission for their Patriarch to enter the Holy Sepulchre, the Orthodox Patriarch was standing sorrowfully with his flock at the exit of the church, near the left column, when the Holy Light split this column vertically and flashed near the Orthodox Patriarch. A Muslim Muezzin, called Tounom, who saw the miraculous event from an adjacent mosque, immediately abandoned the Muslim religion and became an Orthodox Christian. This event took place in 1579 under Sultan Mourad IV, when the Patriarch of Jerusalem was Sophrony IV.(The above mentioned split column still exists. It dates from the twelfth century. The Orthodox pilgrims embrace it at the "place of the split" as they enter the church).[2, date and name are corrected] Turkish warriors stood on the wall of a building close to the gate and lightning-struck column . When he saw this striking miracle he cried that Christ is truly God and leaped down from a height of about ten meters. But he was not killed-the stones under him became as soft as wax and his footprint was left upon them. The Turks tried to scrape away these prints but they could not destroy them; so they remain as witnesses [5].

Holy light file refer from in defence of orthodoxy mac

Nicodemus file in defence of orthodoxy

He was recognised as a saint by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1955. Some controversy regarding philokalia and unseen warefare

In creation file
Exodus geneology geography file

Romans 1:9 in learning god through creation and no excuse bible passage warns against evolutionists Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:II Peter 3:3-6 - (66 AD) Also refer to Christ saying as like in the days of noah , so will the coming of man

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what he has made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks; but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools...Romans 1:18-22 I charge [thee] therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.2 Timothy 4:1-4

File on vlad moss in defence of orthodoxy file---orthodox- orthodox 2012

My scholar works file

Pagan feudalism and Gnosticism. Doc by Nicholas lazarou

Neoplatonic Criticism

Neoplatonism and Gnosticism misassociation

Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge was criticised by the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. Plotinus is noted as the founder of Neoplatonism (along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas),[13] His criticism is contained in the ninth tractate of the second of the Enneads. Therein, Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato: From Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the underworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality they assert in the Intellectual Realmthe Authentic Existent, the IntellectualPrinciple, the Second Creator and the Soulall this is taken over from the Timaeus. (Ennead 2.9.vi; emphasis added from A. H. Armstrong's introduction to Ennead 2.9) Of note here is the remark concerning the second Creator and Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own which, he declares, have been picked up outside of the truth; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Platos original intentions. Whereas Plato's demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, gnosticism contends that the demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation "Enneads" The Second Ennead, Ninth Tractate - Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil: [Generally Quoted as "Against the Gnostics"]. Plotinus marks his arguments with the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the nous or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil. The majority view tends to understand Plotinus opponents as being a Gnostic sect certainly, (specifically Sethian) several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus lifetime, and several of his criticisms bear specific similarity to Gnostic doctrine (Plotinus pointing to the gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge is most notable among these similarities). However, other scholars such as Christos Evangeliou have contended that Plotinus opponents might be better described as simply Christian Gnostics, since several of Plotinus criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as they are to Gnosticism. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou felt the definition of the term Gnostics was unclear. Thus, though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. A. H. Armstrong identified the Gnostics that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the Enneads. Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a sort of Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism. John D. Turner professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library stated that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian gnosticism which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same erroneous conclusions (such as Dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism. Plotinus against the Gnostics Taken from neo plato neo Gnostic file

8th day expectant of the church

In addition to these Memorials, our holy Church has ordained that the Sabbath (Saturday) be a day of commemoration of the Holy Martyrs and of all the deceased. For the Sabbath, as the seventh day from the beginning of creation, is the day which saw bodily death, imposed upon man by the righteous God. This day is continued, in as much as the death of man is also continued at the same time, Sunday, however, is the "day of the Resurrection, the eighth day, which symbolizes the anticipated age of eternity, the resurrection of the dead and the endless kingdom of God."

Nicholas lazarou on neo platoism and gnosticism

As for the second question, "Where are they headed?", the basic teaching of Neo-Platonism is Plato's view that the soul is encased in the body and that the body is the soul's prison, in which case, man's salvation is the releasing of the soul from the body, and its return to the sphere of ideas. plautinus did not accept gnostic teachings. according to wikipedia source.

to link humanism of acquinas in the 13th century with neo platonism in the 2nd century and say they are from the same tradition is unfounded in my view. plato believed in the virtues and cathari as a precondition, unlike the west that believe that the mind was perfect in comtemplation of god and all you need is ecstacy to join with him , in a augustinian predestiny sense. the judicial arbitrary either condemns someone to hell or send them with heaven" this obviously has its source in the middle ages. i speculate, if i dare, that augustine did not have this in mind or did he? his work is obviously unorthodox, but what of the medieval overtones of this? don't you think the catholic church would use this theology out of its own vices to justify its owns ends? just because acquinas used greek philosophy does not make it suddenly evil. could it be then and rather, his application of greek philosophy rather than children suddenly been spoilt by touching the demonic pagan literature of the greeks and being contaminated? i respect this writer, i infact have all his books. i could be wrong but i am trying to see the sense of it. did not god prepare the greeks for his coming? are the oracles that predicted the messiah's coming evil? when plato talks about and other philosophers that confession in good for the soul and that dispassion and virtue is good for the soul-- is this evil? unfortunately to say so is gnostic in itself because it presumes that one cannot participate in the uncreated energies of god and become enlightened. did not the prophets become enlightened before jesus's coming? did not st. paul identify the unknown god for the greeks? when the gentiles had more love than the jews or the chosen ones? can this be labeled evil cause they yet to receive the laws or rather do we folow the passage in the bible that it is the consciousness written in a person's heart? if people seek the truth, will they not find? the ancient greeks believed in virtues like no one else and they were chosen by god because they seeked it through their philosophies. unfortunately this current against ancient literature is perhaps a western model, when the franks burnt all ancient literature in the west and called it demonic because they did not want the people to learn and wanted them to be kept in the dark so that the catholic church can keep them passified and controled. of course in constantinople their was always access to ancient literature, sometimes stressed for its virtue and its grammar but always kept in check to avoid people getting off the tracks from the true orthodox ascesis tradition of theosis. knowledge , i suspect, for the ancient greeks was not something you acquired through reading and understanding but through virtue and dispassion. the westerners in the renaissance used ancient greek philosophy for their humanistic leanings and branded them as their own, taking with them their claim to ancient greek philosophy, selecting what they liked from it, without truly understanding it. of course not all greek philosophy is good, some are dangerous. in orthodoxy they kept the tides of ancient philosophies in check, did not rely on it what referenced it for practice of virtue and its similarities to orthodoxy-- rather how god played a role in their conversion to the whole truth that was not revealed to them until christ's coming. perhaps without philosophy, the greeks would not recognise christ? do theathropos. ultimately christ teachings were revelations and anything in greek philosophy that countered this reality was rejected. but not all because the philosophers knew that their was a god and we were made in his image and he wanted us to return through the struggle of virtue , dispassion so that we are enlightened. barlaam's ideas are not greek but naturally catholic and ecstacy is demonic nico

The Council of Constantinople (869) (considered ecumenical by the Western Church, but not the Eastern Church) Ancient of days as Christ not god the father according to Moscow 1666 and not refered in 869 constantinople synod

Holy Poles who were martyred by the Papists

Canonization of the Neo-martyrs of Poland on 8th June 2003 Action of the Holy Synod of the Polish Orthodox Church for the induction to the choir of the Saints and Martyrs of the twentieth century, at the eparchy of Helm and Podlaskia. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of the third millennium of the goodness of the Lord, the Orthodox Church of Poland harvested the fruit of the divine sowing, which increased through the confession of the Orthodox Faith and the martyric end of the faithful people of the eparchy of Helm and Podlaskia. The region of Helm and Podlaskia (present south-eastern Poland) which one thousand years ago received the Orthodox faith, many times suffered difficult conditions and persecutions by the heterodox. Despite all these, she always kept her dedication to Christ and to the Holy Church, through the intercessions of the Theotokos, who donated to the eparchy of Helm her miraculous icon. Even during the most testing trials of faith when it was becoming apparent that the light of Orthodoxy was dimming, they guarded this holy inheritance and wealth of faith as she received it from Saint Vladimir. As the terrible persecutions and the great darkness passed, again the faith would brighten up through distinguished confessors and martyrs who especially during the 20th century, irrigated their country with their martyric blood. The zenith of the persecutions in the region of Helm and Podlaskia took place in 1944 and as the locals of that period testify: "We suffered terrible and difficult times by the enemies of the faith who flooded our region with rivers of blood and set on fire our homes. During those days certain ones received the crown of martyrdom, by dedicating their heart and faith to God and their neighbour". Through their martyric blood and their intercessions our present ecclesiastic community is strengthened and we maintain the memory of their martyrdom according to the 1944 testimony of the local Hierarch Ilarion who said: "I steadfastly hope, that many of those clerics of my eparchy who martyred, the church will induct in the chorus of the saints". During the intervening 50 years it was not possible to canonize them due to unfavourable conditions. However, their memory remained alive in the people of the region, until the local Orthodox Church based on research and evidence by a specific commission decided the folowing: * 1. It is decided that the assembly of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of the eparchy of Helm and Podlaska shall be on the first Sunday of the month of June.

Jesuits forcibly converting orthodox

e introduced the Jesuit order into Poland in 1564. Jesuit colleges quickly arose (Braniewo, 1565; Vilnius, 1570; Pozna, 1573) and became important tools in the Catholicization of Protestants and Orthodox.

Saint Tarasius of Constantinople says that "in nothing do we find the fathers disagreeing, but as they are of the same spirit, they all preach and teach the same

Fathers on unfortunate second marriages

> > HERMAS ( AD 80 ) > > "What then shall the husband do, if the wife continue in this disposition [adultery]? Let him divorce > her, and let the husband remain single. But if he divorce his wife and marry another, he too > commits adultery" (Shepherd 4:1:6 [A.D. 80]). >so it is accepted that the man is in sin even when the woman commits adultery and he leaves her. emphasising the importance of forgiveness with the woman committing the adultery, however if the relationship is untenable then the man is still in sin in the new marriage--- however that is christ economy of salvation. if a woman was producing bad fruits in a marriage, he has to show every sign of imitating christ as he was to the church as humanly possible. so the man must call to the adulterous wife to repent, and this is why is he leaves it alone and marries another he is in sin. as we are sinners who are ailing, we call and struggle the fight at every stage for our first marriage not to be dissolved. once again the sin is not attached to pre destiny and condemnation and though it is wrong that the

unfortunate relationship breaks,christ the unmoved still loves and wants all of us to admit we are sinners even when she comitt adultery, he still too has done wrong > > > > > > > > > JUSTIN MARTYR ( AD 151 ) "In regard to chastity, [Jesus] has this to say: If anyone look with lust at a woman, he has already before God committed adultery in his heart. And, Whoever marries a woman who has been divorced from another husband, commits adultery. According to our Teacher, just as they are sinners who contract a second marriage, even though it be in accord with human law, so also are they sinners who look with lustful desire at a woman. He repudiates not only one who actually commits adultery, but even one who wishes to do so; for not only our actions are manifest to God, but even our thoughts" (First Apology 15 [A.D. 151]).

the whole nature of economia is beyond the scope of this study here, but what is profound is that even when we are sinners, by repenting to the evil we learn to love god more with all our hearts, learning first hand how it is like to sin and transgress from his law. every situation is different and the perscribing priest spiritual father would look into the heart of man and suggest remedy whether remarriage is better for the salvation of this person or wait til the child grows up and bear the insults of the abusive, presumably first wife. if it weren't for the great economia of christ being the incarnation, no one will be saved in the fallen world, hence the importance of the church to encourage repentance and not denial of there imfirmities as the church does not judge man. just as long as man is repentive. > > > > > > > > > > > CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA ( AD 208 ) "That Scripture counsels marriage, however, and never allows any release from the union is expressly contained in the law: You shall not divorce a wife, except for reason of immorality. And it regards as adultery the marriage of a spouse, while the one from whom a separation was made is still alive. Whoever takes a divorced woman as wife commits adultery, it says; for if anyone divorce his wife, he debauches her; that is, he compels her to commit adultery. And not only does he that divorces her become the cause of this, but also he that takes the woman and gives her the opportunity of sinning; for if he did not take her, she would return to her husband" (Miscellanies 2:23:145:3 [A.D. 208]).

i love st clement and totally agree with this. their is no doubt. the question is whether the church permits marriages out of economia, not compromise but weakness. so only after the man, who is supposed victim continuously asks the woman back into his life and for many years of repentance, and she does not hear, then it certain circumstances remarriage is allowed. you shall not dovorce a wide except for reason of immorality, well this shows, the meaning of immorality within the context, that this is not a legalistic thing, should we not be to our wives as christ is to the church? this obviously means the struggle of calling her back however if it is without use and the marriage is not fruitful, why should he suffer as st paul says if the person cannot live without a spouse, then it is better to remarry then to burn in the flesh and be subject to passions > > ORIGEN ( AD 248 ) > > "Just as a woman is an adulteress, even though she seems to be married to a man, while a former > husband yet lives, so also the man who seems to marry her [and] who has been divorced does not > marry her, but, according to the declaration of our Savior, he commits adultery with her" > (Commentaries on Matthew 14:24 [A.D. 248]). > > AMBROSE ( AD 387 ) > > "No one is permitted to know a woman other than his wife. The marital right is given you for this > reason: lest you fall into the snare and sin with a strange woman. If you are bound to a wife do > not seek a divorce; for you are not permitted, while your wife lives, to marry another" (Abraham > 1:7:59 [A.D. 387]). > > AMBROSE ( AD 389 ) > > "You dismiss your wife, therefore, as if by right and without being charged with wrongdoing, and > you suppose it is proper for you to do so because no human law forbids it; but divine law forbids it. > Anyone who obeys men ought to stand in awe of God. Hear the law of the Lord, which even they > who propose our laws must obey: What God has joined together let no man put asunder" emphasising that if u sin, this will be hurtful to your prospects anyhow. emphasising to stay in the first marriage as christ beared with the church, there is no easy way out.

> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

(Commentary on Luke 8:5 [A.D. 389]). JEROME ( AD 398 ) "Wherever there is fornication and a suspicion of fornication a wife is freely dismissed. Because it is always possible that someone may calumniate the innocent and, for the sake of a second joining in marriage, act in criminal fashion against the first, it is commanded that when the first wife is dismissed a second may not be taken while the first lives" (Commentaries on Matthew 3:19:9 [A.D. 398]). POPE INNOCENT I ( AD 408 - pre schism ) "[T]he practice is observed by all of regarding as an adulteress a woman who marries a second time while her husband yet lives, and permission to do penance is not granted her until one of them is dead" (Letters 2:13:15 [A.D. 408]). AUGUSTINE ( AD 419 ) "Neither can it rightly be held that a husband who dismisses his wife because of fornication and marries another does not commit adultery. For there is also adultery on the part of those who, after the repudiation of their former wives because of fornication, marry others. This adultery, nevertheless, is certainly less serious than that of men who dismiss their wives for reasons other than fornication and take other wives. Therefore, when we say: Whoever marries a woman dismissed by her husband for reason other than fornication commits adultery, undoubtedly we speak the truth. But we do not thereby acquit of this crime the man who marries a woman who was dismissed because of fornication. We do not doubt in the least that both are adulterers. We do indeed pronounce him an adulterer who dismissed his wife for cause other than fornication and marries another, nor do we thereby defend from the taint of this sin the man who dismissed his wife because of fornication and marries another. We recognize that both are adulterers, though the sin of one is more grave than that of the other. No one is so unreasonable to say that a man who marries a woman whose husband has dismissed her because of fornication is not an adulterer, while maintaining that a man who marries a woman dismissed without the ground of fornication is an adulterer. Both of these men are guilty of adultery" (Adulterous Marriages 1:9:9 [A.D. 419]).

Refer letter on peter the protestant on remarriage 2nd marriages file in defence of orthodoxy why bishops no longer marry in church a opinion and direction by Nicholas lazarou
- bishop could be married in the early church, now he cannot. of course if you been to fellowship--these things are explained. once again the manufacture of bishops came from monasteries and it was determined that a bishop, with growing and expanding reponsibilities had to a monk, separated from the corruptions of civilisation, so they better represent the people without the burden of politics in a growing sophisticated highly bureocractic state as the roman empire. in order to avoid institutionalisation of the church and subordinated to the state this action was essential for the preservation of the church to have prerogative over the state and hold preemminance above codified roman law.

Chyrsostom on second marriages

As virginity is better than marriage, so the first marriage is betterthan the second." Thus, St. John Chrysostom wrote to the young widowof Tarasius, a deceased nobleman of Constantinople, counseling her notto enter into marriage for the second time. The Church blesses firstmarriages with joy but the second marriage with sorrow. Eupraxia theelder, the mother of St. Eupraxia and relative of Emperor Theodosiusthe Great, remained a young widow following the death of her husbandAntigonus, with whom she lived in physical contact for only two yearsand three months, and further lived one more year as brother andsister by mutual pledge. The emperor and empress counseled her toenter into marriage with another nobleman. She would not hear of it,but took her child Eupraxia and together they fled to Egypt. What canwe say about St. Olympias and St. Eupraxia the younger? As with St. Macrina, not only was she also betrothed as a virgin but when herbetrothed died, she considered herself a widow and would not even inher thoughts consider entering into marriage. What purity of heart!What fidelity to one's betrothed! What fear of God! What obvious faithin the future life in which the betrothed maiden hopes to see herbetrothed.

More on justified second marriage against peter the protestant

funny you say mercy to your soul, but according to you, their is no mercy in your calvinised christ of the atonement { heresy pronounced by fathers of 13century}. once you sin --their is no mercy-- so do not use that word for you know nothing of it. i guarantee your ideas are herectical. do you not obey the fathers and saints? who are you. mr sola scriptura? who decided to reinterprete the fathers testimony of the church for over 2 thousand years?? have mercy on your soul???, i am the one listening to the decrees of the church of which u totally lack. the bible is a mystery that you cannot peer into. your talks revolve around general evalangelical style concepts like love and grace without understanding the essence of christianity. you are deceived and you can deceive others with your heresies that are worst than any sin. you arrogantly put on a humble facade to the congregation when your full of kind words under neath vipers. your boastful words resound even when christ said the church is the foundation of truth. "he that does not hear the church is a fool". who are you a church within yourself? have you become automatically deified by the lord to overturn the doctrines of the church for the last two thousand years? you deny the incarnation of the logos when you judge like a lone crusader who alone possesses the truth without seeing the bible within the traditions and in light of the fathers within the church. you take a deceitful individual interpretation, where you are not authorised or enlightened to pronounce. for the ones who have opened their spiritual eyes and see are the saints that will judge us. who are u that arrogantly knows what the early church is and have predetermined all ecumenical councils as political machinations.?? in the vanity of your mind you produce vein deceit. the deceit barbarians boast. i have got for you references from the fathers regarding second marriages. divorced is shunned. but second marriages are not forbidden provided they listen to the conditions of the church. the goal of the church is salvation not predestinated prejudgement that the vatican procured one can be sent to either heaven and hell. i suggest you stop your elementary imposing talks that say really nothing at all, but that a 3yr old would understand, but to the laity that want real answers, this is totally unacceptable. i suggest you attend a liberal denomination like hillsong. nicholas in the real christ. check out these fathers quotes and see can u deny those that will judge you in the end??? does it say in the bible that under no circumstances can any man remarry into a second marriage???? the bottom passage refers to the innocent party that sees the adulterous woman and that it says he is granted allowance to divorce . so is this innocent party, by default, penalised to not marry again??

And yet the Orthodox Church can however permit divorce and remarriage on the grounds of interpretation of what the Lord says in Matt. 19, 9: I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery. According to Bishop Kallistos Ware divorce is an action of economia and expression of compassion of the Church toward sinful man. Since Christ, according to the Matthaean account, allowed an exception to His general ruling about the indissolubility of marriage, the Orthodox Church also is willing to allow an exception.[20] A question we can ask ourselves is whether Christ considered marriage as being indissoluble? We need to be very clear in this as when Christ teaches that marriage may not be dissolved that does not mean that He is stating that itcannot occur. The completeness of the marriage relationship can be tainted by erroneous behaviour. In other words, it is the offence that breaks the bond. The divorce is ultimately a result of this break. This is also the teaching of the Eastern Church fathers. A quotation from the testimony of Cyril of Alexandria will be sufficient to make our point here: It is not the letters of divorce that dissolve the marriage in relation God but the errant behaviour.[21] T The violation of a marriage relationship is divided into two groups: those resulting from adultery (unfaithfulness and immoral behaviour) ( those proceeding from the absence of one of the partners (this absence must however have certain distinctives). According to the spirit of Orthodoxy the unity of the married couple cannot be maintained through the virtue of juridical obligation alone; the formal unity must be consistent with an internal symphony.[22] The problem arises when it is no longer possible to salvage anything of this symphony, for then the bond that was originally considered indissoluble is already dissolved and the law can offer nothing to replace grace and can neither heal nor resurrect, nor say: Stand up and go.[23] The Church recognizes that there are cases in which marriage life has no content or may even lead to loss of the soul. The Holy John Chrysostom says in this regard that: better to break the covenant than to lose ones soul.[24] Nevertheless, the Orthodox Church sees divorce as a tragedy due to human

weakness and sin. 1 Corinthians 7

Concerning Married Life

1 Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. 8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. The Holy Basil the Great, for example, referred not to a rule but to usage, as far as this problem was concerned.[25] Speaking concerning the man who had been cheated by his wife, he declares that the man is pardonable (to be excused) should he remarry. It is good to remember that the Orthodox Church has in general always had a sense of reluctance regarding second marriages. It would subsequently be completely wrong to assert that orthodox Christians may marry two or three times! The Holy Basil the Great, for example, referred not to a rule but to usage, as far as this problem was concerned.[25] Speaking concerning the man who had been cheated by his wife, he declares that the man is pardonable (to be excused) should he remarry. It is good to remember that the Orthodox Church has in general always had a sense of reluctance regarding second marriages. It would subsequently be completely wrong to assert that orthodox Christians may marry two or three times! Origen, in his Commentary on Matthew, did not seem as strict as his contemporaries. He noted that Christ rejected "the opinion that a wife was to be put away for every cause" (1.14.16), but he did not seem to rule out divorce completely. Indeed, he admitted that some church leaders "have permitted a (divorced) woman to marry, even when her husband was living," and he confessed that such permission was "not altogether without reason," being undoubtedly a lesser of evils (1.14.23).6 But Justin does not condemn the remarriage of a disciplining spouse (nor does he in the Second Apology), nor does he condemn the remarriage of an innocently divorced spouse. His condemnations are always in the context of a womans legitimate marriage; that marriage should not be broken up in thought or by action by the man to whom Justin refers (and condemns). This understanding of Justin does not go beyond his statements (as Heth/Wenham do), and it is entirely in harmony with the position set forth in this book. In the East, they were less concerned with divorce as they were concerned with remarriage."If there were two Christs, there would be two husbands, or two wives; since Christ is one--the one head of the Church--there is one flesh also; the second should be rejected. And if you forbid a second marriage, would you allow a third? The first is legal, the second is condoned, the third is illegitimate, and that which is beyond is swine-like . . ." St Gregory the Theologian, Or. 37.8"The rule establishes one year of excommunication for those who marry a second time. Other authorities even require two years. Those who marry a third time are often excommunicated for three or four years. And such a union is not called marriage, but polygamy, or punishable fornication." St Basil's 4th Canonical EpistleThat applied to those who had divorced and those who had been widowed. It's hard to compare current understandings of marriage and divorce to the early church, because both were handled in civil courts according to Roman law.

http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/athenagoras_remarriage.htm

The Byzantine Church, though proclaiming and cherishing the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, as affirmed by Jesus according to the Synoptics' accounts (Matt. 5:31-32, 19:3-12, Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), never understood indissolubility to be a legal absolute. It condoned the famous exception, found in Matt. 19:9, and recognized adultery as a legitimate cause of divorce, covering other situations, where the mystical union of husband and wife had, in reality, ceased to exist, that is, situations practically equivalent to the death of one of the partners (disappearance, insanity, violence). However, even in cases when divorce was admitted, remarriage was, in principle, only tolerated and subject to penitential conditions, mentioned earlier.

St. Epiphanius of Cyprus (403)

He who cannot keep continence after the death of his first wife, or who has separated from his wife for a valid motive, as fornication, adultery, or another misdeed, if he takes another wife, or if the wife takes another husband, the divine word does not condemn him nor exclude him from the Church or the life; but she tolerates it rather on account of his weakness (Against Heresies).

Some, such as Augustine, prohibited remarriage under any circumstances, and others, such as Chrysostom, allowed for it when a spouse was the victim of adultery. npte--augustine a western father influenced by gnostic ideas. chapters of augustine orthodox recognise but carefully evaluated within the church

Tertullian claimed exceptions: Permanent is the marriage which is not rightly dissolved; to marry, therefore, whilst matrimony is undissolved, is to commit adultery. . . . Divorce, therefore, when justly deserved, has even in Christ a defender. (9) In granting the marriage bond could be rightly dissolved, Tertullian suggested the correlative right to remarry. (10) The First Canonical Epistle of Our Holy Father Basil, Archbishop of Csarea in Cappadocia to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.

These canons of St. Basils are annotated by Zonaras, Balsamon and Aristenus, and of them there is also the Ancient Epitome which will be found in Beveridge (Synod., Tom. II., p. 47). Johnson gives the date of these canons as later than the year 370. (This Epistle, number cxxxviii., is found translated in Volume VIII. of the Second Series of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, p. 223 et seqq.) Canon IX. Our Lord is equal, to the man and woman forbidding divorce, save in case of fornication; but custom requires women to retain their husbands, though they be guilty of fornication. The man deserted by

his wife may take another, and though he were deserted for adultery, yet St. Basil will be positive, that the other woman who afterward takes him is guilty of adultery; but the wife is not allowed this liberty. And the man who deserts an innocent wife is not allowed to marry.

ROMAN CATHOLICISM AND ORTHODOXY Wherein Lie the Loyalties of our Leaders?

________________________
by Bishop Auxentios of Photiki IN A DISTINCTLY WESTERN piece of scholarship, a Hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America, a convert from the Latin Church, recently made a thinly veiled argument for the developing primacy of the cumenical Patriarchate. Indeed, cumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, trained in canon law at a Roman Catholic university, has also repeatedly referred to a certain primacy belonging to his ancient See. If, in the final analysis, the very notion of canon law itselfand especially as it is understood among contemporary Orthodox theologiansis essentially Western in origin, its centrality in the argument for the establishment of a kind of Eastern Pope in Constantinople reveals the extent to which Roman Catholicism has influenced modernist Orthodox and how they view and understand the Church. While the Patriarch of Constantinople addresses the Pope of Rome as a brother of equal status and establishes that claim on the enduring model of the Orthodox episcopacy, of which he is but the first among equals, at the same time he conducts himself as though he were the repository of ultimate authority in the Church. His recent actions against and intimidation of the Patriarchate in Jerusalem, the Mother Church of Christianity, amply demonstrate this. This neo-papal trend under the administration of an Orthodox Patriarch with close ties to the Roman Catholic world is especially disturbing when one considers that there is compelling evidence that the late Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, an official of the World Council of Churches, a leading figure in the Russian Orthodox Church, and a great lover of Roman Catholicism, was in fact a secret Roman Catholic bishop with Jesuit sympathies or ties. In light of new revelations about Nikodims commission to convert the Russian nation, his death in the arms of Pope John-Paul I does not now seem so curious. As ecumenical dialogues between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics take on unheard of dimensionsthe recognition by Orthodox of the validity of the sacraments of the Church of Rome, the Uniates, and the non-Chalcedonians, one cannot but wonder whether this betrayal of the Orthodox Church on untenable theological and ecclesiological grounds is not closely linked to the Roman Catholic sympathies of many of our Orthodox leaders and the neo-papal model of Church administration that they have adopted from the Latin Church. We traditionalist Ortho-

Volume XI, Number 4 69 dox stand back in shock at the navet of our Churchs leaders, who have accepted ecumenical principles that violate the very foundations of our Church and who speak, incredibly enough, of a Christianity beyond the borders of dogma! We stand incredulous before the spread of neopapism in a Church which has always considered Christ its only head. In a Church which defines itself by the rightness of its beliefs and dogmas, we are at a loss to understand how even sincere Orthodox theologians and Bishops can speak of Orthodoxy outside such rightness. Only in the contrast between our love for Orthodoxy and the Orthodox ecumenists love for something elseRoman Catholicism, in most casescan we find any explanation for this perplexing situation. If our explanation seems overstated, let us quote some astound-

ing words from a talk in 1991 by Father Boris Brobinskoy, Dean of the St. Sergius Institute in Paris, at the Roman Catholic parish of St. Andr de lEurope in Paris, France. (See this address in Sobornost, Vol. XV, No. 2 [1993], pp. 28ff.) Among his first statements is the following: My whole life has been marked, and is still marked, by deep links, both personal and ecclesiastical, with the Catholic Church.... I did my secondary schooling with the Jesuit fathers. They gave me a great deal and I owe them a great deal. He later refers to the grace of God which abounds within the Roman Catholic Church and confesses that such postSchism Latin saints as Francis of Assisi ought also to be our Saints and praises such righteous Roman Catholics as Mother Teresa, in contemporary times. To Ukraine, to Russia, and to the Latinized Greek islands the Latins and Jesuits also bequeathed much: albeit much pain, much spiritual ruination, and much political oppression. Indeed, the loyalty of traditionalist Orthodox Christians in these lands is directed not at Rome and those who, like Francis of Assisi and Mother Theresa, place obeisance to the Papacy at the center of their Christianity; rather, their loyalty is directed at that Orthodoxy which is more precious than life, that Orthodoxy which the Athonite Fathers of years past vowed never to betray, and that Orthodoxy which commemorates an endless number of Saints from within its own bosom. Father Boris admits, later on in his talk, that it was from Dom Odo Casel, Dom Lambert Beauduin, Louis Bouyer, and other liturgical scholars that he and others discovered the theological status of the liturgy. And while he asserts that several very westernized Orthodox scholars (Father A. Schmemann among them) influenced the deliberations of Vatican II, it was to these Latin scholars that he looked, as a student, for living water, essential nourishment. For a traditionalist Orthodox Christian, just as the spiritual poetry of Fran-

70 Orthodox Tradition cis of Assisi and the caring sacrifice of Mother Theresa may constitute inspiring tributes to the beauty of the human spirit, the liturgical scholarship of Casel and others of his intellectual bent can serve to focus one on the spirit of Christian worship. But it is to the Orthodox Fathers themselves, sustained by the richness of the Divine Liturgy and its unifying quality, that we traditionalist Orthodox turn for the living waters of spiritual nourishment. Our spiritual thirst rises from within Orthodoxy, the very criterion of Christianity, and only therein can it be quenched. Father Boris Brobinskoy was the chief speaker at a conference which I attended with Bishop Chrysostomos in Sigtuna, Sweden, some years ago, when the latter was teaching at Uppsala University. We were treated with unprecedented rudeness by the participants a number of whom began to make highly inappropriate remarks and to laugh when His Eminence was introduced as an Old Calendarist Bishop. In contrast to this vulgar behavior, Father Boris very cordially greeted Bishop Chrysostomos, whom he had earlier met at Oxford, and welcomed us. I say this to emphasize that Father Boris is indeed a gentleman and a sincere, dedicated clergyman. Like his confession that he loved Catholics before he even knew them, his personal motivations are not in question. It is his lack of certain Orthodox sensitivitiesa lack which he shares with many of the ecumenists in our Churchthat concerns me. It is precisely the personal, however elevating, that we cannot confuse with our spiritual duties. Love in the spiritual life comes, I would respectfully counsel Father Boris, first from knowledge, not vice versa; indeed, even our love of God begins with knowledge, if not, in the famous words of St. Anthony the Great, with fear. Were it not for his personal association with Roman Catholicism, Father Brobinskoywho without doubt has a truly Orthodox heart and spiritwould cringe at his claim that we Orthodox do not deny the unifying role of the see of Rome in the pasta role played for us today by the see of Constantinople. Both classical papism and such neo-papism are the antithesis of true Orthodox ecclesiology. We must not let our personal debt to othersthe acknowledgement of which, in Father Boris case, attests to his spiritual virtueintervene in our critical commitment rightly to divide the word of truth. There is a great danger today that the false spirit of ecumenism can draw on and distort our very virtues, making wholly upright Orthodox clergymen blind to the disloyalty that can unwittingly and unintentionally result from such

a process. Our reference to Father Boris is not ad hominem, but a warning that even the most sober and gifted of our Orthodox leaders must sedulously examine the object of their loyalties. On leaven bread doc in early church file in defence of orthodoxy Not a very good doc on leaven bread to justify orthodox position

Jews against Christians

The Holy Martyr Arethas This holy martyr suffered for the Christian Faith with over four thousand Christians-priests, monks and nuns, men, women and children. Arethas was the eparch in the town of Nagran, in the southern Arabian land of Omir. He was ninety-five years old when he suffered. Dunaan, a cruel Jewish persecutor of Christians, then governed Omir. Determined to eradicate all Christians from his land, he surrounded the Christian town of Nagran, and sent a message to the people saying he would put them all to death unless they renounced Christ. The citizens closed the gates, and Dunaan attacked the city wall for a long time without success. Then the iniquitous governor swore to the citizens that he would do nothing to them, if only they would open the gate for him to enter and receive the tribute that they owed him-and that he would take it and immediately withdraw. The Christians believed him and opened the gate. Then the oath-breaking Jew summoned the aged Arethas, the clergy and other distinguished citizens and beheaded them all with the sword. He then perpetrated a horrible slaughter in the town. Learning of this, the Byzantine Emperor Justin was greatly grieved, and wrote a letter to the Ethiopian Emperor, Elesbaan, requesting him to set out with an army against Dunaan to avenge the innocent blood of the Christians. Elesbaan obeyed Justin, attacked the governor of Omir with his army, defeated him, slew his entire army, and beheaded him. By a revelation from God, a certain devout man named Abramius was installed as governor of Omir, and again by God's revelation, St. Gregory of Omir (December 19) was installed as archbishop. Christians rebuilt the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nagran that Dunaan had burned, and also built a church to the Holy Martyr Arethas and the other martyrs of Nagran. St. Arethas and the others suffered and received martyr's wreaths from the Lord in the year 523.

2. THE VENERABLE FEMALE MARTYR PARASCEVA [PARASCEVE]Parasceva was born in Rome of

Christian parents and from her youth wasinstructed in the Faith of Christ. With great fervence, St. Parascevaendeavored to fulfill all the commandments of God in her life.Believing strongly and living according to her faith, Parascevadirected others on the path [of salvation] with the help of the True Faith and pious living. When her parents died Parasceva distributedall of her property to the poor and was tonsured a nun. As a nun shepreached the Faith of Christ with an even greater zeal, not hiding from anyone, even though at that time the Roman authorities bloodilypersecuted the Faith of Christ. First the pernicious Jews accused St.Parasceva of preaching the prohibited Faith. She was brought to trialbefore Emperor Antoninus. All the flatteries of the emperor did nothelp in the least to cause her to waver in the Faith. They thensubjected her to fiery torments and placed a red-hot helmet on herhead. The Lord miraculously saved her and Parasceva was delivered andleft Rome. She again traveled from city to city to convert the paganpeople there to the True Faith. In two more cities she was brought before princes and judges and was tortured for her Lord, at the sametime working great miracles and by the power of God quicklyrecuperated from her pains and wounds. The pagans, as always, ascribed her miracles to magic and her power of recovery to the mercy of theirgods. St. Parasceva once said to the prince who tortured her: "It isnot your gods, O prince, who healed me but my Christ the True God." Finally Prince Tarasius beheaded her. Thus this saint gloriously endedher fruitful life. Her relics were later translated to Constantinople.She suffered honorably for Christ in the second century.

Jews believe they hold the essence particle of gods soul bringing new meaning to word goyim

In 150 A.D. there was a Jewish rebellion in Cyrenaica and Cyprus, which spread from there to Egypt and Syria. Up to 240,000 people were killed by the Jews in Cyrenaica and 100,000 Greeks in Cyprus.

Soviet orthodox and jews

I was just sent this article and thought it maybe of interest to some:RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND ANTI-SEMITISMFrom a sermon delivered by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitzky) of the Russian Orthodox Church, in April 1903 following an anti-Jewish pogrom in Kishenev.(Later Metropolitan Anthony headed in exile the Russian Orthodox ChurchOutside Russia)"... The cruel murderers of Kishenev have dared to challenge Divine Providence and have become the torturers of the people

beloved by God....The Jewish people even after their rejection ( of Christ) are dear to the Spirit of God, and anyone who offends them, angers the Lord. ....Pray that the Lord reveal Himself to them, but do not be an enemy to them. Instead, harken to the words of the Apostles about the branches of the People of Israel who have broken away from the roots of Christ. Christians! Fear to offend the Tribes even that have turned away. The terrible punishment of God awaits the evil doers who dare to spill the blood related by kinship to the God-Man, His All Pure Mother, the Apostles and Prophets. It was never said that this blood is sacred only in the past, but know that even in the future they will achieve communion with the spirit of God (2 Peter 1,4). Of no other people-- not of Russians and not of Greeks-- has it been said that all their descendents will in their own time save themselves, but of the Jews it is so said. Know all of you--- who do not want to understand the words about the promises God made to Israel, of the salvation that awaits all its people---that God will not forgive the enemies of His People even after their rejection ( of Christ)" St Justin martyr in 116 states that behind all Christian persecutions are the jews

57. Persecution of the Christians by the Jews. The First Martyr St. Stephen. The glory and victory of Christianity and its rapid spread gave a rise to fear and envy among the Jewish leaders. They began to pursue the Christians, to arouse the simple Jewish people against them and to accuse them to the Roman authorities. The Jews seized Christians, threw them into prisons, and killed them. The first one to suffer at the hands of the Jews in Jerusalem was St. Stephen, one of the first deacons. He is called the first martyr since he was the first among all tortured for Christ. For preaching about the Saviour, the Jews cast him outside the city and began to stone him to death. He prayed saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and then with the words, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them," he died. By killing St. Stephen and many others of the faithful, the Jews were still not able to weaken faith in Christ. On the contrary, by doing this, they greatly kindled its spread among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Because of the persecution, Christians dispersed into Judea, Samaria, and other countries; and everywhere they went, they preached about the Lord Saviour and His teaching. No power in the world could stop the victorious spread of Christianity, for faith in Christ is the true faith. The teaching of Christ is divine teaching, and life according to the faith and teaching of Christ is a true holy life, the Kingdom of God. The Heavenly Father strengthened the faithful, the Saviour was with them, and they were comforted by the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. Note: See Acts of the Apostles 6; 7; 8:1-2,4. The Conversion of Saul. When they stoned St. Stephen, the first martyr, one Jewish youth by the name of Saul, who guarded the clothing of the people stoning St. Stephen, approved of this murder. Saul was against Christians and took part in persecuting them. He entered Christians homes, seized them and delivered them to prison thus tormenting the Church of Christ. Not satisfied with persecuting Christians in the land of the Jews, he asked the high priest for a permission to go to the Syrian city of Damascus to search for Christians there and to take them bound to Jerusalem to be judged and martyred. While Saul was going to Damascus and drew near the city, he was suddenly overcome by a light from Heaven. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" Saul asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The Lord said, "I am Jesus, Whom you are persecuting. It is difficult for you to kick against the spur." Saul in fear and trepidation said, "Lord! What are You ordering me to do?" The Lord said to him, "Rise and enter the city to which you are going; there you will be told what you are to do." The men who were travelling with him stood speechless hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul arose from the ground. When his eyes were opened, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. He spent three days in prayer and neither ate nor drank. Now, there was at that time a disciple at Damascus, one of the seventy apostles of the Lord, named Ananias. The voice of the Lord ordered him to go to the house where Saul was and to lay his hands on him to restore his sight. The Apostle Ananias went to Saul, and when he laid his hands on him something like scales fell from the eyes of Saul; and immediately, he regained his sight. Then, he arose and was baptized by Ananias. The baptism of Saul took place in the year 37 A.D. Saul took the name Paul and became an outcast by preaching faith in Christ. Then, the Lord Jesus Christ again appeared to Paul and ordered him to go to the pagans and to preach the Christian faith.

The Apostle Paul ended his life as a martyr. For his great apostolic labours like the Apostle Peter, he is called by the Church foremost among the apostles.

Jews and Europeans in finance

Historian Fernand Braudel suggests that in Cairo in the 11th century Muslim and Jewish merchants had already set up every form of trade association and had knowledge of many methods of credit and payment, disproving the belief that these were invented later by Italians. In 12th century France the courratiers de change were concerned with managing and regulating the debts of agricultural communities on behalf of the banks. Because these men also traded with debts, they could be called the first brokers. In late 13th century Bruges commodity traders gathered inside the house of a man called Van der Beurse, and in 1309 they became the "Brugse Beurse", institutionalizing what had been, until then, an informal meeting. The idea quickly spread around Flanders and neighboring counties and "Beurzen" soon opened in Ghent and Amsterdam. > In the middle of the 13th century Venetian bankers began to trade in government securities. In 1351 the Venetian government outlawed spreading rumors intended to lower the price of government funds. Bankers in Pisa, Verona, Genoa and Florence also began trading in government securities during the 14th century. This was only possible because these were independent city states not ruled by a duke but a council of influential citizens. The Dutch later started joint stock companies, which let shareholders invest in business ventures and get a share of their profits - or losses. In 1602, the Dutch East India Company issued the first shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. It was the first company to issue stocks and bonds. > The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (or Amsterdam Beurs) is also said to have been the first stock exchange to introduce continuous trade in the early 17th century. The Dutch "pioneered short selling, option trading, debt-equity swaps, merchant banking, unit trusts and other speculative instruments, much as we know them" (Murray Sayle, "Japan Goes Dutch", London Review of Books XXIII.7, April 5, 2001). There are now stock markets in virtually every developed and most developing economies, with the world's biggest markets being in the United States, Canada, China (Hongkong), India, UK, Germany, France and > toll houses file axe 11.25 antioch where they first call them Christians

greek origins of rome coherent account is the amalgamation of several traditional tales supplemented ('fleshed out') by recognized narrative techniques. The traditional and native Roman legend has Rome being founded in the 8th century and perhaps too from nearby Alba. Archaeological evidence tends to support a very close connection (material culture) between the two sites in the relevant period. A king, his virgin daughter, an evil brother, a god, an their progeny! Faustulus The Greek version made Aeneas (11th Century BC) the founder of Rome and was politically and culturally important because the story placed Rome within the very important Greek tradition; Rome could present herself to the world as every bit as Greek as Athens or Sparta (we will see how important this was later...barbarian or not?.Still there was a major problem: three hundred years, and how to bridge the gap. Other artistic versions of Aeneas/Anchises story one, two, three; Aeneas and Dido; Aeneas and Ascanius Troy as the beginning; source of prestige, enhanced Roman reputation, puts Rome within tradition known to Greeks, importance of Greek public opinion.The Greek version made Aeneas (11th Century BC) the founder of Rome and was politically and culturally important because the story placed Rome within the very important Greek tradition; Rome could present herself to the world as every bit as Greek as Athens or Sparta (we will see how important this was later...barbarian or not?.Still there was a major problem: three hundred years, and how to bridge the gap. Other artistic versions of Aeneas/Anchises story one, two, three; Aeneas and Dido; Aeneas and Ascanius Troy as the beginning; source of prestige, enhanced Roman reputation, puts Rome within tradition known to Greeks, importance of Greek public opinion. Note: it matters not whether this is true, but it did matter to both Greeks and Romans later (2nd cent) that Rome was within the Greek "orbit". Alternate tales claimed that the founder of Rome was Romulus (' --ulus' ending = 'founder of...'); probably the Latin original. that Rhomos was the son of Odysseus and Circe and the founder of Rome That he had a twin brother probably derives from the variations in the spelling of the same name in Greek. Note: nothing is discarded! If there are variations in the name, it must mean that there were two individuals. Significance: It does not matter whether these stories are true or not; what does matter is how the Romans later used the stories, for example to legitimize their ascendancy. So Julius Caesar claimed to be a direct descendant Ascanius and of Aeneas of Venus,and could claim then to have divine parentage. http://www.uoregon.edu/~klio/rr/02-found.htm

role of rome in christianity

he basic principle was that all power that was Roman or on the Roman model was of God (Rom. 13.1), and all power that was anti-Roman was of the devil (Rev. 13.2). For Rome, it was agreed, was that power which held back the coming of the Antichrist (II Thess. 2.7), and would be destroyed only by the Antichrist. As Patriarch Nicon of Moscow said: The Roman Empire [of which he understood Russia, the Third Rome, to be the continuation] must be destroyed by the Antichrist, and the Antichrist by Christ.[14]

rome ordained empire doc is more on Russian orthodox history

Romans 13 Submission to the Authorities

1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. can hardly be a coincidence that the mystery of royal anointing became widespread in the West at precisely the time that the political rift between East and West materialized. Now that the links with the Eastern basileus were no more than formal, it became necessary to prove that the Western powers were still in some important sense Roman. Otherwise was near!

according to Church Tradition, the Antichrist

Basis of Augustinian Gnostic dualism and catholicism

Accordingly, the Orthodox do not divide this world into "two kingdoms" or "two cities," in the fashion of Saint Augustine, since this world is also God's creation and as such cannot be separated into sacred and profane. This truth does not, however, ignore the fact that this ontological unity of God's creation was broken with man's fall, with his alienation and separation from his creator

Against the franks Mario and ken parry teaching of caesarpapism

Hence the Byzantines and the Eastern Orthodox Church were the first to develop the most influential hospitals' orphanages, old agedhouses, travellers's hostels and "rehabilitation centres" whose roots can be traced in the fifthc. B.C. Father of Medical Science, the Great Coan HIPPOCRATES! Actually, the Byzantine Laws strictly forbade trials by tortures, philetism or racism, woman's exploitation, etc. providing with even the Ernperor' s personal loving care for and frequent visits to the prisoners! III. BYZANTINE "THEOCRACY" versus "CAESAROPAPISM" AND "P APOCAESARISM" The recent book by Gilbert Dagron (Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Office in Byzantium, New York, N.Y. : Cambridge University Press, 2004), is a most welcome addition to the Byzantine historical bibliography, which could tremendously help modern preoccupied scholarship and Europe to rightly understand the political and cultural history of medieval Byzantium. Dagron, certainly is right to point out that, because of "its history, geography and culture Europe could not understand medieval Byzantium" (p. 295). Dagron himself, however, seems to suffer from a similar weakness and disadvantage: he could not grasp the full (esoteric or ecclesiological) meaning of "Byzantine theocracy" but not "Caesaropapism". Also, Dagron's short treatment of "Byzantine Ecclesiology" is wanting and rather superficial (pp.306-312). Nevertheless, he rightly points out that "it was not the role of the emperor that was ill defined in Byzantine ecclesiology, it was that of the patriarch. It is an error, therefore, to speak of caesaropapism with regard to election to the patriarchal throne and the relations between the emperor and the patriarch which were by their very nature equivocal. It was not here that the problem lay". (pp. 310-311) Now, whether Dagron is right or wrong in his statement that "in the structures specific to the East, the emperor of Constantinople occupied almost the same place as the pope of Rome" (p.311), this is still an open question. Unfortunately, Dagron failed to understand and explain "Byzantine theocracy" vis-a-vis "Byzantine Ecclesiology". The reason of his failure, I think, was his preoccupation with and the influence of political Augustianism and of the Gelasian theory of "two swords" or "two separate powers".

Furthermore, Dagron seems to ignore the fact that, the idea that the church alone was the source of the imperial power in Byzantium (theocracy) never gained currency not even in the later Byzantine Empire. Of course the coronation oath gave to the patriarch the constitutional right to participate in a revolt against an emperor who had failed in his duty, or to exercise a tremendous influence in the official acceptance or election of a new emperor. But to make a generalization from this incident and to characterize the Byzantine constitutional system as "theocracy" causes misunderstanding and confusion. Equally, misleading and unrealistic is the term "caesaropapism" employed by some scholars to characterize Justinian's rule (527-565). It is true that for Diocletian as for the Hellenistic monarchs, the diadem meant that the absolute ruler was deified, but for his Christian successors, the moral justification of their absolute power lay in their claim to be regarded as chosen by God and ruling under his divine guidance and protection. The diadem, consequently, symbolized the power derived from this high source, which marked him out as something more than the mere nominee of barbarian generals, as the later Western Emperors had been, and so deterred insurrection by emphasizing the divine support of the imperial authority. The Church - State relations, in Byzantium, as illustrated in especially the Coronation Ceremonies of Constantine VII Porphyrogennitus, (which were analyzed and critically studied by the reviewer in his book Studies in Byzantine History and Modern Greek Folklore, New Yark, N. Y. 1980, pp. 89-117), may be defined as a sort of diarchy, i.e. harmonious, parallele symporefsis, cooperation and symbiosis, in the sense that both the emperor and the patriarch shared equally in the direction of the empire. They were the two most important members of society whose concord and cooperation was essential for the peace, unity, welfare and happiness of the empire. I must recall, at this point once again, that in Byzantine political and ecclesiastical mind there was no sharp distinction and separation nor division (as in the West) between the profane or secular and sacred. Hence, both the Church and the State in Byzantium had the same and a common goal, purpose and mission: to keep the empire and society peaceful, happy and united in the pure Christian Orthodox Faith. Only in that sense a Byzantine emperor is also priest and bishop (like Constantine the Great who was called episkopos ton ektos, i.e. bishop of the outsiders), since both, the empire (basileia) and the priesthood (hierosyne) had the same divine origin and mission, and both they worked to establish Christ's Kingdom on earth, for the happiness, unity and salvation of men ". (Justinian the Great, Novels 6 and 7) Therefore, an endeavour to look to the Coronation Ceremonies and/or to various other sources like Byzantine imperial decrees, letters, addresses and laws, for support of the theory either of "theocracy" or "caesaropapism" is a priori condemned to failure

Refer geanakoplos against caesarpapism and Nicholas lazarous work coming soon

Some parallels ancient Greece christianity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades

older Greek myths, Hades is the misty and gloomy[2] abode of the dead, where all mortals go. There is no reward or special punishment in this Hades, akin to the Hebrew sheol. In later Greek philosophy appeared the idea that all mortals are judged after death and are either rewarded or cursed Greek mythology, Hades and his brothers Zeus and Poseidon defeated the Titans and claimed rulership over the universe ruling the underworld, sky, and sea, respectively. Because of his association with the underworld, Hades is often interpreted as a grim figure. Hades was also called Pluto (from Greek Ploutn), and by this name known as "the unseen one", or "the rich one". In Roman mythology, Hades/Pluto was called Dis Pater and Orcus. The corresponding Etruscan god was Aita. The symbols associated with him are the bident and the threeheaded dog, Cerberus. In Christian theology, the term hades refers to the abode of the dead, where the dead await Judgement Day either at peace or in torment (see Hades in Christianity below). classic Greek mythology, below Heaven, Earth, and Pontus is Tartarus, or Tartaros (Greek , deep place). It is either a deep, gloomy place, a pit or abyss used as a dungeon of torment and suffering that resides within Hades (the entire underworld) with Tartarus being the hellish component. In the Gorgias, Plato (c. 400 BC) wrote that souls were judged after death and those who received punishment were sent to Tartarus. As a place of punishment, it can be considered a hell. The classic Hades, on the other hand, is more similar to Old Testament Sheol. oman Mythology's Tartarus In Roman mythology, Tartarus is the place where sinners are sent. Virgil describes it in the Aeneid as a gigantic place, surrounded by the flaming river Phlegethon and triple walls to prevent sinners from escaping from it. It is guarded by a hydra with fifty black gaping jaws, which sits at a screeching gate protected by columns of solid adamantine, a substance akin to diamond - so hard that nothing will cut through it. Inside, there is a castle with wide walls, and a tall iron turret. Tisiphone, one of the Erinyes who represents revenge, stands guard sleepless at the top of this turret lashing a whip. There is a pit inside which is said to extend down into the earth twice as far as the distance from the lands of the living to Olympus. At the bottom of this pit lie the Titans, the twin sons of Aloeus and many other sinners. Still more sinners are contained inside Tartarus, with punishments similar to those of Greek

myth. --plato and the concept of evil ccording to Plato (c. 400), Rhadamanthus, Aeacus and Minos were the judges of the dead and chose who went to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus judged Asian souls; Aeacus judged European souls and Minos was the deciding vote and judge of the Greek. Plato also proposes the concept that sinners were cast under the ground to be punished in accordance with their sins the Myth of Er. _____________________________________________________

_ _

graecarum affectionum curatio or cure of the greek maladies or knowledge of the gospel truth
from the greek philosophy and in contrast with pagan ideas and practices.

Septuagint and dead sea scrolls

Dead Sea Scrolls: Dramatic Evidence for the Reliability of Messianic ProphecyThe Dead Sea Scrolls comprise the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found, dating back to 100--200 B.C. This is dramatic, because we now have absolute evidence that Messianic prophecies contained in todays Old Testament (both Jewish and Christian) are the same Messianic prophecies that existed prior to the time Jesus walked on this earth. It goes without saying, manuscript reliability and textual criticism have taken cosmic steps forward! Check it out There is no question that Jesus Christ was the Messiah that the Jews were waiti Dead sea scrolls confirm Septuagint ariations with the Masoretic Text (MT) There are multiple internal variations between the LXX and the MT. The texts read differently in many places, giving a much more Christological tone to the LXX which was deliberately avoided when the Masoretes were putting together their anti-Christian canon. These differences in wording are the evidence that the Apostles were using the LXX. Here follow several examples of radical differences in wording: LXX MT Gen. 4:7 Hast thou not sinned if thou hast brought it rightly, but not rightly divided it? Be still, to thee shall be his submission, and thou shalt rule over him. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. Gen. 4:13 And Cain said to the Lord God, My crime is too great for me to be forgiven. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Exodus 21:16/17 He that reviles his father or his mother shall surely die. And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. Psalm 39/40:6 Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired, but a body Thou hast prepared for me... Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears has thou opened... Dead Sea Scrolls With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid twentieth century many examples have been recovered of the Old Testament in Hebrew from the time of Christ and the Holy Apostles and earlier. Scholarship during the past half century based upon these Dead Sea discoveries has revealed a close agreement between the LXX and pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts. In a review of some of this scholarship, Hershal Shanks[1] notes that many Hebrew texts [are available] that were the base text for Septuagintal translations. Further he notes that what texts like 4QSama show is that the Septuagintal translations are really quite reliable and gives new authority to the Greek translations against the Masoretic text. Quoting Frank Moore Cross (a co-author of the book under review), Hershal continues We could scarcely hope to find closer agreement between the Old Greek [Septuagintal] tradition and 4QSama than actually is found in our fragments. The scholarship based upon the new information provided in the Dead Sea Scroll thus supports the millennial old tradition on use of the Septuagint by the Orthodox Church.

Romanides file

Jesus' Shroud? Recent Findings Renew Authenticity Debate

<< Back to Page 1 Page 2 of 2

Rogers's analysis of the 2003 sample has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication.

Forging Religious Artifacts Printer Friendly Email to a Friend What's This? SHARE Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Douglas Donahue, a retired physicist from the University of Arizona, traveled to Turin in 1988 to collect the shroud samples for testing. He was co-director of the National Science Foundation-University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratoryone of the three labs chosen to date the shroud. "I'm satisfied with the way it was sampled. We had several textile experts present from a number of countries, and all unanimously agreed that the sample we received was representative of the whole cloth," Donahue said. "It wouldn't be unreasonable to sample other spots of the cloth, though you can understand that they wanted to preserve it and didn't want holes cut all over the place." Even if carbon dating links the shroud to the first century, proving it belonged to Jesus will still be near impossiblethe closest scientists are likely to get is validating the time and place where the cloth and its haunting image were made. The shroud, an approximately 14-foot-by-3-foot (4-meter-by-1-meter) cloth, is bloodstained and imprinted with a faint image of a tortured man's face, hands, and body. According to the Gospels, Jesus was removed from the cross and placed in a tomb, where he was wrapped in cloth in accordance with Jewish custom. But few, if any, records exist from that time to detail that shroud's whereabouts. The Shroud of Turin entered public awareness in 1349, when a French knight named Geoffrey de Charny is said to have acquired it in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and brought it to the attention of Pope Clement VI. The shroud was held in a church in Lirey, France, and was first shown publicly in 1355. More Evidence Contradicts Carbon Dating Since that first exhibition many have questioned the shroud's authenticity, since forging religious artifacts was big business during medieval times.

The 1988 carbon dating results satisfied many skeptics that the Shroud of Turin was a clever hoax, and the findings stymied further research. But some scientists have persisted. In 1999 Avinoam Danin, a botanist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, stated at the 16th International Botanical Congress that he found pollen grains on the shroud from plants that could only be found in and around Jerusalem, placing its origins in the Middle East. Further comparison of the shroud with another ancient cloth, the Sudarium of Oviedo (thought to be the burial face cloth of Jesus), revealed it was embedded with pollen grains from the same species of plant as found on the Shroud of Turin. The Sudarium even carries the same AB blood type, with bloodstains in a similar pattern. Since the Sudarium has been stored in a cathedral in Spain since the eighth century, the evidence suggests that the Shroud of Turin is at least as old. Regardless of whether the shroud belonged to Jesus Christ, it lures millions of visitors at each public display. "Its allure is both scientific and spiritual," said Phillip Wiebe, a professor and chair of philosophy at Trinity Western University in Langley, British Columbia. "It's a very mysterious object. How was the image formed and who was on it?" Wiebe is presenting a lecture, "The Shroud of Turin: Authenticity and Significance for Theology," at the "Man of the Shroud Exhibit" this week at the Good Shepherd Church in Surrey, British Columbia. Archaeological Triumph If the image on the Shroud of Turin is a fake, then much mystery remains about how it was created. Some suggest it was painted. But STURP, using methods standard for art analysis, found no evidence of paints or pigments. "This may well be an artifact of Jesus," said Barrie Schwortz, a photographic, video, and imaging specialist based in Los Angeles, California. Schwortz served as the official documenting photographer for STURP. When Schwortz embarked on the study, he said, he was highly skeptical. "I fully expected to see brush strokesessentially a manufactured relicand walk out," Schwortz said. "But I've followed the science over 30 years. And when you have eliminated other possibilities, the one remainingno matter how unlikelymust be the truth." What will carbon dating another sample prove? "This artifact is very important. It deserves at least as much respect as Ghengis Khan's sword, the Gutenberg Bible, or something like the Rosetta stone," Rogers said. "For me, it is not going to prove

the Resurrection or any theological point. But it might bring us a little closer to the truth. And determining the actual date will be a real archaeological triumph." On TV: Da Vinci and The Mystery of the Shroud airs on the National Geographic Channel Saturday, April 10, at 10 p.m. ET/PT in the United States. Got a high-speed connection? Watch National Geographic Channel video clips in streaming video. Refer ian Wilson too More on septuagint

Dead Sea Scrolls: Dramatic Evidence for the Reliability of Messianic ProphecyThe Dead Sea Scrolls comprise the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found, dating back to 100--200 B.C. This is dramatic, because we now have absolute evidence that Messianic prophecies contained in todays Old Testament (both Jewish and Christian) are the same Messianic prophecies that existed prior to the time Jesus walked on this earth. It goes without saying, manuscript reliability and textual criticism have taken cosmic steps forward! Check it out There is no question that Jesus Christ was the Messiah that the Jews were waiting

Bishop Augustine of HippoHis Life and His Heresies

Following Work is located on augustine filein defence of orthodoxy<orthodox2012

TABLE OF CONTENTSfor Article onAUGUSTINE OF HIPPO A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THELIFE OF BISHOP AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO E Early YearsUniversity LifeAugustine Returns to ThagasteAugustine Becomes Disillusioned with U A M ManicheismAugustine Meets Bishop Ambrose in MilanAugustines StrugglesAugustines Conversion A A A A Augustine Prepares for BaptismAugustine Returns to AfricaAugustine at HippoThe DonatistsThe A A T P PelagiansRepose of Bishop Augustine THEOLOGICAL DISCUSSIONON EIGHT TEACHINGS OF AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO I. The Orthodox Churchs Exclusion of Augustine

I II. Eight Major Sources of Heresy

The Filioque Heresy Original Sin The Redefining of Baptism Predestination and Irresistible Grace The Disavowal of Free Will Confusion in Understanding the Differences Between Essence and Hypostases and the Energies of the Holy Trinity 7. Theophanies and Created Energies 8. The Validation of Heretical Baptism III. Augustine: Fountainhead of the Western Heresies Sources and References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Also consult azkoul and romanides.

Some interpolations on augustine In another of his works, On Baptism (De baptismo), St. Augustine contradicts himself by teaching baptism is actually administered, invisibly, to worthy catechumens who seemed to die without it. St. Augustine: Baptism is ministered invisibly to one whom has not contempt of religion (the Catholic Religion) but death excludes. (On Baptism, Against the Donatists (De Baptismo), Bk. IV, Chap. 22.) interesting to find orthodox side to these,, especially when augustine position is used with regarding baptism etc. I have never said that Blessed Augustine was not a good Christian man, or that he was not an intellectual giant, but his views on Ancestral Sin and the nature of man are Incorrect! Babies are NOT the limbs of Satan! Is this not a heretical teaching from the Orthodox point of view? Yes it is. Did Blessed Augustine ever renounce this view? No he did not Many OC people continue to feel that this was a western interpolation upon the Greek Church by Greek nationalist at the time The Republic of Greece wanted to join the nations (i.e. Western Nations) of the world and pushed for certain culteral and religious reforms that were against the teachings of the Orthodox Church. If you disagree with the OC fine, if you disagree with Fr. Azkoul fine, however bear in mind that many and I mean MANY church Fathers were castigated and looked down upon by other Church Fathers as well. I have never said that Blessed Augustine was not a good Christian man, or that he was not an intellectual giant, but his views on Ancestral Sin and the nature of man are Incorrect! Babies are NOT the limbs of Satan! Is this not a heretical teaching from the Orthodox point of view? Yes it is. Did Blessed Augustine

The Third Appearance of the Holy Cross near Athens in 1925

In 1925, on the eve, of the feast of the Exaltation of the All-Honourable and Life-giving Cross of our Saviour, 14 September according to the Orthodox Church calendar, the all-night vigil was served at the church of St. John the Theologian in suburban Athens. By 9 o'clock that evening, more than 2,000 of the true-Orthodox faithful had gathered in and around the church for the service, since very few trueOrthodox churches had been accidentally left open by the civil authorities. Such a large gathering of people could not, however, go unnoticed by the authorities. Around eleven P.M. the authorities dispatched a battalion of police to the church "to prevent any disorders which might arise from such a large gathering." The gathering was too large for the police to take any direct action or to arrest the priest at that time and so they joined the crowd of worshippers in the already over-flowing courtyard of the church.Then, regardless of the true motives for their presence, against their own will, but according to the Will which exceeds all human power, they became participants in the miraculous experience of the crowd of believers.At 11:30 P.M., there began to appear in the heavens above the church, in the direction of North-East, a bright, radiant Cross of light. The light not only illuminated the church and the faithful but, in its rays, the stars of the clear, cloudless sky became dim and the church-yard was filled with an almost tangible light. The form of the Cross itself was an especially dense light and it could be clearly seen as a Byzantine cross with an angular cross bar toward the bottom. This heavenly miracle lasted for half an hour, until midnight, and then the Cross began slowly to raise up vertically, as the cross in the hands of the priest does in the ceremony of the Elevation of the Cross in church. Having come straight up, the Cross began gradually to fade away.The human language is not adequate to convey what took place during the apparition. The entire crowd fell prostrate upon the ground with tears and began to sing prayers, praising the Lord with one heart and one mouth. The police were among those who wept, suddenly discovering, in the depths of their hearts, a childlike faith. The crowd of believers and the battalion of police were transformed into one, unified flock of faithful. All were seized with a holy ecstasy.The vigil continued until four A.M., when all this human torrent streamed back into the city, carrying the news of the miracle because of which they were still trembling and weeping.Many of the unbelievers, sophists and renovationists, realizing their sin and guilt, but unwilling to repent, tried by every means to explain away or deny this miracle. The fact that the form of the cross had been so sharply and clearly that of the Byzantine (sometimes called the Russian Cross) Cross, with three cross-bars, the bottom one at an angle, completely negated any arguments of accidental physical phenomenon.The fact that such an apparition of the Cross had also occurred during the height of the first great heresy must strike the Orthodox with an especial sense of the magnitude of the importance of the calendar question and of all that is connected with it. No sensible person can discuss this issue lightly, with secular reasoning or with worldly arguments. Renovationists, like the Arians in 351, are left without extenuation or mitigation.From Orthodox Life, Vol. 22, No. 2 (March-April, 1972), pp. 18-20.Eyewitness AccountsEyewitness Accounts of the Appearance of the Cross over the Church of St. John the Theologian at Mt. Hymettus, September 14,

1925.I was one of the men from the Police Institute who were sent to stop the vigil that night, some fifty years ago, at the country Church of St. John the Theologian.The Old Calendarists were keeping vigil there, because it was the eve of the feast of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross (according to the Church Calendar, not the papist! ed.)Since many people had gathered - more than two thousand individuals -we did not attempt to seize the priest as we had been ordered, but we sat down quietly in the nearby court and waited for them to finish.At about 11:30 at night, we heard a loud and strange uproar coming from the shouts of the multitude. Without any delay, we ran to see what was happening - and we saw. The whole multitude of the faithful was in a state of excitement. Some were weeping and others, crying out "Lord, have mercy," were kneeling and had turned their eyes toward heaven, and yet others were fainting, overwhelmed with great emotion. Then we too looked and beheld the marvel: an enormous radian Cross, very high above the church was illumining the whole area. At first, we were seized with fear, but immediately we came to ourselves and, forgetting the purpose for which we had been sent, we fell to our knees and wept like little children.Of course, it is superfluous for me to tell you that, filled with emotion, we attended the rest of the vigil to the end - no longer as persecutors, but as faithful Christians. In the morning when we returned to the Institute, we told everyone about the great marvel which we had been deemed worthy to see. Afterwards there was an investigation and all of us swore under oath that we had seen the Precious Cross clearly, high in the sky.John D. GlymisRetired Police Officer, 78 years of age73 Aristotle StreetPeristeri (a suburb of Athens)On that night in 1925 when the Precious Cross appeared, I was making the last run with the tram which I was operating. I had reached Omonoia and was going around the square when I saw everyone looking up toward heaven and crying, "Look! - the Cross! - the Cross!" Immediately I stepped on the brakes and stopped the vehicle. I stuck my head out the tram's door and I, the unworthy one, also saw the Precious Cross of Our Lord - may His Name be glorified; it was shining over Mount Hymettus. I don't remember how long this lasted. I know only one thing - the Precious Cross which I saw the night turned me into a different man. Since then, everyone in my family has become a faithful child of the Church of the True Orthodox Christians.Athanasios PrimalisRetired Tram Conductor, 80 years of age17 Kavales StreetNikea (a suburb of Athens)

Unwavering Fidelity to the Holy Tradition Cavarnos on Kontoglou

Blessed Elder Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos of Longovarda (1884-1980) is a well-known 20thcentury Greek Orthodox elder, from Paros island, and spiritual son of St. Nektarios of Aegina.

DA: And did Photios Kontoglou die with those following the New Calendar? DC: Well, Kontoglou himself was in a dilemma. He had followed pretty much the advice of Philotheos Zervakos to wait for the return of the Church of Greece to the Traditional Calendar. in the 1960s, before Kontoglou died, the Archbishop of Athens was Chrysostomos, who was very venerable and traditional. I interviewed him once. He said he had made it one of his priorities before he died to return the Church of Greece to the Old Calendar. So you see, Zervakos and Kontoglou were hoping that this dilemma would be resolved by him and that it would be done canonically by the Holy Synod of Greece. But it did not happen because the dictatorship that came into power removed Archbishop Chrysostomos from his throne and installed the priest of the palace, Hieronymos Kotsonis, a modernist and ecumenist, as Archbishop of Athens. It was a very difficult dilemma for them. What was one to do? A dilemma, you know, has two horns and no matter which one you choose it is bad. Kontoglou and Father Philotheos were hoping that the change would come down from the top in the Church of Greece. In the meantime, Photios consoled himself and was at peace with his conscience by attending services at a church in his neighborhood that followed the Old Calendar.

themselves or other souls.

DA: Of the contemporaries of Photios Kontoglou, to whom was he closest? With whom did he share a oneness of mind? DC: On the question of ecumenism, there were many, whom I mention in my book Ecumenism Examinednamely, his spiritual Father Archimandrite Philotheos Zervakos; his publisher Alexander Papademetriou; the Archbishop of Athens and all of Greece Chrysostomos; Metropolitan of Phlorina Augoustinos Kantiotis; Metropolitan of Argolis Chrysostomos; Abbot Gabriel of the Monastery of

Dionysiou on the Holy Mountain; Father Theocletos of the same Monastery; Archimandrite Haralambos Vasilopoulos, founder of the Pan-Hellenic Orthodox Union and of its organ "Orthodoxos Typos"; the professors of the School of Theology of the University of Athens: Panagiotis Trembelas, loannis Karmiris, Konstantinos Mouratidis, and Pantelis Paschos; the prominent preacher Nikolaos Soteropoulos; and many others. All of them also shared Kontoglou's emphasis on the vital importance of studying the holy Church Fathers and adhering to the Tradition of the Orthodox Church. DA: Why do you think that Philotheos Zervakos and Photios Kontoglou sided with the so-called "New Calendar" Church? DC: I explained this in Volume Eleven of my series Modern Orthodox Saints, which is devoted to blessed Philotheos Zervakos. From the very time the idea of introducing the New Calendar was conceived, Father Philotheos wrote letters of protest saying, "No! Stop it; don't do it," but they did not listen to him. He wrote letters and brochures protesting this innovation until the time of his death. His predictions came true: he said that if you allow this innovation to stand, you will divide the people into two hostile parties. This prophecy of Zervakos was completely fulfilled. In his later years, when he saw that the Greek government, the Church of Greece, and the cumenical Patriarchate did not listen to him, he thought about simply returning his monastery to the Old Calendar. On this matter, I suggest a careful reading of my book on Blessed Father Philotheos. His senior monk, Father Leontios, whom I happened to meet a few years before he died, said that Father Philotheos was very determined to declare that the monastery had returned to the Old Calendar. But he was opposed by some of his senior monks, particularly Father Leontios. Every time the Elder left the monastery to travel as a Confessor, sometimes for weeks, Leontios was the acting abbot. So he had a strong voice. He emphasized that if they changed the monastery to the Old Calendar, then the local bishop would immediately step in and force them to give up that idea, or else. The "or else" would be that the police would be sent over to expel the monks and say this monastery belongs to the local bishop of Paros and Naxos. Father Philotheos was close to the century mark, and Father Leontios was about the same age, and they pictured themselves being thrown out of monastery. It would have been a very tragic situation. So what Father Philotheos did was to die on the Old Calendar. He invited a confessor from Mount Athos, where the Old Calendar is followed, to serve for his last confession and to bury him. DA: And did Photios Kontoglou die with those following the New Calendar? DC: Well, Kontoglou himself was in a dilemma. He had followed pretty much the advice of Philotheos Zervakos to wait for the return of the Church of Greece to the Traditional Calendar. in the 1960s, before Kontoglou died, the Archbishop of Athens was Chrysostomos, who was very venerable and traditional. I interviewed him once. He said he had made it one of his priorities before he died to return the Church of Greece to the Old Calendar. So you see, Zervakos and Kontoglou were hoping that this dilemma would be resolved by him and that it would be done canonically by the Holy Synod of Greece. But it did not happen because the dictatorship that came into power removed Archbishop Chrysostomos from his throne and installed the priest of the palace, Hieronymos Kotsonis, a modernist and ecumenist, as Archbishop of Athens. It was a very difficult dilemma for them. What was one to do? A dilemma, you know, has two horns and no matter which one you choose it is bad. Kontoglou and Father Philotheos were hoping that the change would come down from the top in the Church of Greece. In the meantime, Photios consoled himself and was at peace with his conscience by attending services at a church in his neighborhood that followed the Old Calendar.

Photios Kontoglou, from the article "The New Language," which appeared in the Athenian newspaper Eleutheria, July 19, 1964, almost exactly one year before his death, and which was reprinted in Erga, Vol. 6, pp. 167-170.

With zervakos and now Nicholas planas

Let us also quote a telling statement from the famous "Desperate Appeal" addressed to Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople in 1966 by the Blessed Elder Philotheos (Zervakos): "Neither say, Your All-Holiness, that we are pursuing [in the ecumenical movement] merely an external rapprochement and unity for the formation of a united front of love against hunger, against misfortune, against atheism, against communism, against war, etc., since union must first be a triumph of truth, and then a triumph of love which springs forth from the unity of Faith" (see "The Orthodox Word," Vol. IV, No. 1,

p. 17).

A Desperate Appeal by the Elder Philotheos by St. Philotheos Zervakos Translator's Preface: The author of this appeal is the best-known father-confessor and preacher of Greecetruly, a new St. Cosmas of Aitoliawho has traversed Greece on foot countless times in his 67 years of priesthood, being now in his 97th year. His spiritual children number in the thousands, not only in Greece, but in the United States, Australia, Europe, and other parts of the world as well. A truly apostolic man filled with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he is known especially for exorcising demons and giving spiritual direction. According to report, he has worked many miracles. He most vividly prophesied the destruction of Asia Minor in the early twenties, at a time when no one could believe what he was saying. Therefore the terribleness of his utterance in the present letter (p. 20), in which he foresees the terrible fall of the Ecumenical Patriarch if he does not repent. Until recently Father Philotheos was many times invited by both Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Iakovos to visit Constantinople and the United States in order to hear confessions and to preach. On all occasions he refused, saying that he did not wish to concelebrate with shaven clergy who do not respect the traditions of the Church. Many times he has written his spiritual children, especially in the United States, to cease attending the churches of the Greek Archdiocese, and to attend rather the churches of the Russian Church Outside of Russia. He has written numerous books and articles, among which are: A Great and Marvelous Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, The Wayfarer (his autobiography), Sacred War Against Blasphemy, and The Errors of Apostolos Makrakis.

FROM SOME TIME PAST I had purposed to write to Your All Holiness because of Your hasty and unhesitating dealing toward a union of the Orthodox Eastern Church with the evil-doctrined Papacy.

I did not write to You, because illustrious hierarchs, elect clerics, most pious professors and theologians, virtuous monks, learned, informed laymen have written clearly against this false union pursued in so hasty and servile a manner. [1]

I had hoped that the sufferings which have come from the sins of all us Greeksboth clergy and lay, men and women, small and greatwould have brought You to Your senses, and chat You would have diverted Your audacious and (to the Orthodox Church) most soul-harming resolution into an effort to unite the divided portions of the Orthodox Church in Greece. One would have expected that the Primate of Greek Orthodoxy would have first preached repentance to all of the Orthodox Church and to the sinful Greek people; that he would have given the sign for a return to the All-Ruler; and that he would call for a union and friendship with the most lovingbut also most justHeavenly Father, from Whom, as disobedient and ungrateful despisers of His Divine commandments and precepts, we have broken away and are become, instead of His friends, His enemies. Likewise, one would have expected that You would have taken care to restore the unity of our Church from the division and schism caused by that thoughtless, pointless, untimely and diabolical innovationthe introduction of the Gregorian

(Papal) Calendar by Your Masonic predecessor, Meletios Metaxakis, who misled the then Archbishop of Athens, Chrysostom Papadopoulos.

Unfortunately not, however. Not only did You have no provision and no concern for the abovementioned primary needs and similar urgent sacred matters that should take precedence over every other endeavor, but instead, to the strengthening and widening of the schism within the Church of Greece, You hasten with swift step and slavish mind to the fulfillment of Your first dubious decision that is, toward false union with the falsely-infallible Pontiff who summoned You, as someone in error, to return to the Papal fold.

It is precisely because I see that the Union above every other unionthat is, the essential Union and Friendship with the Triune Goddoes not concern You (nor does the reestablishment of the unity of the divided and much-suffering Greek Orthodox Church) that I am obliged to write You, fearing lest I shall sin if I keep silent and do not profess the truth.

See, Your All-Holiness, how by means of dissension the wolf seizes and scatters the sheep of Your own flock which the Lord has entrusted unto You and for which He shed His Blood. And You have no concern for the sheep. You are only concerned at all cost to achieve union and friendship withand Your own and Your flock's submission tothe Pope.

But take care, Your All-Holiness, because the good and rational sheep of Christ's flock will not follow You, in accordance with the word of the Gospel: And a stranger they will not fol1ow, but will flee from him... (St. John 10:5). Those that will follow You will be such as are outside of the fold of Christ, who are of Papal and Luthero-Calvinistic sheep pens, those whose minds are heterodox.

The first to speak already were the most righteous Fathers of the Holy Mountain, who gave the watchword, the good and honorable example, in imitation of their holy Orthodox Fathers who did not hearken to that other voice like Yoursthat is, to the voice of the alien Latinizer, the Patriarch John Beccos. [2] Those Fathers preferred death to false union. And not only do the present Athonite Fathers not follow You, they have even ceased to commemorate You in the Divine services. You must know, Your All-Holiness, that there are not only the Holy Mountain Fathers, but also myriads of other Greek clergy and lay people, genuine Orthodox, some of whom have disavowed You and others who are ready to disavow You in so far as You persist in devious and deliberate false union.

By Your unconsidered and impatient endeavor You have scandalized myriads of souls of elect Orthodox Christians. If it is better for him who has scandalized one of the least of these little ones to hang a millstone upon his neck and be sunk in the depths of the sea (St. Matthew 18:6), then what,

Your All-Holiness, will be the punishment for Your sin? For You have scandalized not only one of the least, but myriads of the greatbishops, priests, priestmonks, monks, theologians, both men and women.

Understand this truth that others also have pointed out to You. Before anything else, it is Your job to bring peace and unity to the Orthodox Church, which has been literally shaken by the innovation [the Gregorian Calendar] whichin a manner that was anarchical and without the agreement of all Orthodox Churcheswas introduced into the Church of Greece in the year 1924; an innovation that overturned the ecclesiastical order and Tradition established from ages past, that brought about dissensions and divisions, that destroyed unity of worship and created a religious schism among Orthodox everywhere. First take away this schism, and then turn toward the West. Then, and only then, open the portals of the Orthodox Church, and with pure and unfeigned love say unto the Pope and to the heretics, "You desire union? We also desire it and long for it ardently. Behold, we receive you gladly once you have previously cast off your evil doctrines and errors and cast away all that is against the sacred Canons and patristic Traditions of the seven Holy Ecumenical Councils."

But, Your All-Holiness, nowhere do we have any indication that the Church of Rome has clarified her position regarding rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and the other Christian confessions. To the contrary, rather, we have occasion and cause to believe unwaveringly that the Papists persist stubbornly and unchangingly in their evil doctrines and arbitrariness. Even today they announce categorically and unblushingly preach that "Union of Christianity means nothing else but submission to Rome, to the sole Vicar of Christ on earth," and that "the Primacy and the Infallibility are not ecclesiological decrees which the Church can invalidate, but dogmas that no one can shake" (Catholike, the Roman Catholic newspaper of Athens, Oct. 16, 1963); and furthermore that "the Catholic Church is not about to sacrifice any of her truths" say rather, her errors. To what end, therefore, is this ostentatious diligence on the part of the Orthodox? "The union pursued on both sides cannot be a true union, nor one that is permanent or stable, since it is not based upon unity of doctrine. It is quite clear that since inner union is impossible, external union is impossible alsothat is, any rapprochement of the two churches without dogmatic unity in such a way that the followers of the one could partake of the mysteries from priests of the other without hesitation. This external union, which is based upon religious indifference, will have as its result not true union, but the confusion of the churches. The Eastern Church has never permitted, nor will it ever be able to permit, her members to receive the pseudo-mysteries and the (supposed) grace of the Holy Spirit from the clerics of a heterodox church. Whoever thinks otherwise is assuredly not an Orthodox Christian. " [3]

But the whole subject has been made marvelously and superbly clear, leaving no doubt whatever, by

St. Nectarios of Pentapolis [4] in his God-enlightened book, An Historical Study Concerning the Causes of the Schism... Concerning the Impossibility or Possibility of Union. It would be most beneficial and to the enlightenment of the faithful if we quote the text verbatim. The Saint says on page 9: "The terms of union are such that they render the sought-for union impossible, because they have no point of contact. Each seeks from the other nothing more nor less than the denial of itself and the basic principles upon which the whole structure of the church is founded. For on the one hand, the Papal church is based on the primacy of the Pope according to their understanding of this point; and on the other, the Eastern Church is founded upon the Ecumenical Councils. Because of this, the terms of union brought forward by either side are impossible of acceptance since they overturn the churches from their very foundations. Hence the ineffectiveness of any concessions either side can make. The primacy of honor which is given by the Eastern Church to the Pope is a useless concession because it lacks the power to hold the fabric of the Western Church together. The concessions given by the Pope to the Eastern Churchthat is, her remaining in her own dogmas, customs and disciplinesare not in the least considered as "concessions" by her but as legitimate in themselves, since they are founded on the Canons of the Church, for which reason alone she abides in them. But she demands also that the Pope himself with all the Western Church return to her bosom, renouncing their former life, and come in repentance to her. Therefore the apparent concessions have no meaning whatever, since they are not actually concessions. For union to come about, it is necessary that the concessions remove the main causes of separation. The concessions will truly be such when the Pope gives up his own ways, and not when he simply tolerates those things that have been well-established in the Church. Since the main causes of the separation remain as such, the churches persist in their own ways, and union is impossible. For union to be established, it must be made secure upon the same principle. Otherwise every labor is vain."

Let there be union, Your All-Holiness, but in the way Christ wishes it: far from every worldly purpose and every compromise. Your desire regarding the evil-doctrined Papal church should be an Apostolic desire, a God-bearing and holy desire. Because, as the sacred Canons proclaim: "The things which have been transmitted in Orthodoxy are not 'Yea and Nay,' but they are 'Yea' in truth; and they remain unbroken and unshaken unto eternity." Concerning the middle way of compromise, St. Mark Evgenikos said that not even the idea of it should deceive anyone, because between two opposite doctrines a true middle way of compromise cannot exist. "For these reasons, those who proclaim the middle way of compromise and teach that there is nothing stable or definite and certain, but like hypocrites by means of concessions adapt and waver between each other's opinions, must be avoided. Neither say, Your All-Holiness, that we are pursuing merely an external rapprochement and unity for the formation of a united front of love against hunger, against misfortune, against atheism, against Communism,

against war, etc., since union must first be a triumph of truth, and then a triumph of love which springs forth from the unity of faith. And again, neither under the cover of achieving peace should You endeavor as You do, since as that great defender of Orthodoxy, St. Mark Evgenikos, says again, "It is impossible to restore peace if the cause of the schism is not previously removed, and the Pope, who is declared to be equal to God, does not come to self-realization."

Your All-Holiness, the whole history of the efforts for union, from 867 (and especially from 1054) and onward, assures us that the West has always offered to the East the longed-for union of the churches in order to pursue unadmitted Papal plans for the submission of the Orthodox Eastern Church. Furthermore, we are made even more hesitant by the lamentable face that in our midst there exists as there ought notthe Unia, which, according to the ever-memorable Chrysostom Papadopoulos, "craftily seeks to lead the people into Papism and gradually and imperceptibly to Latinize them." Since it is precisely because of their deceitful posture that the Uniates poison the relations between the two churches, You, Your All-Holiness, should have laid down as a primary condition for union the immediate disbanding of the Unia.

Of course, no true Orthodox Christian, cleric or layman, remains unmoved by the Christ-desired blessing of union as long as deceit and shameful enslavement are not hidden beneath its most sweet name. But a more serious study of the situation as it has taken shape during ten centuries of schism and complete separation, proves that matters are not so simple that with a mere dialogue in the hallways of the Lateran Palace we shall be able to achieve the longed-for union. And a dialogue on equal terms, at this moment being belied by the facts, is shown to be a utopian fantasy. The Western Church must take not merely steps, but giant leaps, in order to reach the place where it formerly stood as a sister to the Eastern Church. Otherwise, if the Church of Rome continues to persist in the principles of Papism and seeks through various means to extend her dominion over the whole ecumene, swallowing and assimilating all, it would be utter folly for us Orthodox to open discussions with men who have no intention of moving from their positionsnot even in the slightestbut on the contrary show tendencies to swallow up all the other churches. The healthy and incorrupt conscience of the Orthodox rejects such purposeless and vain discussions.

Take heed, Your All-Holiness, lest with Your untimely endeavors You tear the Church asunder and divide the Orthodox even more than they are divided. Do You take the responsibility for breaking up the unity of the Greek people and shattering their spiritual bonds with the other Orthodox? Why should You force the Holy Mountain Fathers, or five to ten Metropolitans of Greece, to split the Church tomorrow in order to preserve her from an untimely "union"? What do You think You have achieved by Your unique," but wholly uncanonical and unprecedented meeting with the Bishop of Rome? Most

simply, You strengthened the Latin position on the schism. And what did Your melodramatic, farfetched salutation, Your clinging embraces, and Your uncanonical exchange of gifts achieve? Precisely to increase the dangerthe danger that the awareness the faithful now have that Papists are heretics will be blunted. Dialogue, prayers together, receiving of gifts, and "liberalizing" innovations are unforgivable according to Orthodox prescription, because they adulterate and change what has been transmitted through the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the Ecumenical and Local Councils. You have infringed on those things "in which it is not permitted to add nor to subtract." And how is it that the contents of page 929 of the second volume of the Tome of Union escape Your attention and do not terrify You?that is: Unto those who disdain the sacred and divine Canons of our sacred Fathers who had the oversight of the Ho1y Church, which adorn the whole manner of Christian life and guide all to divine reverence: ANATHEMA.

All Your endeavors (and especially chose inadmissible encounters, which do not bear looking into, with the spiritual heads of the "churches"), bring only confusion and turmoil. No, Your All-Holiness; do not "lead us into an evil captivity, and do not aim to drag us down into the Babylon of Western customs and dogmas." [5] Do not; because You will meet resistance. Glory be to God, there exist in this land of martyrdom a love of Orthodoxy and a spirit of resistance. Like an ocean wave, Orthodox thought will overwhelm and sink Your skiff on its course toward a servile, anti-Christ union (submission) with the superheresy of Papism. Florence shall never live again in any form whatsoever. We will tolerate no kind of betrayal. The Greek people, a people who has once given birth to many like St. Photios, Patriarch Michael Cerularios, and St. Mark Evgenikos, will not tolerate betrayal. God has swept away the betrayers.

Abide in the Apostolic decrees and patristic Traditions. Flee innovations as though they were dictated by the devil. Remain within the sacred Canons. If you remain in them you shall be saved and shall have peace, but if you disobey, you shall suffer torments and you [the bishops] shall have everlasting war with one another, receiving as reward a fitting judgment for heedlessness (the Holy Apostles, Epilogue to the Sacred Canons). May You, Your Holiness, respond in such a manner and proclaim to all quarters, both by word and deed, that we also might rejoice and take courage:... We rejoice over them as he that has found great spoil, and press to our bosom with gladness the divine Canons, holding fast all the precepts of the same complete and without change, whether they have been set forth by the holy trumpets of the Spirit, the renowned Apostles, the six Ecumenical Councils, by councils Iocally assembled,... or by our Holy Fathers... And those whom they placed under anathema we also anathematize; those whom they deposed, we also depose; those whom they excommunicated, we also excommunicate; and those whom they delivered over to punishment, we subject to the same

penalty... (First Canon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council).

Your All-holiness, The Lucifer of Rome having become exceedingly puffed up and having placed his throne above the stars, be zealous and cry out: Let us stand aright, let us stand in the venerable Traditions of the Fathers. [6]

Let us not be hasty to come to general and enthusiastic conclusions because of a few demonstrations. And especially, let us not deceive ourselves. Still distantindeed very distant, unfortunatelyis the union toward which all turn our hopes.

All things, Your All-Holiness, proclaim the perils we undergo by dialogues with stubborn heretics. And all things oblige us to keep watchful vigil. By remaining rooted and immovable in our Orthodoxy we also give an opportunity to any of the heretics to awaken and to be incorporated into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, so that they might find their salvation.

Do not flatter them, because by doing so You harm them. Let this be our primary and main concern: How we shall propitiate the Lord Who already is wrathful because of our sins; and how, with a pure repentance, we shall render Him kind and placable. Because, confessedly, I fear that concerning the unfortunate Ecumenical Patriarchate (and also in other cases) the word of Scripture is repeated: the priests have set My law at naught and have defiled My sanctuary. Between the holy and the profane they have not discerned. It is terrible for me even to say it, but I see with the spiritual eyes of my soul and I hear with the ears of my heart the angel of Revelation saying to the leader of Greek Orthodoxy: Bring to mind from whence thou hast fallen, and repent... but if not, I come unto thee quickly, and shall remove thy lamp from its place if thou repent not. What a fall! What a catastrophe! Your All-Holiness, what has come to pass has come to pass. "To fall is human; to persist is satanic." Correct the wrong. Have pity on the wounded Christian faithful. Make steadfast and unite the Orthodox people, who are troubled and divided on each occasionon one hand by the gross anti-canonical endeavors and aces of such-and-such a Patriarch or Archbishop who violates the calendar (and with it, ecclesiastical order and harmony), thus destroying the unity of the faithful in the matter of external worship; and on the other hand by rash and inadmissible meetings with heretics, and seeking an untimely and thoughtless union with them for the purpose of satisfying selfish desires and dark pursuits that do not look to the benefit of God's Church. We beseech You fervently: Put an end to scandal, "for the path which You have chosen, if it should further bring You into union with the Roman Catholics, would call forth a division in the Orthodox world; for undoubtedly many of Your own spiritual children too will prefer faithfulness to Orthodoxy above the ecumenical idea of a compromising union with non-Orthodox without their full agreement in the truth. [7] Elder paisios wrote against ecumenism

A Scientific Examination of the Orthodox Church Calendar Ch. 9: Liturgical Havoc Wreaked by the "New Julian" Calendar

by Hieromonk Cassian For the sake of liturgical order, there must be a connection between the movable and immovable cycles of the calendar, so that the combination of the one with the other is harmoniously attained. The Church Calendar successfully integrates the Menaion cycle with the Paschal cycle by synchronizing the lunar Jewish Calendar and the solar Julian Calendar. This harmonization, however, is impracticable using the "New Julian" Calendar, which is why the New Calendarists still use the Old Style (i.e., the Church Calendar) for the Paschal cycle; it is hopelessly insuperable for them to harmonize the New Calendar with the lunar cycles in any comprehensible fashion. Prima facie, the incorrect use of the Church Calendar by the New Calendarists goes unnoticed. It is, however, a plain and simple fact. They are inconsistent in their reform of the calendar, since for the immovable cycle they use the New Calendar, while for the movable cycle they use the Old Calendar. On the one hand, we can conclude from this that the "New Julian" Calendar is flawed at an essential level, since it is unable completely to fulfill the needs of ecclesiastical chronology. On the other hand, we can also conclude that the New Calendarists have either little understanding or little respect (or, more likely, both) for the nuances of time-reckoning, since in the most unsophisticated and artificial manner they have needlessly and harmfully complicated chronological computations by mechanically forcing two entirely different calendars together in their New Style services, with no Evangelical or real scientific justification for doing so. 160 Nowhere else do we encounter such a discrepancy, viz., the simultaneous use for the same purpose of two incompatible calendars. Has anyone, for example, ever tried to combine the Sothic Calendar with the Chinese Calendar? The notion is absurd. Moreover, if modernists were to apply the New Calendar to the movable cycle of Feasts as literally as they have for the immovable one, Pascha would have to be shifted by thirteen daysin which case it would always fall on a Monday, a canonical and liturgical violation so blatant that even modernists would find the idea laughable.

The Holy Orthodox Church has ordained that in every monastery and parish, someone is to be appointed the responsibility of preserving canonical order in the Divine Services. This individual is called the "Canonarch," and his main duty is to consider all aspects of the Divine Services in relationship to the demands made by the Typicon, so that liturgical observances are correctly celebrated. This task is considered extremely important, because the proper celebration of the Divine Services is a criterion of a God-pleasing life; accordingly, errors of negligence or disobedience in the Divine Services are considered to be grave sins meriting severe epitimia. In this regard, the arbitrary and uncalled-for intervention of the New Calendar is indefensible. The Typicon makes full provision for the various coincidences of immovable and movable Feasts, as well as the Fasts determined by them, stipulating an exact liturgical order with detailed instructions. Thus, in many ways, it is the most

indispensable of service books; and yet, the New Calendarists have practically destroyed the Typicon. As an example, let us consider the fact that, following the "New Julian" Calendar, the Feast of the Annunciation can never take place during Great Week or coincide with Pascha. This latter occurrence, when Pascha falls on March 25 (Old Style), the Feast of the Annunciation, the Orthodox Church has celebrated from antiquity with special liturgical joy, calling it "Kyriopascha," "the Lord's Pascha" 161 (Figure 24 ). The New Calendarists thus deprive themselves of a uniquely Grace-filled liturgical event, and the same is true concerning many other Feasts. 162

An especially egregious violation perpetrated by the introduction of the New Calendar concerns the observance of the Apostles' Fast. The conclusion of this Fast is determined by the immovable cycle of Feasts, for it always ends on June 28 (Old Style), i.e., the day before the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul; its first day, however, is dependent upon the movable cycle of Feasts, for, while it always begins on the Monday after the Feast of All Saints (the First Sunday after Pentecost), this day can fall anywhere between May 18 (Old Style) and June 21 (Old Style), inclusively. Thus, the Holy Church has established that the Apostles' Fast should last from eight to forty-two days. For the New Calendarists, this Fast is either severely curtailed or entirely abolished. (See Addendum 1, "The Late Celebration of Pascha in 1983.") Those who violate the Fast in this way would do well to heed Canon 219 of the Nomocanon: "If any monastic, save for the case of illness, should fall into pride and violate the fasts established for common observance by the Church, and providing that he is in charge of his mental faculties, let him be anathema." What kind of person would knowingly invoke an anathema upon himself?

Many New Calendarists claim that an abrogation of the Typicon is not a sin, and especially not a serious one, because it is does not constitute a deviation from, or denial of, the dogmas of the Faith. Such an argument displays a glaring ignorance of a basic concept: that Holy Tradition is the essence of Orthodox Christianity. To trample on the Typicon, as if it were merely a human work devoid of Divine inspiration, is tantamount to an assault upon the very Church Herself, for the Typicon embodies Her liturgical life. New Calendarists refuse to acknowledge the indisputable fact that it is no more possible to divorce dogmatics from liturgics, without destroying the Faith, than it is to rip a man's soul from his body without killing him. In the words of Saint John Chrysostomos, the Orthodox Church is the "House of Wisdom," and if one member falls sick in this home, the whole household suffers. 163 To those who dismiss these warnings, we direct the sobering reply of the Lord Himself: "But if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." 164

We have repeatedly compared the calendar reform to the story of the Trojan horse. Let us reflect carefully on the similarities of this story with the introduction of the New Calendar into the Orthodox

Church. The Greeks who were waging war upon the city of Troy hit upon a brilliant idea. They constructed a huge wooden horse which they presented as a gift to the Trojans. Unbeknownst to the Trojans, this wooden horse was hollow inside and hid a detachment of soldiers. Imagining their fortress to be impregnable and seeing no danger in a wooden horse, the Trojans wheeled it inside the city gates. That night, under cover of darkness, the soldiers hidden within emerged, threw open the city gates to their comrades waiting outside, and together they put the entire city to the sword. Likewise, the enemies of Christ have their own wooden horse in the New Calendar, which with feverish zeal they strive to implement throughout the Orthodox Church. This calendric Trojan horse had hidden within itself a virulently anti-Orthodox spirit which, once the "Pan-Orthodox Congress" admitted it into the citadel of the Holy Church, unleashed a surprise attack on Orthodoxy. The New Calendar threw open the defensive gates of the Holy Canons, allowing the most destructive innovations to pour into the Church. These innovations now hammer away at Orthodox Christianity, and, if permitted to continue, will utterly demolish the faith in people's souls and cause the spiritual death of the world. This a much graver situation than that faced by the inhabitants of ancient Troy, for the Savior warns us, "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell." 165 Thus, learning a valuable lesson from the story of the Trojan horse, let us cast away from us, well beyond the gates of the Holy Church, that incomparably more fearsome weapon of subversion, the New Calendar, which threatens the destruction of both body and soul. Endnotes http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/hopko_ecum.aspx

Nicholas planas celebrated with the old before formation of goc

Are you saying that it was perfectly fine for faithful Orthodox clergy and faithful to continue being obedient to God but disobedient to man's Church State when they secretly celebrated Divine Liturgies and All-Night Vigils on the Old Calendar feast days, but as soon as they joined the Old Calendarist Synod, then that was wrong and an act of schism? Remember that St. Nicholas Planas was "disobedient" whenever he celebrated an All Night Vigil or Divine Liturgy according to Old Calendar unless he had obtained explicit permission, which he did occasionally request from the Metropolitan. The biography said that he secretly celebrated All-Night vigils according to the Old Calendar with his synodis in the middle of the night. Why the secrecy if he was being above board? St. Nicholas Planas was being obedient to God as the Metropolitan was in serious error. Because St. Nicholas Planas recognized these errors of the Metropolitan, he was often found in tears and in prayer.

St. Nicholas respected the right of the New Calendarists, but did not celebrate with them. He went to the outlying rural parishes to celebrate in the Old Calendar.

He was obedient to the Modernist Metropolitan in that he did not openly protest, but remained humble. Nevertheless, he celebrated the Old Calendar exclusively.

Later on, after his death, celebrating the Old Calendar became punishable by law, and so the faithful were forced to celebrate liturgies in their homes until they could establish themselves legally as a valid Orthodox jurisdiction. Today, the GOC is legal in Greece. http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=44766.180 hopko and clapsis ecumenists that paisios would have condemned. So paisios a stmbling block to the fence sitters

10. The calendar Once the chanter of the vigils, Panayiotes Tomis, asked him, What do you think, Father, about the calendar? And he answered him, From conviction, the Old, and from obligation, the New!! The chanter was dissatisfied and left. From: Papa-Nicholas Planas: The Simple Shepherd of the Simple Sheep, p. 10. Translated from the Greek by Holy Transfiguration Monastery

It appears that you did not read the book that carefully but only did selected readings of the forward.

St. Nicholas respected the right of the New Calendarists, but did not concelebrate with them. He went to the outlying rural parishes to celebrate in the Old Calendar.

NOTE: The old calendarist Churches did not exist during the life of St. Nicholas Planas. Did you consider that fact.

St. Nicholas remained obedient to the Modernist Metropolitan in that he did not openly protest, but he remained humble. Nevertheless, he celebrated the Old Calendar exclusively.

Later on, after his death, celebrating the Old Calendar became punishable by law, and so the faithful were forced to celebrate liturgies in their homes until they could establish themselves legally as a valid Orthodox jurisdiction. Today, the GOC is legal in Greece.

Orthodox time line

apostolic era (33-100)

Mosaic of Saint Paul Preaching in Veria, Greece. , ca. 47-48 Apostle Paul's mission to Cyprus. ' ca. 49 Paul's mission to Philippi, Thessaloniki and Veria; Lydia of Thyatira becomes the first convert to Christianity in Europe after hearing Pauls words in Philippi proclaiming the Gospel of Christ during his second mission journey (Acts 16:14-15).

Icon of Apostle Andrew, considered the founder and first bishop of the Church of Byzantium. 5. 49 Paul's mission to Athens. ca. 51-52 Metropolis of Korinthos founded during Paul's first mission to Corinth; Paul writes his two Epistles to the Thessalonians.

6.

7.
8.

ca. 54 Paul writes his First Epistle to the Corinthians. ca. 55 Paul revisits Corinth. ca. 56 Paul revisits Macedonia; he writes his Second Epistle to the Corinthians. ca. 61 Paul shipwrecked in Crete. 62 Crucifixion of Apostle Andrew the First-called, in Patras. ca. 64 Paul ordained the Apostle Titus bishop of Gortyn in Crete, becoming the first Bishop of Crete. ca. 95 Apocalypse of John written on the island of Patmos.[10] 96 Martyrdom of Dionysius the Areopagite of the Seventy. 100 Death of St. John the Theologian in Ephesus.[11] [edit]

9.
10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Ante-Nicene era (100-325)

icon of St. John the Theologian receiving the Apocalypse on the isle of Patmos (16th c.) ca. 100 During the second and third centuries, Greece was divided into provinces including Achaea,

M Macedonia, and Moesia.

ca. 120 Martyrdom of Eleutherios and his mother Anthia.[12] [ 124 Apostles Quadratus and Aristides present Christian apologies to Emperor Hadrian at Athens.

[ [13]
128 Aquila's Greek translation of the Old Testament. . ca. 130 Death of Apostle Quadratus, of the Seventy.[14][15] 156 Martyrdom of Polycarp of Smyrna.[16] [ 180-192 Theodotion's Greek translation of the Old Testament. . 190 Death of Athenagoras of Athens, a Christian apologist who wrote in defense of the resurrection of the dead.[17] [ 193-211 Symmachus' Greek translation of the Old Testament.[18] [ 202 Death of Great Martyr Haralambos, Bishop of Magnesia.[19] [ 210 Hippolytus of Rome, bishop and martyr and last of Greek-speaking fathers in Rome,[20][21] writes Refutation of All Heresies (Philosophumena), and Apostolic Tradition.[22] [ ca 250 Matrydom of Christopher of Lycia;[23] martyrdom of Cyprian and Justina at Nicomedia;[24]

[25] death of Hieromartyr Leonidas, Bp. of Athens. . ca. 251 Martyric death of Isidore of Chios under the persecutions of Decius.[26] [ 270 Death of Gregory the Wonderworker (Thaumaturgus), founder of the Church in Cappadocia.[27]

[ [28]
286 Martyrs Timothy and Mavra.[29][30] 293 Emperor Diocletian institutes the Tetrarchy.

Map of the Roman Empire showing the Dioceses created by Diocletian, ca. 293 AD., and the four

T Tetrarchs' zones of influence.

302 20,000 Martyrs burned at Nicomedia.[31][32] 303 Death of Great-Martyr Panteleimon[33][34] and martyrdom of George the Trophy-bearer[35] [36] at Nicomedia. 304 Death of Virgin-Martyr Anysia of Thessaloniki.[37][38] 306 Martyric death of Demetrios in Thessaloniki.[39][40] 306-37 Reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. . ca. 306 Death of Great-Martyr Barbara of Nicomedia;[41][42] death of Bp. Parthenios of Lampsacus. . 311 Martyrdom of Bp. Methodius of Olympus.[43][44] 313 Edict of Milan issued by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Licinius, officially declaring religious freedom in the Roman Empire.[45] [ 314 Council of Ancyra held. 316 Death of Blaise of Sebaste.[46][47] 319 Matyrdom of Theodore Stratelates ("the General"), under Licinius.[48][49] [edit] Patriarchate of Rome Era (325-732) [note 2]== [edit]

Nicene era (325-451)

The First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, AD 325.

325 First Ecumenical Council held in Nicea, condemning Arianism, setting the Paschalion, and issuing the first version of the Nicene Creed, also establishing the supremacy of honor of the Apostolic Sees as Rome, followed by Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.[50] [ 330 Byzantium refounded as Constantinople / New Rome, Christian capital of the Roman Empire, and is dedicated to the Theotokos by Emperor Constantine.[51][52]

333 Constantine commissions Eusebius, to prepare 50 copies of the Bible for churches in the new

c capital.
335 Building of the Protaton church at Karyes (Athos), dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, oldest church on Mount Athos. . ca. 330-337 Church of Panagia Ekatontapyliani (Hundred Doors) in Paros founded by St. Helen, during her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. . 337 Under Constantine the Great Greece was part of the prefectures of Macedonia and Thrace. 340-570 Constantinople overtakes Rome as the largest city in the world by population. ca.342-343 Death of Nicholas of Myra.[53][54][55] 348 Death of Spyridon of Trimythous.[56][57] ca.354 Emperor Constantius II sent the Arian bishop Theophilos the Indian on mission to south Asia via Arabia where he is said to have converted the Himyarites and built three churches in southwest Arabia; he is also said to have found Christians in India.[58] [ 357 The Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum is formed when the three dioceses of Macedonia, Dacia and Pannonia were first grouped together by Constantius II. . 358 Basil the Great founds monastery of Annesos in Pontus, the model for Eastern monasticism. . 359 Councils of Seleucia in the east and Rimini in the west.[59] [ 360 First church of Hagia Sophia inaugurated by Emperor Constantius II. . 364 Council of Laodicea held.

The Three Holy Hierarchs, Basil the Great (Basil of Caesarea), Gregory the Theologian (Gregory of Nazianzus) and John Chrysostom. ) 375 Basil the Great writes On the Holy Spirit, confirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit. . 377 Epiphanius of Salamis (Cyprus) writes Panarion (, "Medicine Chest"), also known as Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"), listing 80 heresies, some of which are not described

i in any other surviving documents from the time .

378 Visigoths defeat Emperor Valens at the Battle of Adrianople, permanently weakening northern

b borders of the empire.

379 Death of Basil the Great; the Cappadocian Fathers Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus the Theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa set their mark on all subsequent history of the Greek churches, through Basil's On the Holy Spirit, and Rules; Gregory of Nazianzus' Five Theological Orations; and Gregory of Nyssa's polemical works against various heretical

t teachings.
380 Christianity established as the official faith of the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius the Great.

The division of the Empire after the death of Theodosius I, ca.395 AD superimposed on modern borders. Western Roman Empire

E Eastern Roman Empire

381 Second Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople, condemning Macedonianism/Pneumatomachianism and Appollinarianism, declaring the divinity of the Holy Spirit, confirming the previous Ecumenical Council, and completing the NiceneConstantinopolitan Creed. . ca. 383 First monastic institution established in Constantinople at Psamathia, outside the city. , 386 Panagia Soumela Monastery founded in Trebizond, Pontus, Asia Minor, after St. Luke's Icon of the Mother of God appears at Mt. Mela. 389 Death of Gregory the Theologian.[60][61] 391-92 Closing of all non-Christian temples in the Empire; Theodosius the Great ends pagan Eleusinian Mysteries by decree. 394 Epiphanius of Salamis (Cyprus) attacks teachings of Origen as heretical.

St. John Chrysostom, Abp. of Constantinople (398-404). , 395 Death of Gregory of Nyssa; re-division of Empire with death of Emperor Theodosius the Great. ; ca. 395 Theodosius I divided the prefecture of Macedonia into the provinces of Creta, Achaea, Thessalia, Epirus Vetus, Epirus Nova, and Macedonia; the Aegean islands formed the province of Insulae in the prefecture of Asiana; the placing of the cincture (sash) of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Church of the Virgin in Halkoprateia-Constantinople (395-408). 398 John Chrysostom becomes Abp. of Constantinople. 399 Death of Evagrius Ponticus, the first monk to write extensively on the spiritual life, influencing his students Palladius and John Cassian, Maximus the Confessor, Diadochos of Photiki, Isaac of Nineveh, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas, among others.

Map of the Roman Empire with its Dioceses, in 400 AD. The Prefecture of "Eastern Illyricum" (Illyricum Orientale) consisted of the Dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia. . 403 Synod of the Oak held near Chalcedon, deposing and exiling John Chrysostom. .

4 407 Death of John Chrysostom in exile.

411 Death of Alexios the Man of God, Fool-for-Christ.[62][63] 421 Emperor of the east Theodosius II declares war on Persia when Persia begins persecuting Christians; the persecution lasts until 457.

425 University of Constantinople founded as the first university in the world. 426 Euthymius the Great establishes lavra in Palestinian desert, consecrated in 428 by Bp. Juvenal of Jerusalem. . 431 Third Ecumenical Council held in Ephesus, condemning Nestorianism and Pelagianism, confirming the use of the term Theotokos to refer to the Virgin Mary, and confirming autocephaly of Church of Cyprus. . 437 Seven Sleepers of Ephesus awakened to prove resurrection of the dead. 438 Codex Theodosianus published; relics of John Chrysostom brought to Constantinople and buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles. . 447 Earthquake in Constantinople, when a boy was lifted up to heaven and heard the Trisagion. . 449 Robber Synod of Ephesus, presided over by Dioscorus of Alexandria, with an order from the emperor to acquit Eutyches the Monophysite. . ca.450 Revelation of the Life-Giving Font of the Mother of God, in Valoukli, Constantinople, to a soldier named Leo Marcellus (who would later become Byzantine Emperor Leo I (457-474), becoming one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Greek Orthodoxy.[64][65] [edit] Early Byzantine era (451-843)

Byzantine miniature depicting the Stoudios Monastery and the Propontis (Sea of Marmara). 451 Fourth Ecumenical Council meets at Chalcedon, condemning Eutychianism and Monophysitism, affirming doctrine of two perfect and indivisible but distinct natures in Christ, and recognizing Church of Jerusalem as patriarchate. 452 Second finding of the Head of John the Forerunner, at Emesa. , 457 First coronation of Byzantine Emperor by patriarch of Constantinople; Proterius of Alexandria is lynched by an Alexandrian mob; rejecting the Christological definitions of Chalcedon, the Egyptian or Coptic church goes its own way, becoming one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. . 458 Death of Bp. Theodoret of Cyrrhus, influential author and theologian who played a pivotal role

i in many early Byzantine church controversies.

462 Indiction moved to September 1; Studion Monastery founded.

Eastern Roman Empire ca.477, showing the extent of Koine Greek. .

4 463 Death of Patapius of Thebes.

ca.471 Patr. Acacius of Constantinople was first called "Oikoumenikos" (Ecumenical).

484 Acacian Schism. . 493 Death of Daniel the Stylite an ascetic who lived for 33 years on a pillar near the city of

C Constantinople.
ca. 500 Zosimus, pagan Greek historian writes Historia Nova ("New History"), a history of the Roman Empire to 410 AD, with an anti-Christian view offering a different interpretation to church affairs than from Christian sources; Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite's writing corpus including the Divine Names, Mystical Theology, Celestial Hierarchy, and Ecclesiastical Hierarchy influences the development of Byzantine mystical spirituality and hesychasm through Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas. . ca.500-550 Andreas of Caesarea, Bp. of Caesarea in Cappadocia, writes the oldest surviving commentary on the Book of Revelation. . 502 Start of Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, lasting until 562. , 518 Patriarch John II of Constantinople is addressed as "Oikoumenikos Patriarches" (Ecumenical Patriarch); the Byzantine government begins persecution of non-Chalcedonians in the east,

e especially in Mesopotamia.
519 Eastern and Western churches reconciled with end of Acacian Schism.

An interior view of Hagia Sophia today. 520 Romanus the Melodist the greatest hymnographer, develops the Kontakion, a chanted verse sermon, to perfection; influenced by Ephrem the Syrian, he in turn influences Andrew of Crete. . 529 Emperor Justinian closes the School of Athens, which Plato had founded in 387 BC. 529-534 Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis issued, first comprehensive legal code in history of Roman Empire;; Justinian's Novella 131 formulated the proposed government of universal Christendom by five patriarchal sees under the auspices of a single universal empire (Pentarchy). ) 532 Justinian the Great orders building of Hagia Sophia. . 537 Construction of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople completed; Justinian decrees that all dates must include the Indiction. .

537-752 Byzantine Papacy.-invention .

538 Emperor Justinian the Great, via deportations and force, manages to get all five patriarchates

o officially into communion.

ca. 540 Death of Osios David of Thessaloniki.[66][67]

5 540 Bulgar raids into Illyricum and northern Greece.

543 Doctrine of apokatastasis condemned by Synod of Constantinople; Justinian the Great sends

missionaries to Nubia (the three kingdoms of Nobatia/Novatia, Alodia/Alwa, and Makuria). ) 544 According to tradition the Mandylion of Edessa destroys Persian siege works.

T The Byzantine Empire during its greatest territorial extent under Justinian. ca.550.
553 Fifth Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople in an attempt to reconcile Chalcedonians with non-Chalcedoniansthe Three Chapters of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa are condemned for their Nestorianism, and Origen and his writings are

a also condemned.
553 Ostrogoth kingdom in Italy conquered by the Byzantine Empire after the Battle of Mons Lactarius. . 556 Completion of Justinian the Great's fortification monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai; a chapel and anchorites had already been there at least since the 4th century when Egeria visited in

c ca. 385.
557 Death of Cyriacus the Anchorite. . 562 Isidorus of Miletus completes repair on dome of Hagia Sophia, now higher by 20 feet than the Anthemian original.

5 563 Re-consecration of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after its dome is rebuilt.

565-66 Completion of the mosaic of the Transfiguration in apse of the Church of the Mother of God

o on Mt. Sinai.
565-78 The Cherubic Hymn was added to the Divine Liturgy by Emperor Justin II. .

5 566 Bp. Longinus sent from Constantinople to Nubia as missionary.

568 Exarchate of Ravenna established, to 752, a Greek imperial outpost and place of contact with the Latin West. . 575 The Chronographia () of John Malalas in 18 books, chronicles the years from

c creation to 563 AD.

576 Dual hierarchy henceforth in Alexandria, Chalcedonian (Greek) and Monophysite (Coptic). . 577 Patr. John III Scholasticus is responsible for the first collection of Canon Law, the Nomocanon, of the Orthodox Church. . 580 Serious invasion of Slavs migrating into the Balkans and Greece; last recorded persecution of pagans in Byzantine Empire. . 582 Persection of Monophysites renewed under emperor Maurice. . ca. 590 Parthenon in Athens converted into a Christian church dedicated to Agia Sophia.[note 3] [ 594 Evagrius Scholasticus writes Ecclesiastical History, covering the years 431 to 594 AD.

Spread of Christianity to AD 325 Spread of Christianity to AD 600 6 586 St. Demetrios of Thessaloniki saves Thessaloniki from Avar-Slav siege.

6 602 Final series of wars between Byzantine Empire and Sassanid Empire.
610 Heraclius changes official language of the Empire from Latin to Greek, already the lingua franca

o of the vast majority of the population.

612 Holy Sponge and Holy Lance brought to Constantinople from Palestine. 6 617 Persian Army conquers Chalcedon after a long siege.

6 620 Slavs attack Thessaloniki.

626 Akathist Hymn to the Virgin Mary written, after Constantinople liberated from a siege of 80,000 Avars, Slavs and the Persian fleet. . 627 Emperor Heraclius decisively defeats Sassanid Persians at Battle of Nineveh, recovering True Cross and breaking power of the Sassanid dynasty. 630 Second Elevation of the Holy Cross, on March 21, 630 AD, when Emperor Heraclius entered Jerusalem amidst great rejoicing, and together with Patriarch Zacharios (609-633), transferred the Cross of Christ with great solemnity into the temple of the Resurrection; it is the only time a Byzantine emperor sets foot in the Holy Land. . 632 Christian influences on Islamic practice include veiling of women, hospitality for monastic travellers, prostrations, facing east for prayer, fixed hours for daily office of prayer, ritual

a ablutions before worship.

633 Death of Patr. Modestus of Jerusalem, who had restored many buildings after the Persian sack o of 614, including the rotunda of the Anastasis. 634 Emperor Heraclius issues edict ordering all Jews to be baptized; many Jews flee to protection of Persians or Muslim Arabs.

The Monastery of Panagia Soumela. . 639 Death of Patr. Sophronius I of Jerusalem; his poetry and prayers become part of the Liturgy, including the Troparia of the Royal Hours chanted on Great Friday and the eves of the Nativity and Theophany, and the main prayer of Great Blessing of Water on Theophany. 641 St. Christopher of Trebizond heads the Monastery of Panagia Soumela.(641-668).[69][70] 646 Alexandria recaptured by Muslim Arabs after a Byzantine attempt to retake Egypt fails, ending nearly ten centuries of Greco-Roman civilization in Egypt; the monophysite Coptic patriarch Benjamin I and his followers willingly accepts Arab rule, preferring it to the Byzantines; Maximus the Confessor takes lead in opposing Monothelitism. . 648 Pope Theodore I of Rome excommunicates patriarch Paul II of Constantinople.

649 Arabs invade and conquer Cyprus.

Byzantine Empire by 650; by this year it lost all of its southern provinces except the Exarchate of C Carthage. 650 The Patriarchate of Constantinople counted 32 metropoles, or capitals of ecclesiastical provinces, 1 autocephalous metropolis, 34 autocephalous archbishoprics, and 352 bishoprics a grand total of 419 dioceses.

6 654 Invasion of Rhodes by Arabs.

662 Parthenon in Athens rededicated in honour of the Mother of God as "Panagia Atheniotissa" (Panagia of Athens), becoming the fourth most important pilgrimage site in the Eastern Roman Empire after Constantinople, Ephesus and Thessalonica;[71] death of Maximus the Confessor. . 669-78 First Arab siege of Constantinople; at Battle of Syllaeum Arab fleet destroyed by Byzantines through use of Greek Fire, ending immediate Arab threat to eastern Europe. , 680-681 Sixth Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople, condemning Monothelitism and affirming Christology of Maximus the Confessor, affirming that Christ has both a human will and a divine will; Patr. Sergius of Constantinople and Pope Honorius of Rome are both explicitly anathematized for their support of Monothelitism. 685 First monastics come to Mount Athos; emperor Justinian II is the first emperor to have the figure of the Lord Jesus Christ stamped on a coin.[note 4] [ 688 Emperor Justinian II and Caliph Abd al-Malik sign treaty neutralizing Cyprus. 692 The "Pentarchy" form of government of universal Christendom by five patriarchal sees received formal ecclesiastical sanction at the Council in Trullo, held in Constantinople, which ranked the five sees as Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem;

B Byzantine-Arab naval struggles, ca. AD 717-1025.

7 705 Long period of fighting begins between Trebizond in eastern Asia Minor and the Arabs.
706 Greek replaced by Arabic as administrative language in Egypt.[73] [

7 707 Byzantines lose Balearic Islands to Moors;

710 Pope Constantine makes last papal visit to Constantinople before 1967. 712 Death of Andrew of Crete.[74][75] 717-18 Second Arab siege of Constantinople. .

7 720 Martyrdom of Nicholas the New of Vounina.

726 Iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian starts campaign against icons. [edit] .

Patriarchate of Constantinople Era (732-1850)

Medieval plate depicting Acrites, the frontiersmen or border guards of the Byzantine Empire, about which epic songs were written. 732-33 Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian transfers Southern Italy (Sicily and Calabria), Greece, and the Aegean from the jurisdiction of the Pope to that of the Ecumenical Patriarch in response to Pope St. Gregory III of Rome's support of a revolt in Italy against iconoclasm, adding to the Patriarchate about 100 bishoprics; the Iconoclast emperors took away from the Patriarch of Antioch 24 episcopal sees of Byzantine Isauria, on the plea that he was a subject of the Arab caliphs; the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople became co-extensive

w with the limits of the Byzantine Empire.

734 Death of Peter the Athonite, commonly regarded as one of the first hermits of Mount Athos. . 739 Emperor Leo III (717-41) publishes his Ecloga, designed to introduce Christian principle into law; Byzantine forces defeat Umayyad invasion of Asia Minor at Battle of Akroinon. .

7 746 Byzantine forces regain Cyprus from the Arabs.

754 Iconoclastic Council (Council of Hieria) held in Constantinople under the authority of Emperor Constantine V Copronymus, condemning icons and declaring itself to be the Seventh Ecumenical Council; Constantine begins dissolution of the monasteries.

St. Theodore the Studite abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople and a zealous opponent of iconoclasm. . 764 Martyrdom of Stephen the Younger, Byzantine monk from Constantinople who became one of

t the leading opponents of the iconoclastic policies of Emperor Constantine V.

787 Seventh Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea, condemning iconoclasm and affirming veneration of icons. .

7 789 Death of Philaret the Merciful.

803 Death of Irene of Athens, wife of Byzantine Emperor Leo IV; St. Luke's icon brought to Agiassos on Mytilene. . 814 Bulgarians lay siege to Constantinople; conflict erupts between Emperor Leo V and Patr. Nicephorus on the subject of iconoclasm; Leo deposes Nicephorus, Nicephorus

e excommunicates Leo.
816 Death of Gregory Decapolites (November 20). ) 824 Byzantine Crete falls to Arab insurgents fleeing from the Umayyad Emir of Cordoba Al-Hakam I, establishing an emirate on the island until the Byzantine reconquest in 960.[76] [ 826 Death of Theodore the Studite.

828 Death of Patr. Nicephorus I of Constantinople. . 838 Caliph al-Mu'tasim captures and destroys Amorium in Anatolia. ca. 839 First Rus'-Byzantine War, where the Rus' attacked Propontis (probably aiming for

C Constantinople) before turning east and raiding Paphlagonia.

840 Panagia Proussiotissa icon found near Karpenissi. [edit] Byzantine Imperial era (843-1204)

Saints Saints Cyril and Methodius, Equals-to-the-Apostles. . 843 Empress Theodora secures return of icon-veneration with Triumph of Orthodoxy occurring on first Sunday of Great Lent, restoring icons to churches. 845 42 Martyrs of Amorium in Phrygia taken as hostages from Amorium to Samarra (in Iraq) and executed there.[77][78] 846 Death of Joannicius the Great.[79][80] 850 Third Finding of the head of John the Forerunner. . 858 Photius the Great becomes patriarch of Constantinople. 860 Second Rus-Byzantine War, a naval raid and the first siege of Constantinople by the Rus'. , ca. 860 Christianization of the Rus' Khaganate. . 861 Cyril and Methodius of Thessaloniki depart from Constantinople to missionize the Slavs; Council of Constantinople attended by 318 fathers and presided over by papal legates confirms Photius the Great as patriarch and passes 17 canons. B Byzantine Empire, ca. 867 AD. Saint Photius the Great, "Pillar of Orthodoxy".[note 5] [ 864 Christianization of Bulgaria: Baptism of Prince Boris of Bulgaria; Synaxis of the Theotokos in

M Miasena in memory of the return of her icon.

867 Council in Constantinople held, presided over by Photius, which anathematizes Pope Nicholas I for his attacks on work of Greek missionaries in Bulgaria and use by papal missionaries of Filioque; Pope Nicholas dies before hearing news of excommunication; Basil the Macedonian has Emperor Michael III murdered and usurps Imperial throne, reinstating Ignatius as

p patriarch of Constantinople.
867 Death of Kassia, Greek-Byzantine poet and hymnographer, who composed the Hymn of Kassiani, chanted during Holy Week on Holy Wednesday. 869-870 Robber Council of 869-870 held, deposing Photius the Great from the Constantinopolitan see and putting the rival claimant Ignatius on the throne, declaring itself to be the "Eighth Ecumenical Council."

8 870 Conversion of Serbia; Malta conquered from the Byzantines by the Arabs.
874 Translation of relics of Nicephorus the Confessor, interred in the Church of the Holy Apostles,

C Constantinople.
877 Death of Ignatius I of Constantinople, who appoints Photius to succeed him. 877 Arab Muslims conquer all of Sicily from Byzantium and make Palermo their capital. 879-880 Eighth Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople attended by 383 fathers passing 3 canons, confirms Photius as Patriarch of Constantinople, anathematizes additions to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and declares that the prerogatives and jurisdiction of the Roman pope and the Constantinopolitan patriarch are essentially equal; the council is reluctantly accepted by Pope John VIII. . 881 Death of Theoktiste of Lesbos. . ca.883 Death of Joseph the Hymnographer. . 885 Mount Athos gains political autonomy, as Emperor Basil lays down the boundaries of the monastic republic; death of Methodius. .

8 892 Death of Theodora the Myrrh-gusher of Thessaloniki.

902 Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, is captured by the Aghlabids. . 904 Thessaloniki sacked and pillaged by Saracen pirates under Leo of Tripoli, a Greek pirate serving

S Saracen interests.
907 Third Rus'-Byzantine War, a naval raid of Constantinople (Tsargrad in Old Slavonic) led by Varangian Prince Oleg of Novgorod, which was relieved by peace negotiations.

The Holy Protection of the Mother of God (Novgorod icon, 1399). 911 Holy Protection of the Virgin Mary; Russian envoys visit Constantinople to ratify a treaty, sent by Oleg, Grand Prince of Rus'. . 912 Nicholas Mystikos becomes Patriarch of Constantinople. 921 Death of Irene Chrysovalantou. . 925 Death of Peter the Wonderworker and Bp. of Argos, whose writings appear in Patrologia Graeca. . 941 Fourth Rus'-Byzantine War. Byzantine Themes in Asia Minor, ca. 950 AD. 944 City of Edessa recovered by Byzantine army, including Icon Not Made By Hands I 953 Monastery of Hosios Loukas founded by St. Luke the Younger near Stiris (Thebes) in Greece. 957 Olga of Kiev baptized in Constantinople. 960 Nikephoros Phokas recaptures Crete for the Byzantines. 961 Founding of Agia Lavra monastery in Kalavryta, Peloponesse, (the symbolic birthplace of modern Greece in 1821).

963 Athanasius of Athos establishes first major monastery on Mount Athos, the Great Lavra; founding of Philosophou Monastery in Dimitsana, Peloponnese (Metropolis of Gortyna and Megalopolis); death of Michael Maleinos, a Byzantine monk who commanded great respect among Christians of Asia Minor, and was later adopted as a patron saint of Mikhail Feodorovich, the first Romanov tsar. , ca.963-1018 The Chronicle of Monemvasia is composed, narrating the events that depict the AvaroSlavic conquest and colonization of mainland Greece, covering a period from 587 to 805 AD. 965 Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas regains Cyprus completely for the Byzantines. Panagia Portaitissa, Our Lady of Iveron, Mount Athos, Greece. , 968-71 Fifth Rus'-Byzantine War, resulting in a Byzantine victory over the coalition of Rus', Pechenegs, Magyars, and Bulgarians in the Battle of Arcadiopolis, and the defeat of Sviatoslav of Kiev by John I Tzimiskes. . 969 Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas captures Antioch and Aleppo from Arabs. 972 Emperor John I Tzimiskes grants Mount Athos its first charter (Typikon). ) 975 Emperor John I Tzimiskes in a Syrian campaign takes Emesa, Baalbek, Damascus, Tiberias,

N Nazareth, Caesarea, Sidon, Beirut, Byblos and Tripoli, but fails to take Jerusalem.
980 Revelation of the Axion Estin (the hymn "It Is Truly Meet"), with the appearance of the Archangel Gabriel to a monk on Mount Athos. . 980-983 Iviron Monastery is built under the supervision of Ioannes the Iberian and Tornikios. . 987 Sixth Rus'-Byzantine War, where Vladimir of Kiev dispatches troops to the Byzantine Empire to assist Emperor Basil II with an internal revolt, agreeing to accept Orthodox Christianity as his

r religion and bring his people to the new faith.

988 Baptism of Rus' begins with the conversion of Vladimir of Kiev who is baptized at Chersonesos, the birthplace of the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches; Vladimir marries Anna, sister

o of Byzantine emperor Basil II.

ca.990 Bp. cumenius of Trikka (now Trikkala) in Thessaly writes several commentaries on books of the New Testament. . ca.992 Greek monk and wonderworker St. Sergius of Valaam co-founded the Valaam Monastery (along with Herman of Valaam), in Russian Karelia on Valaam island, and is credited with

b bringing Orthodox Christianity to the Karelian and Finnish people.

998 Death of Nikon the Metanoeite ("preacher of repentance"). ca.999 Icon of the Panagia Portaitissa appears on Mount Athos near Iviron monastery. . 10th c. Paris Psalter produced, a Byzantine illuminated manuscript containing 449 folios and 14 fullpage miniatures "in a grand, almost classical style", considered a key monument of the socalled Macedonian Renaissance in Byzantine art. . 11th c. Kaisariani Monastery is founded on the slopes of Mount Hymettos, one of the oldest and

most important monasteries in Attica; death Theodora of Vastas.

The Byzantine Empire under Basil II - ca. 1025.

The Byzantine Empire and its themata in 1045. At this point, the Empire was the most powerful state

i in the Mediterranean.
1004 Nilus the Younger, born to a Greek family in the Byzantine Theme of Calabria, founds the famous Greek Basilian monastery of Grottaferrata, becoming the first abbott. , 1009 Patr. Sergius II of Constantinople removes name of Pope Sergius IV from the diptychs of Constantinople, because the pope had written a letter to the patriarch including the Filioque. . 1018 Emperor Basil II went on a pilgrimage to Athens directly after his final victory over the Bulgarians for the sole purpose of worshipping at the Parthenon.[71] [ 1022 Death of Symeon the New Theologian. . 1034 Patriarch Alexius I Studites writes the first complete Studite Typikon, for a monastery he established near Constantinople; this was the Typikon introduced into the Rus' lands by Theodosius of the Kiev Caves. . 1042 Founding of Nea Moni Monastery on Chios. 1043 University of Constantinople is re-organized under Michael Psellos. .

1 1053 Death of Lazarus the Wonder-worker of Mt. Galesius near Ephesus.

1054 The Great Schism between Orthodox East and Latin West. 1068 Arrival of the first Seljuk Turks to Anatolia, by which time the religious war between Byzantium

a and Islam had already run a course of four centuries.

1071 Seljuk Turks defeat Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, beginning Islamization of Asia Minor; Norman princes led by Robert Guiscard capture Bari, the last Byzantine stronghold in Italy, bringing to an end over five centuries of Byzantine rule in the south. . ca. 1071-1176 Byzantine epic poem Digenes Akritas is written, set in the ninth and tenth centuries, inspired by the almost continuous state of warfare with the Arabs in eastern Asia Minor, presents a comprehensive picture of the intense frontier life of the Akrites, the border guards o of the Byzantine Empire. 1 1073 Seljuk Turks conquer Ankara.

1 1077 Seljuks capture Nicaea.

1087 Translation of the relics of Nicholas of Myra from Myra to Bari.

1 1083 Metropolis of Paronaxia separates from the Metropolis of Rhodes.

1088-93 Emperor Alexios I Komnenos gave the island of Patmos to Blessed Christodoulos of Patmos to develop as an independent monastic state, who founded the Monastery of Saint John the

Theologian on Patmos. . 1093 Death of Christodoulos the Wonderworker of Patmos.

Greek-Orthodox monasteries at Meteora, Greece. , 1118-1137 Imperial monastery of Christ Pantocrator founded. 1127-1145 Constantinople largest city in the world by population. 1147 Roger II of Sicily takes Corfu from the Byzantine Empire, and pillages Corinth, Athens and

T Thebes.
1176 Sultanate of Rum defeats Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Myriokephalon, marking end of

B Byzantine attempts to recover Anatolian plateau.

1192-1571 Church of Cyprus is subordinated to a Latin Hierarchy established by the Crusaders. 12th c. Skete life begins in Meteora.[81] [edit] Latin Occupation and End of Byzantium (1204-1456)

The beginning of Frangokratia: the division of the Byzantine Empire after the Fourth Crusade, 1204 AD. : 1204 Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople, laying waste to the city and stealing many relics and other items; Great Schism generally regarded as having been completed by this act; Venetians use the imperial monastery of Christ Pantocrator as their headquarters in Constantinople.

Eastern Mediterranean ca. 1230AD.

Saint John Vatatzes the Merciful King,[82] Emperor of Nicaea (12211254), and the Father of the Greeks.[83] [ 1204 Latin Occupation of mainland Greece under Franks and Venetians begins: the Latin Empire of Constantinople, Latin Kingdom of Thessalonica, the Principality of Achaea, and the Duchy of Athens; The Venetians controlled the Duchy of the Archipelago in the Aegean. 1205 Latins annex Athens and convert the Parthenon into a Roman Catholic church - Santa Maria di Athene, later Notre Dame d'Athene. . 1211 Venetian crusaders conquer Byzantine Crete, retaining it until defeated by the Ottomans in

1 1669.
1224 The Byzantines recover Thessaloniki and surrounding area, under the Greek ruler of Epirus Theodore Komnenos Doukas.

1235 St. Olympiada and nuns martyred by pirates on Lesbos. . 1249 Mystras citadel built by Franks in the Peloponnese. 1258 Michael VIII Palaiologos seizes the throne of the Nicaean Empire, founding the last Roman

( (Byzantine) dynasty, beginning reconquest of Greek peninsula from Latins.

1259 Byzantines defeat Latin Principality of Achaea at the Battle of Pelagonia, marking the beginning of the Byzantine recovery of Greece.

The Desis mosaic with Christ as ruler, probably commissioned from 1261 to mark the end of 57 years

o of Roman Catholic use and the return to the Orthodox faith.

1261 End of Latin occupation of Constantinople and restoration of Orthodox patriarchs; Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos makes Mystras seat of the new Despotate of Morea, where a

B Byzantine renaissance occurred.

1265-1310 Arsenite Schism of Constantinople, beginning when Patr. Arsenius Autorianus excommunicated emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. . 1274 Orthodox clergy attending the Second Council of Lyon, accept supremacy of Rome and

f filioque clause.
1275 Unionist Patr. of Constantinople John XI Beccus elected to replace Patr. Joseph I Galesiotes,

w who opposed Council of Lyon.

ca. 1276-80 Martyrdom by Latins of monks of Iviron Monastery.[84][85]

1 1275 Persecution of Athonite monks by Emp. Michael VIII and Patr. John XI Beccus.
1279 Hieromonk Ieronymos Agathangelos writes an Apocalypse dealing with the destinies of the nations.[note 6] [ 1281 Pope Martin IV authorizes a Crusade against the newly re-established Byzantine Empire in Constantinople, excommunicating Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos and the Greeks and renouncing the union of 1274; French and Venetian expeditions set out toward Constantinople but are forced to turn back in the following year due to the Sicilian Vespers. . 1282 Death of 26 martyrs of Zografou monastery on Mount Athos, martyred by the Latins.[86][87]

1 1283 Accommodation with Rome officially repudiated.

ca. 1285 Death of venerable martyrs Abbot Euthymius and twelve monks of Vatopedi, who suffered martyrdom for denouncing the Latinizing rulers Michael Paleologos (1261-1281) and John Bekkos (1275-1282) as heretics.[88][89] 1287 Last record of Western Rite Monastery of Amalfion on Mount Athos. . 14th c. "Golden Age" of Thessaloniki in both literature and art, many churches and monasteries

b built.
1300-1400 The "Chronicle of Morea" ( ) narrates events of the establishment

of feudalism in mainland Greece, mainly in the Morea/Peloponnese, by the Franks following the Fourth Crusade, covering a period from 1204 to 1292. , 1309 Rhodes falls to the Knights of St. John, who establish their headquarters there, renaming themselves the "Knights of Rhodes". Saint Gregory Palamas, Abp. of Thessaloniki (1347-1359) and "Pillar of Orthodoxy".[note 5] [ 1310 Arsenite Schism of Constantinople is ended by the reconciliation of the Arsenites to the

J Josephites.
1326 The city of Prussa in Asia Minor falls to the Ottomans after a nine-year siege. 1331 The city of Nicaea, capital of the Empire only 100 years previously, falls to the Ottomans. , 1336 Meteora in Greece are established as a center of Orthodox monasticism. . 1337 Nicomedia captured by Ottomans. 1338 Gregory Palamas writes Triads in defense of the Holy Hesychasts, defending the Orthodox practice of hesychast spirituality and the use of the Jesus Prayer. . 1341-47 Civil war between John VI Cantacuzenus (134754) and John V Palaeologus (134191). 1341-51 Three sessions of the Ninth Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople, affirming hesychastic theology of Gregory Palamas and condemning rationalistic philosophy of Barlaam of Calabria. . ca.1351 Holy Royal Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of the Vlatades (Moni Vlatadon) is founded in Thessaloniki. .

1 1354 Ottomans make first settlement in Europe at Gallipoli.

1359 Death of Gregory Palamas.

Saint Mark of Ephesus, "Pillar of Orthodoxy".[note 5] [ 1360 Death of John Kukuzelis the Hymnographer. The right-believing Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos the Ethnomartyr (1449-1453). 1 1365 Ottomans made Adrianople their capital.

1 1382 Founding of the Great Meteora Monastery.

1386-7 Church of St Athanasius of Mouzaki built in Kastoria, Greece. 1390 Ottomans take Philadelphia, last significant Byzantine enclave in Anatolia. , ca.1391 Death of Nicholas Cabasilas, well known theological writer and mystic of the Orthodox Church who took the side of the monks of Mount Athos and St Gregory Palamas in the Hesychast controversy.

1 1391-98 Ottomans unsuccessfully besiege Constantinople for the first time.

1411 Death of Niphon of Mount Athos, proponent of hesychastic theology and wonderworker.[90] [ 1422 Second unsuccessful Ottoman siege of Constantinople.

1426 Death of New Martyr Ephraim of Nea Makri (a "newly revealed" ("") saint from 1 1950).

1 1429 The Ottomans capture Thessaloniki.

1430 The monks of Mount Athos submit to Sultan Murad II and keep their autonomy. 1438 Council of Florence unsuccessfully tries to unite the Greek East and Latin West. . 1439 Saint Mark of Ephesus courageously defended Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence, being the only Eastern bishop to refuse to sign the decrees of the council, regarded as a "Pillar of Orthodoxy" by the Church.[91][92] 1450 Death of Empress Helena Palaeologina (St. Ypomoni of Loutraki). ) 1452 Unification of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches in Hagia Sophia on West's terms, when Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, under pressure from Rome, allows the union to be

p proclaimed.
1453 Constantinople falls to the Ottomans, ending Roman Empire; Hagia Sophia turned into a mosque; martyrdom of Constantine XI Palaiologos, last of the Byzantine Emperors; many Greek scholars escape to the West with books that become translated into Latin, triggering the Renaissance; beginning of the genre of lamentation folk songs known as "Moirologia", or dirges (Byzantine secular music). [edit] Ottoman Rule (1456-1821)

Patriarch Gennadios Scholarius with Mehmet II. .

1 1456 Ottoman conquest of Greece.

1456-1587 Byzantine Church of Theotokos Pammakaristos became the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. . 1460 Parthenon Cathedral dedicated to the Mother of God turned into a mosque. 1462 Wonderworking icon of the Archangel Michael of Mantamados is created; Matrona of Chios

r reposes October 22.

1463 Martyric death of Raphael, Nicholas and Irene on Mytilene (Lesvos). 1472 Decrees of the Council of Ferrara-Florence repudiated by Patriarchate of Contantinople.

1 1511 Death of Joseph the Sanctified of Crete.

1530 Mother of God restores sight to blind youth through the Cassiope icon of Corfu. . 1546 New Martyr John of Ioannina.

1 1554 New Martyr Nicholas of Psari in Corinth.

1556 Death of Maximos the Greek. O Epitaphios Threnos ("The Lamentation at the Tomb") by Theophanes the Cretan, 16th century

(Stavronikita monastery, Mount Athos). , The Divine Liturgy. Michael Damaskinos, 16th century. , 1556-65 The Patriarchal School of Joasaph II is initially established in Constantinople, the forerunner of the Great School of the Nation (I Megali tou Genous Sxoli / ). 1559 Death of Iconographer Theophanes the Cretan. . 1571 Restoration of Church of Cyprus to Orthodox rule. 1573 The Church of San Giorgio dei Greci is completed by the Greek community of Venice, the oldest and historically most important church of the Greek Orthodox Diaspora, becoming the ethnic and religious center of Hellenism in the city and broader region of Venice which at its

p peak numbered 15,000 members.

1573-81 Correspondence between Patr. Jeremias II and the Lutheran professors at Tbingen. 1574-82 Michael Damaskinos, the greatest Cretan iconographer of the day, paints the iconostasis of the Church of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. 1576 Pope Gregory XIII establishes Pontifical Greek College of St. Athanasius (popularly known as the 'Greek College') in Rome, which he charged with educating Italo-Byzantine clerics. ) 1579 Death of Gerasimos of Cephalonia. . 1583 Sigillion of 1583 issued against Gregorian Calendar by council convened in Constantinople. 1587Present. The relatively modest Church of St George in the Phanar district of Istanbul becomes the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. . 1589 Death of Philothei of Athens. . 1 1590 Death of Timothy of Penteli (Athens). 1 1596 Death of Nilus the Myrrh-gusher of Mt. Athos. 1 1601 New Hieromartyr Seraphim, Bishop of Phanarion and Neokhorion.

1 1602 Seraphim of Lebadeia

1624 Death of Dionysius of Zakynthos.[93][94] 1625 The Patriarchal School (Great School of the Nation) opened again under the direction of Theofilos Korydaleas having many students, however Korydaleas' liberal ideas caused the school's closure; Confession of Faith by Metrophanes Kritopoulos written. 1638 First translation of the New Testament into Modern Greek, by the Greek hieromonk Maximos

R Rodios of Gallipoli (Kallioupolitis).

1650-1700 Ottoman Constantinople is largest city in the world by population.

1 1657 New Hieromartyr Parthenius III, Patriarch of Constantinople.

1662 The Patriarchal School (Great School of the Nation) acquired permanent income, a building and remarkable teachers, among them Alexandros Mavrokordatos who bore the title C Confidant. 1669 Greek island of Crete taken by Ottoman Empire from Venetians.

1677 Bishop Henry Compton of London builds church for the Greeks in London. 1 1682 Greek church in London closed. 1 1684 New Hieromartyr Zacharias, Bishop of Corinth. 1 1687 Parthenon devastated by Venetian shelling. 1 1694 Plan for Worcester College, Oxford (then Gloucester Hall) to become a college for the Greeks. 1 1695 New Hieromartyr Romanos of Diminitzas, Lacedemonia.

1 1713 Theological School of Patmos founded.

1716 Miracle of St. Spyridon, who saves Corfu from Ottoman invasion. Eugenios Voulgaris, eminent 18th c. theologian, scholar, "Teacher of the Nation", and Archbishop of C Cherson, Ukraine. St. Kosmas Aitolos, Equal to the Apostles. .

1 1720 Monastery of the Life-Giving Spring (Poros) founded.

1728 The Ecumenical Patriarchate formally replaced the Creation Era (AM) calendar, in use for over 1000 years, with the Christian Era (AD). 1 1730 Death of John the Russian.

1 1735 Death of Athanasius the New, Wonderworker of Christianopolis.

1740 Miracle performed by the glorious Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist, on the island of

C Chios.
1741 Synodal reform initiated, when Metr. Gerasimos of Heraclia obtains a Firman (decree) from Ottoman officials, regulating and subordinating the election of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the five Metropolitans of Heraclia, Kyzikos, Nicomedia, Nicaea, and Chalcedon, creating the so-called System of the Elders (), established gradually, in place until the late 1 19th century.

1 1743 New Hieromartyr Anastasios of Ioannina.

1749 Athonite Ecclesiastical Academy ("Athonite School") is founded on Mount Athos by the brethren of the Monastery of Vatopedion. .

1 1751 New Virgin Martyr Kyranna of Thessalonica.

1753-59 Eminent theologian and scholar Eugenios Voulgaris heads the Athonite School, envisaging a revival and upgrading of learning within the Orthodox Church through substantial training in

t the classics combined with an exposure to modern European philosophy.

1754 Hesychast Renaissance begins with the Kollyvades Movement; most of the Kollyvades were men of high intellectual caliber, educated in ancient Greek and Christian literatures and well versed in the Biblical and Patristic sources of the church; among them were St. Makarios of Corinth, Christophoros of Arta, Agapios of Cyprus, Athanasios of Paros, Neophytos Kausokalyvites, and also St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite; discovery of the holy relics of the "Four

. Martyrs of Megara": Polyeuctos, George, Adrianos and Platon, the "Newly-Revealed".[95][96]

1756 Sigillion of 1756 issued against the Gregorian Calendar by Patr. Cyril V of Constantinople. 1759 School on Mount Athos forced to close down. 1768 Community of Orthodox Greeks establishes itself in New Smyrna, Florida. . 1770 Cretan insurrection against the Ottomans led by Ioannis Daskalogiannis of the Sfakia region is

s subjugated; Hieromartyr George of Neapolis.

1779 Death of Kosmas Aitolos, Equal to the Apostles.[97][98] 1782 First publication of Philokalia on Mount Athos; New Martyr Zacharias of Patra in Morea. ;

1 1793 New Martyr Polydorus of Cyprus.

1794 Glorification of Bp. Panaretos of Paphos (+1790); new martyr Alexander the former Dervish.

1 1795 New Martyr Theodora of Byzantium (Mytiline).

1796 Nicodemus the Hagiorite publishes Unseen Warfare in Venice. 1798 Patriarch Anthimios of Jerusalem contended that the Ottoman Empire was part of the Divine Dispensation granted by God to protect Orthodoxy from the taint of Roman Catholicism and of Western secularism and irreligion.[99] [ 1800 The Rudder (Greek: ) published and printed in Athens;[100] Death of Hieromonk Nikephoros Theotokis, "Teacher of the Nation". ,

1 1802 New Martyr Luke of Mytilene.

1803 Dance of Zalongo. . 1805 Death of Makarios of Corinth, a central figure in the Kollyvades Movement. .

1 1808 New Hieromartyr Nicetas of Serres.

1809 Death of Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain the "Hagiorite"; Hieromartyr Nicetas the Hagiorite. 1813 Death of Athanasius Parios, the second leader of the Kollyvades movement, succeeding

N Neophytos Kausokalyvites (17131784).

1814 Martyrdom of Euthymius and Ignatius of Mount Athos. . 1 1816 Martyrdom of Acacius of Athos. 1819 Council at Constantinople endorses views of Kollyvades fathers. [edit] Greek War of Independence (1821-1829)

Bp. Germanos of Old Patras blessing the Greek banner at Agia Lavra, 25 March 1821. Theodoros Vryzakis (oil painting, 1851). 1821 Greek War of Independence begins as Metr. Germanos of Patras declares Greek independence on Day of Annunciation (March 25), also Kyrio-Pascha, at the Monastery of Agia Lavra, Peloponnese;[note 7] martyrdom of Patr. Gregory V of Constantinople,[102] Abp. Kyprianos of Cyprus,[103] and Abp. Gerasimos (Pardalis) of Crete[104] in retaliation; former Ecumenical

Patriarch Cyril VI of Constantinople (181318) is hanged at the gate of Adrianople's cathedral; [105] Metropolitans Gregorios of Derkon, Dorotheos of Adrianople, Ioannikios of Tyrnavos, and Joseph of Thessaloniki are decapitated on the Sultan's orders in Constantinople;[106] Metropolitans Chrysanthos of Paphos, Meletios of Kition and Lavrentios of Kyrenia are executed in Nicosia, Cyprus;[103] liberation fighters started calling themselves "Hellenes" (for continuity with their ancient Hellenic heritage), rather than using the generic "Romioi" (, which referred to both their Roman citizenship and religious affiliation to Orthodox Christendom);[107][108] death of Nikephoros of Chios.[109][110]

Flag of Greece (1822-1978). In January 1822, the First National Assembly at Epidaurus adopted this

d design to replace the multitude of local revolutionary flags then in use.

1822 The Chios massacre takes place, a total of about 100,000 people perish.[111] [ 1823 Wonderworking Icon of Panagia Evangelistria found on Tinos, led by a vision from Saint Pelagia of Tinos (1834),[112][113] becoming the most venerated pilgrimage item in Greece at the Church of Evangelistria; martyrdom of Hieromonk Christos of Ioannina. ; 1825 Archimandrite Gregorios Dikaios ("Papaflessas") is killed during the Battle of Maniaki on June 20, fighting against the forces of Ibrahim Pasha at Maniaki, Messenia. .

1 1827 Europe recognises the autonomy of Greece.

1828 Ioannis Kapodistrias first president of Greece and confiscates Athonite metochia; Greek church

o opened in London (2nd time).

1829 Treaty of Adrianople ends Greek War of Independence, culminating in the creation of the modern Greek state.[114] [edit]

F First Hellenic Republic (1829-1832)

ca. 1829 The purified and formal language of Katharevousa of Modern Greek is promoted as the official language (to 1976); Ioannis Kapodistrias made Nafplion the first official capital of

m modern Greece (18291834).

1830 The fully sovereign status of Greece was accepted in the London Protocol of February 3, 1830. 1832 Treaty of Constantinople, European powers establish Greek protectorate; Otho I enthroned as Greek King. [edit]

K Kingdom of Greece (1833-1924)

1832-35 Dissolution of the monasteries: the "Bavarokratia" closes down 600 monasteries and nationalises monastic land-holdings.[note 8] [ 1833 The National Assembly at Nauplio declares the Church of Greece as independent from the

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.[note 9][note 10] 1835 On February 2 the Ecumenical Patriarch Constantius II of Constantinople (183435) celebrating with 12 bishops and an enormous flood of the faithful, consecrated the rebuilt Church of the Life-Giving Font dedicating it to the Most Holy Theotokos. . 1837 School of Theology at the National and Capodistrian University of Athens founded. 1838 Council of Constantinople held, attended by Patriarchs Gregory VI of Constantinople and Athanasius V of Jerusalem, whose main theme was the Unia, and the extermination of Latin dogmas and usages;[116] death of New Martyr George of Ioannina. 1839 Theophilos Kairis of Andros condemned and imprisoned for teaching a form of Deism. 1843 Georgios Rizaris, a benefactor, merchant, and member of the Filiki Eteria organization, funded the building of the Rizareios Ecclesiastical School in Athens, which continues to function as a religious and educational institution today, based in Halandri, Athens. , 1844 Prime Minister Ioannis Kolettis first coined the expression the "Great Idea" (Megali Idea), envisaging the restoration of the Christian Orthodox Byzantine Empire with its capital once again established at Constantinople, becoming the core of Greek foreign policy until the early

2 20th century; King Otho I accepts constitution.

1845 Death of priest and scholar Neophytos Doukas, author of a large number of books and translations of ancient Greek works, and one of the most important personalities of the Greek Enlightenment during the Ottoman occupation of Greece. [edit] Autocephalous Era (1850-Present)

The expansion of Greece from 1832 to 1947, showing territories awarded to Greece in 1919 but lost in

1 1923.
1850 Permanent Synod in Constantinople presided over by Patr. Anthimos IV of Constantinople recognised the Autocephaly of the Church of Greece; due to certain conditions issued in the "Tomos" decree, the Greek National Church must maintain special links to the "Mother

C Church".
1856 Death of Neophytos Vamvas, Greek cleric and educator who had translated the Bible into Modern Greek. . 1857-66 J.P. Migne produces the Patrologia Graeca in 162 volumes,[117] including both the Eastern Fathers and those Western authors who wrote before Latin became predominant in the

W Western Church in the 3rd century.

1863 George I enthroned as King of Greece. 1864 Holy Trinity Church, first Orthodox parish established on American soil in New Orleans,

Louisiana, by Greeks.

A Apostolos Makrakis (1831-1905). Greek lay theologian, preacher, ethicist, philosopher and writer.
1866 Greek church takes over the Diocese of the Ionian Islands from Constantinople; beginning of the Great Cretan Revolution (18661869); the holocaust of Arkadi Monastery in Crete; charismatic Greek Orthodox lay theologian, preacher, ethicist and writer Apostolos Makrakis came to Athens, where for six months he delivered twenty speeches in Concord Square on the subject of 'The Work of the Fathers of 1821 and How it Can Best and Quickest Be Brought to a Conclusion' , which were published in the newspaper Justice, and republished in book form in 1886.[118] [ 1871 Body of Patr. Gregory V returned to Athens and entombed in cathedral.

1 1877 Death of Arsenios of Paros (August 18).

1878 Council of Athens, convened and presided over by Metr. Procopius I of Athens, condemned the Makrakists, obtaining closure of Apostolos Makrakis' "School of the Logos" on the pretext that it taught doctrines opposed to the tenets of the Church, and addressed an encyclical to the whole body of Christians in Greece that was read in the churches, charging Makrakis with

a attempting to introduce innovations.

1878 Cyprus is ceded to Britain by Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin. . 1881 Ottomans cede Thessali and Arta regions to Greece; Thessaly and part of Epirus added to the Church of Greece. . 1882 During the patriarchate of Joachim III, the Great School of the Nation was housed in a new large building in the area of the Phanar.

Nicholaos Gysis, "The Secret school", Oil painting, 1885/86. " 1885 Prominent Greek painter Nicholaos Gysis paints the famous "Secret school" (" "), referring to the underground schools provided by the Greek Orthodox Church in monasteries and churches during the time of Ottoman rule in Greece (15th-19th c.) for keeping alive

O Orthodox Christian doctrines and Greek language and literacy.

1888 Typikon of the Great Church of Christ is published with revised church services, prepared by Protopsaltis George Violakis, issued with the approval and blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarch, while the Sabaite (monastic) Typikon continues to be used in the Church of Russia (i.e. from 1682-1888 the Greek and Russian Churches had shared a common Typikon); death of Panagis of Lixouri (Cephalonia). 1890-1917 Emigration of 450,000 Greeks to the United States, many as hired labor for the railroads and mines of the American West.

1894 On March 8, Nektarios of Pentapolis was appointed Dean of the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School, remaining as Dean until 1908, becoming a spiritual guide to many; Apostolos Makrakis made his tenth and last Gospel tour, visiting Thebes, St. Theodore, Levadeia, Atalante, Chalkis, Kyme, Aliverion, Kariston, Gaurion on the islands of Andros, Syros, and his birthplace Siphnos.

[ [119]
1897 Greco-Turkish War. . 1901 Evangeliaka riots in Athens Greece in November, over translations of New Testament into Demotic (Modern) Greek, resulting in fall of both government and Metropolitan of Athens, and

w withdrawal of publications from circulation.

1902 Church of Greece takes responsibility for Greek Orthodox parishes in Australasia from the Church of Jerusalem. . 1904 Ecumenical Patriarchate publishes the "Patriarchal" Text of the Greek New Testament, based on about twenty Byzantine manuscripts, the standard text of the Greek-speaking Orthodox churches today;

Monastery of Agios Nectarios, built ca. 1904-1910 by the Bishop of Pentapoleos Nektarios; still under

c construction today, it is one of the largest churches in Greece.

1904-1910 Nektarios of Pentapolis began building the Convent of the Holy Trinity on the island of Aegina, while yet Dean of the Rizarios School. . 1905 Death of Apostolos Makrakis. . 1907 Archim. Eusebius Matthopoulos founds Zoe Brotherhood; ordination in Constantinople of Fr. Raphael Morgan, "Priest-Apostolic" () to America and the West Indies, and the

f first African-American Orthodox priest.

1908 Death of Methodia of Kimolos; jurisdiction of Greek Church in America and the Greek Church in Australia was temporarily given to the Church of Greece under an agreement made between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Holy Synod of Athens (until 1922 in America; until 1924 in Australia); Nektarios of Pentapolis took up permanent residence on Aegina, where he spent the last years of his life, devoting himself to the direction of his

c convent and to very intense prayer.

1912 Kyriopascha occurs; Balkan Wars: Epirus, Macedonia and the eastern Aegean islands are liberated and come under the administration of the Greek Church, but remain under the n nominal authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

1 1914-18 World War I.

1914 According to the Corfu Protocol Northern Epirus is granted autonomy within Albania; Byzantine & Christian Museum is founded in Athens, becoming one of the most important museums in

t the world in Byzantine Art.

1 1917 Hierarchy of the Greek Church changed in accordance with political control of the country.
1918 The "St. Sophia Redemption Committee" is formed in Britain after the Armistice, whose members included two future Foreign Secretaries and many prominent public figures, seeking to restore Hagia Sophia into an Orthodox Church (19181922);[120] Roman Catholic opposition to the St Sophia Redemption Committee included Msgr. Manuel Bidwell (Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Westminster) who was on the initial committee, Roman Catholic British MP Sir Stuart Coats also on the committee, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri the Papal Secretary of State, and the Vatican who wished to block St. Sophia becoming a Greek Orthodox Church (according to the Grand Vizier of Constantinople who had an offer of Papal support).[120] [note 11]

Saint Nektarios of Aegina, Metropolitan of Pentapolis and Wonderworker of Aegina (1920). 1918-1923 Allied Occupation of Constantinople. . 1918-1924 Emigration of 70,000 Greeks to the United States. . 1919-1922 Greco-Turkish War; a million refugees flee to Greece joining half a million Greeks who had fled earlier; Greek Genocide eliminates the Christian population of Trebizond and

A Anatolia.
1920 Death of Nektarios of Pentapolis (Aegina); St. Nektarios lived on Aegina for 13 years, and was buried in the precinct of the church that he founded; Chrysanthos, Bp. of Trebizond is condemned to death in absentia by a Court Martial in Ankara; Dodecanese Islands ceded to Greece by Italy; publication of Encyclical Letters by Constantinople on Christian unity and on the Ecumenical Movement; Treaty of Svres cedes Eastern Thrace and Ionia (Zone of Smyrna) to Greece, but is superseded in 1923 by the Treaty of Lausanne by which these areas were again lost.

Ethnomartyr Metr. Chrysostomos of Smyrna (1910-1922). 1921 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America formally founded; by a decision of the Kemalist government, all the Metropolitans, Bishops, and Archimandrites of the Pontus region were obliged to abandon Pontus and leave their seats;[121] Hieromartyr Euthymios (Agritellis) of Zela, last Bishop of the Diocese of Zela on the Pontus.[121] [ 1922 Metropolis of Aitolia and Akarnania founded in its modern form; death of Ethnomartyr Metr. Chrysostomos (Kalafatis) of Smyrna, lynched by a Turkish mob incited by Nureddin Pasha on Sunday September 10; Greek troops advancing on Constantinople are routed by the Turkish Army; the predominantly Orthodox Christian city of Smyrna is destroyed, ending 1900 years

of Christian civilization; Patriarch Meletios IV (Metaxakis) transferred the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America from the Church of Greece back to the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. . 1923 Exchange of Christian and Muslim population between Greece and Turkey; Treaty of Lausanne affirmed the international status of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, with Turkey guaranteeing respect and the Patriarchates full protection, also granting control of the Holy Mountain to Greece; Patriarch ceases to be regarded as head of the Christian Orthodox Millet (millet-i Rm) in Turkey; Patr. Meletios IV (Metaxakis) promulgates reformed calendar. . 1924 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia formally founded; death of Arsenios of Cappadocia. [edit]

S Second Hellenic Republic (1924-1935)

1924 Constitution of the Holy Mountain agreed; Greek government adopts Revised Julian calendar. . 1925 School of Theology established at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. . 1925-45 Emigration of less than 30,000 Greeks to the United States, many of whom were "picture

b brides" for single Greek men.

1926 Proposal for Mount Athos to be turned into a Casino by Dictator Theodoros Pangalos. . 1928 The Ecumenical Patriarchate issued a tome by which it ceded to the Church of Greece, on a

t temporary basis, 35 of its metropolitan dioceses in northern Greece to be administered by it.

1930 Mustafa Kemal Atatrk officially renamed Constantinople to Istanbul, which comes from the

G Greek expression "eis tin poli" (to the City) .

1931 Benaki Museum opens in Athens, housing Byzantine, Post-Byzantine, and Neo-Hellenic

e ecclesiastical and national art collections.

1932 Death of Papa-Nicholas (Planas). . 1933 Church of Greece bans Freemasonry. . 1935 Old Calendar schism, when three bishops declared their separation from the official Church of Greece stating that the calendar change was a schismatic act; Greek Old Calendarist groups maintain that they have not separated over a mere calendar, rather that the calendar is a symptom of what has been called "the pan-heresy of ecumenism;" Mustafa Kemal Atatrk transformed Hagia Sophia into a museum. [edit]

K Kingdom of Greece restored (1935-1967)

1936 Apostolic Ministry of the Church of Greece founded; General Ioannis Metaxas, Prime Minister of Greece during the 4th of August Regime (193641), propagated a Third Hellenic Civilization

( (Ancient Greece and Byzantium being the first two).

1938 Death of Silouan of Mt Athos.[122][123]

1939-49 WWII and subsequent Greek Civil War (194249), famine and widespread bloodshed. 1939 The emigration of the Antiochian Greeks reaches its peak. 1943 Massacre of Kalavryta by German occupation forces, including the monks and monastery of Agia Lavra; the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews of Athens fails, thanks to the combined efforts of Abp. Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Athens, Greek resistance groups and the Greek p people.

1 1945 Abp. Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Athens serves as regent in an attempt to stabilise Greece.
1946-82 Approximately 211,000 Greeks emigrated to the US, especially after 1966, tapering off

c considerably since the 1980s.

1947 The Dodecanese Islands are liberated but remain under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. .

1 1948 Death of Savvas the New of Kalymnos.

1950 Uncovering of the relics of St. Ephraim of Nea Makri (+1426).[124] [ 1952 New Monastery of Panagia Soumela built in the village of Kastania, in Macedonia, Greece, housing the wonder-working icon of Panagia Soumela, becoming a center of religious

p pilgrimage.
1953 The Athonite School was officially re-established in Mount Athos, now named the Athonite Ecclesiastical Academy, it occupies a wing of the Skete of St. Andrew in Karyes, and follows

t the Greek secondary school curriculum combined with ecclesiastical education.

1955 Istanbul Pogrom: In September an organised mob was turned against the ethnic Greek community and the Ecumenical Patriarchate in an orchestrated pogrom, destroying 73 churches, 1,004 residences, 5,000 small- and medium-sized businesses, two cemeteries, 23 schools and 5 athletic centres; the number of ethnic Greeks who were forced to leave Turkey by 1960 as a result of these events is estimated at around 9,000.[125] [ 1956 Dr. Constantine Cavarnos founds the Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies in

B Belmont, Massachusetts.
1959 Death of Blessed Elder Joseph (Spilaiotis) the Hesychast. .

1 1960 Death of Anthimos of Chios.

1961 Glorification of Nektarios of Pentapolis (+1920).[126] [ 1962-68 The 12-Volume "Religious and Ethical Encyclopedia" ( ,) is compiled as a joint effort between academics, university scholars and

o other contributors.
1963 Soter Brotherhood is created, as the more traditionalist members broke away from the Zoe Brotherhood to form a smaller new brotherhood under the leadership of Prof. Panagiotes N. Trembelas, having a profound influence on the Church of Greece; Second Pan-Orthodox Conference held in Rhodes; 1000th anniversary celebration of founding of Mount Athos.

1963 Soter Brotherhood is created, as the more traditionalist members broke away from the Zoe Brotherhood to form a smaller new brotherhood under the leadership of Prof. Panagiotes N. Trembelas, having a profound influence on the Church of Greece; Second Pan-Orthodox Conference held in Rhodes; 1000th anniversary celebration of founding of Mount Athos. . 1964 Panagia Malevi icon of the Mother of God begins gushing myrrh; third Pan-Orthodox Conference held in Rhodes; in March, Turkey denounced the 1930 bilateral agreement on disputes arising from the exchange of populations and expelled more than 17,000 ethnic Greeks, who were deprived of all access to their real estate, goods and chattels, subsequently

f followed by the de facto exodus of 40,000 ethnic Greeks of Turkish citizenship.

1965 Death of iconographer Photios Kontoglou, who was a strong influence in the reintroduction of traditional Byzantine and postbyzantine style in church iconography; first Metropolitan for Piraeus is elected, His Eminence Chrysostomos (Tabladorakis) of Argolidos; Monastery of Panagia Pantanassa (Kranidiou) founded; Pope Paul VI of Rome and Patr. Athenagoras I (Spyrou) of Constantinople mutually nullify the excommunications of 1054; the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies is established in Thessaloniki, located at the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Vlatadon (Moni Vlatadon). ) 1966 Death of Righteous Father Ieronymos (Apostolides) of Aegina;[127] Center for Byzantine Research established at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Translation of the sacred relics of the Holy Apostle Titus of Crete, from Venice (which had taken them in 1669), back to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Crete.[128] [ 1967 Glorification of Arsenios of Paros (+1877) by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. [edit]

M Military Dictatorship (1967-1974)

1968 Orthodox Academy of Crete (OAC) founded by the Archdiocese of Crete, near the Moni Gonia Monastery. .

1 1970 Death of Amphilochios (Makris) of Patmos.

1971 Halki Seminary, Orthodoxy's most prominent theological school, is closed by Turkish authorities breaching Article 40 of the Lausanne Treaty and Article 24 of the Turkish Constitution which both guarantee religious freedom and education; Abp. Makarios III (Mouskos) of Cyprus baptizes more than 5,000 into the Orthodox Church in Kenya, mostly from the Kikuyu tribe.[129][130] 1972 Ecclesiastical coup in Cyprus fails to remove Abp. Makarios III from the Presidency; death of missionary Archimandrite Chrysostomos Papasarantopoulos, having laboured to spread the

O Orthodox faith in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Congo.

1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Turkish forces advance capturing the 37% of the island, 3,000 are .

killed or missing, 200,000 become refugees; the Monarchy is voted out by a plebiscite vote of 69%. [edit] Third Hellenic Republic (1974-Present)

Archbishop Seraphim of Athens and All Greece (1974-1998). 1974 Esphigmenou Monastery (Athos), a stronghold for the conservative Greek Old Calendarists, withdrew its representative from the common meetings of the Holy Community at Karyes (the administrative center of Mount Athos), accusing the Patriarchate of being ecumenist, and refusing to commemorate the Patriarch; Metr. Seraphim of Ioannina is elected Archbishop of Athens and all Greece (19741998); the Cathedral of Saint Andrew in Patras is inaugurated, being the largest church in Greece, housing the relics of Saint Andrew the Apostle.

The Cathedral of Agios Andreas (Saint Andrew) in Patras, Achaea, Greece. , 1975 Death of Papa-Dimitris (Gagastathis); Article 3 of the Greek Constitution officially declares the prevailing religion in Greece as Eastern Orthodoxy under the authority of the autocephalous Church of Greece, united in doctrine to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.[note 12] [ 1976 The Dimotiki (Demotic) dialect of Modern Greek was made the official language, replacing the purified and formal Katharevousa dialect of Modern Greek which had been in use for nearly t two centuries since foundation of the modern Greek state.

1 1978 Abortions are legalised in Greece but only under certain specific circumstances.
1980 Death of Elder Philotheos (Zervakos) of Paros; Orthodox-Roman Catholic Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue, 1st plenary, met in Patmos and Rhodes; Greek priest-monk Fr. Athanasios Anthides travelled to India to begin a systematic Orthodox Mission in the rural area of Arambah, in West Bengal state, in eastern India. 1981 Greece becomes the 10th member of the European Community, January 1; Adultery is

d decriminalized in the penal code.

1982 Monotonic orthography was imposed by law on the Greek language, however the Greek Orthodox Church continues to use polytonic orthography. .

1 1983 Death of Elder Arsenios the cave-dweller of Mt. Athos.

1984 Orthodox-Roman Catholic Joint Commission, 3rd plenary, meets in Khania, Crete. , 1986 Root of Jesse icon of the Mother of God in Andros begins gushing myrrh; glorification of

A Arsenios the Cappadocian (+1924) by the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

1987 In April, parliament approved a law to expropriate monastic land in order to redistribute some to poor peasants, and to take over administration of urban church-owned assets; Abp.

Seraphim (Tikas) of Athens was victorious however in preventing the government from expropriating church landholdings, by allowing some land redistribution while opposing

n nationalisation of church and monastery land.

1988 Mount Athos[132] and the Meteora[133] are designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites; radio station "Church of Piraeus 91.2 FM" begins transmitting in October. " 1989 Elder Ephraim of Philotheou begins founding Athonite-style monasteries in North America; Mystras is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site;[134] [ 1990 The Friends of Mount Athos society is formed by people sharing a common interest for the monasteries of Mount Athos, with Metr. Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia being the President of the society, also including Prince Philip (Duke of Edinburgh) and Prince Charles (Prince of Wales and Heir Apparent to the British throne) among its members; the monasteries of Daphni (Athens), Hosios Loukas (Beotia) and Nea Moni of Chios, are designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites;[135] death of Fr. Athanasios Anthides, first Greek Orthodox Missionary to India, succeeded a year later by priest-monk Fr. Ignatios Sennis, who came to Calcutta to

c continue the mission.

1991 Death of Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris) the Kapsokalivite (Evangelos (Bairaktaris)) February 7. [136][137]

Elder Paisios (Eznepidis) of Mt. Athos. 1992 On November 4, 1992, the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece unanimously declared Bp. Chrysostomos of Smyrna (1922) an Ethnomartyr and a Saint of the Orthodox Church, to be jointly commemorated on the Sunday before the Feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, together with four other Holy Hierarchs of Asia Minor including: Bp. Ambrosios of Moschonision, Bp. Euthymios (Agritellis) of Zela (1921), Bp. Gregorios of Kidonion (1922), and Bp. Procopius of Iconium.[138][note 13] deaths of Gabrielia (Papayannis) and Chrysanthi of Andros; Synaxis of primates of Orthodox churches in Constantinople; Thessaloniki was selected as the cultural capital of Europe (1997). 1993 Church of Cyprus condemned Freemasonry as a religion incompatible with Christianity. 1994 Death of Elder Paisios (Eznepidis) of Mt. Athos, July 12; Museum of Byzantine Culture is inaugurated in Thessaloniki; Greek Parliament passes a resolution affirming the genocide in the Pontus region of Asia Minor and designated May 19 a day of commemoration; the Liaison Office of the Orthodox Church to the European Union was established by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Brussels. 1995 Death of Eldress Macrina of Volos; Ecumenical Patr. Bartholomew I visits Patmos as part of the celebration of the 1,900th anniversary of the writing of the Book of Revelation by the

Evangelist John. . 1997 A bomb explodes at the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, seriously injuring

O Orthodox deacon Nectarius Nikolou and damaging several buildings.

1998 Death of Elder Ephraim of Katounakia; Thessaloniki Summit held to discuss Orthodox participation in WCC; Archbishop Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) was enthroned in Athens as the new head of the Greek Orthodox Church (19982008); a proposal to force the separation of church and state in Greece was rejected; Greek parliament affirmed the genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor as a whole (Pontian and Anatolian Ottoman Greeks), and designated September 14 a day of commemoration; on December 8 the Bioethics Committee of the Church of Greece was appointed, to study in depth contemporary bioethical problems from a scientific viewpoint based on Orthodox ethos and the theological perception of man, society and values; posthumous recognition by the State of Israel of Metr. Joachim (Alexopoulos) of Demetrias for saving the lives of 700 people during World War II who were hidden by the residents of the villages of Mount Pelion, having his name inscribed in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, and entered on the Righteous Honor Wall at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and All Greece (1998-2008). ca.2000 Notable Greek Orthodox modern writers of the younger generation include: Metr. John Zizioulas of Pergamon, Archimandrite Vasileios Gontikakis, Prof. Christos Yannaras, Prof. Fr. John S. Romanides (+2001), Bp. Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, Protopresbyter Nikolaos Loudovikos, Protopresbyter George Metallinos, Protopresbyter Theodore Zisis, and Panayiotis

N Nellas, among others.

2000 Government of Greece orders removal of compulsory reference to religious affiliation on state identity cards, despite campaigns against this from the Church of Greece and the majority of

t the public.
2001 Death of Elder Haralambos Dionysiatis, teacher of noetic prayer; on the first trip to Greece by a Pope since AD 710, Pope John Paul II of Rome apologizes to Orthodox Church for Fourth Crusade; a day earlier some 1,000 Orthodox conservatives took to the streets to denounce his visit; in March, Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens blessed the Hellenic Genocide Petition Effort, which urged that the government not violate Law 2675/98 by deleting the term "genocide" when explaining the destruction of Hellenism in Asia Minor; Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens visits the Patriarchate of Moscow, being also received by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexii II, and head of the Greek Orthodox Church Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens and all Greece, at the Kremlin in Moscow. . 2002 The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece rejected a proposal to introduce Modern Greek into

the Divine Liturgy (similar to what the Second Vatican Council did for the Roman Catholic Church by allowing the use of the vernacular for the Mass), opting to keep Koine Greek as it was spoken 2,000 years ago and used in New Testament texts;[140] Metropolis of Glyfada is established as a new metropolis separating from Metropolis of Nea Smyrni; Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens consented to the construction of a mosque in Athens to end the situation of the Greek capital being the only EU capital without a Muslim place of worship; Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople declared the monks of Esphigmenou Monastery (Athos) as being in schism with the Orthodox Church. . 2003 Orthodox Churches in Europe commemorated the 550th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople in May; the Greek Minister of Culture Evangelos Venizelos informs Europarliament session that the status of the monasteries on Holy Mount Athos and its way of life will remain unchanged, citing official recognition of this status fixed in Article 105 of the Greek Constitution and also legally confirmed in the special Athens Treaty clause specifying conditions on which Greece joined the European Union; in February, the Holy Synod of the Greek Orthodox Church issued a statement opposing the threat of war in Iraq.[141] [ 2003 Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens has falling out with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew over who should have the final say in the appointment of bishops in northern Greece, but rift is mended four months later; the proposal to build a mosque outside Athens before the 2004 Olympics was blocked due to opposition from residents and Greece's Orthodox Church which disagreed with the location and plans for the funding for the multimillion-pound mosque to come from Saudi Arabia's King Fahd; Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens inaugurated the Office of the Representation of the Church of Greece to the European Union in Brussels. 2004 In September, a helicopter carrying Patr. Petros VII (Papapetrou) of Alexandria along with 16 others (including 3 other bishops of the Church of Alexandria) crashed into the Aegean Sea while en route to the monastic community of Mount Athos with no survivors. 2005 Church of Greece hosted the WCC World Conference on Mission and Evangelism in Athens, the first in an Orthodox country in the history of this body; in October, the "Grey Wolves" Turkish terrorist group staged a rally outside the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Phanar, proceeding to the gate where they laid a black wreath, chanting "Patriarch Leave" and "Patriarchate to Greece", inaugurating the campaign for the collection of signatures to oust the Ecumenical Patriarchate from Istanbul; Britain's Prince Charles arrived on the monastic community of Mount Athos for a three-day visit in May; Vladimir Putin becomes the first Russian state leader to visit Mount Athos. . 2006 Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens visits Vatican, the first head of the Church of Greece to visit the Vatican, reciprocating the Pope's visit to Greece in 2001, signing a Joint

Declaration on the importance of the Christian roots of Europe and protecting fundamental human rights; government of Greece announces it will fund and build a 15 million (US$19 million) new mosque in Athens, to be the first working mosque in the Greek capital since the end of Ottoman rule over 170 years prior, welcomed by Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens and the Church of Greece in accordance with its established position; Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens castigated globalisation as a "crime against humanity"; Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis goes on a three-day pilgrimage to Mount Athos; Pope Benedict XVI met with Greek Orthodox Seminarians from the Apostoliki Diakonia theology college in Greece who were visiting Rome, urging them to confront the challenges that threaten the faith by working to unify all Christians; a ruling by a first-instance court in Athens approved the formation of an association of people who worship the 12 gods of Mount Olympus, linked to New Age practises by the Church of Greece.[142] [ 2006 The church reported that there were 216 mens monastic communities and 259 for women along with 66 sketes, with a total of 1,041 monks and 2,500 nuns, witnessing to a modern modest revival in monasticism; in September, barely 48 hours after a Somali Islamic cleric called for Muslims to kill the Pope, Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens told a sermon in Athens that Christians in Africa were suffering at the hands of "fanatic Islamists", citing the example of Roman Catholic monks who were slaughtered the previous year "because they wore the cross and believed in our crucified Lord"; Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens criticized the authors of a state issued elementary school sixth grade history textbook, as attempting to conceal the Church's role in defending Greek national identity during Ottoman occupation, the book being later removed in 2007;[note 14] death of Elder Athanasios Mitilinaios, having authored thousands of recorded lectures in the spirit of patristic traditional Orthodoxy.[144] [ 2007 Greek Minority Lyceum at the Phanar (Megali tou Genous Sxoli - today a middle and high school of the Greek minority) wins a judgement condemning Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), for violation of the European Convention On Human Rights (protection of property); 1600th anniversary celebration of the repose of John Chrysostom; the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed the IAGS Resolution on Genocides Against Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, and Other Christians by the Ottoman Empire 13 July 2007, affirming that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities between 1914-1923 was genocide; a half-finished painting in the Church of the Holy Virgin in Axioupolis, northern Greece, of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin cutting off the beard of St Luke (VoinoYasenetsky), painted as a symbol of communist oppression of the Church, offended traditionalists who wanted it removed.[145]

Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens, (2008-Present). , 2008 Death of Abp. Christodoulos (Paraskevaides) of Athens, proving to be one of the most popular archbishops in Greek history, reviving the appeal of the Church in a secular age, especially among young people; Abp. Ieronymos II (Liapis) of Athens elected; Glorification of George (Karslidis) of Drama; Pan-Orthodox meeting in Constantinople in October of the Primates of the fourteen Orthodox Churches, signing a document calling for inter-orthodox unity and collaboration and "the continuation of preparations for the Holy and Great Council"; the 13member standing committee of the Church of Greece denounced government plans to introduce a civil partnerships law, saying government support for common law marriage would amount to state-sanctioned prostitution; Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Addresses European Parliament. . 2009 The European Court on Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that Turkey violated the property rights of the Bozcaada Kimisis Teodoku Greek Orthodox Church on the Aegean island of Bozcaada; the Ecumenical Patriarchate has filed more than two dozen cases with the ECHR to recover some of the thousands of properties it has lost; US President Barack Obama made an explicit appeal in his speech to the Turkish Parliament for the reopening of the hotly contested Greek Orthodox Theological Seminary on Halki, viewed by the European Union and others as a test case for religious freedom in Turkey; a delegation from the Orthodox Church of Greece headed by Metropolitan Nectarios of Kerkira, Paxoi and Diapontioi Nisoi visited several monasteries in West Ukraine; Patr. Mor Ignatius Zakka I Iwas of the Oriental Church of Antioch went on an official visit to Greece, as the guests of the Greek Government and the Greek Orthodox Church to congratulate the new Abp. of the Greek Church and to renew the relationship between both churches; Elder Joseph of Vatopedi reposes peacefully, funeral service held July 1; Russian Orthodox Patr. Kirill of Moscow called on Turkish authorities to reopen the Theological Seminary on Halki; over 1,000 Muslims rallied in the city streets of Athens over unsubstantiated claims that Greek police allegedly tore up and trampled on the Quran, smashing 75 cars, injuring 14 people, overturning trash bins and attacking banks; [146][147] a group of Orthodox clergy in Greece, led by three senior archbishops, published a manifesto, A Confession of Faith Against Ecumenism, pledging to resist all ecumenical ties with Roman Catholics and Protestants, amongst its signatories including six metropolitans, as well as 49 archimandrites, 22 hieromonks, and 30 nuns and abbesses, as well as many other priests and church elders;[148] pilgrimage to Mount Athos of the former Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych, current leader of the opposition in parliament; Greek Orthodox Church urges Christians across Europe to unite in an appeal against a ban on crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.[149] [ 2010 On Sunday, August 15, 2010 Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I conducted the first Divine

Liturgy in 88 years at the historic monastery of Panagia Soumela in Trapezounta, northeastern Turkey, marking the first official religious service carried out at the ancient monastery since the foundation of the modern Turkish Republic;[note 15] death of Metr. Augoustinos Kantiotes of Florina, a prolific spiritual writer and defender of traditional Orthodox theology.[151] 2011 On Sunday 3 April 2011, at 9:30 pm, in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Kalymnos, the face of Christ crowned with thorns appeared in the icon of the Virgin Mary on the iconostasis;[note 16] canonization of 1241 New Martyrs of Naoussa, Greece, massacred by the Ottomans from Thursday of Bright Week to the Sunday of Thomas in 1822.[153][154] Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church (DECR), visits the Greek Orthodox Church.[155] wiki on orthodox timeline

The supposed r oyal path

Fr. Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, from a letter in which he discusses the Calendar and Ecumenism:"Let us be attentive! With humility, with prayer, with fasting, with solemnity, let us ask for enlightenment by the Lord, on how we must tread during the oncoming developments. The Church is faced with double trouble: on the one hand, there is satanically-driven Ecumenism, and on the other hand, there is soul-devastating Fanaticism, which eventually leads to horrific blasphemies and heresies and obscures the truth. Let us be fearful of both and flee from both. We must not deviate to the right or to the left. Let us walk along the middle and "royal" path, which is the path of unadulterated Orthodoxy that knows how to safeguard precision (akrivia) and is also aware of the displays of dispensation (oikonomia).Rejoice, brother! And I shall again say "rejoice!" Rejoice, in the midst of every grief and every affliction. For Jesus "surrendered Himself for our sins, and was risen for our vindication" (Rom.4:25)."(http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/02/ecumenism-and-schismatic-old.html)

Mother Gabriel against ecumenists

Joint praying with anyone who is not within the Body of the Church, is forbidden by the Orthodox Catholic (overall) Church of Christ. Attention! It is not forbidden because we dont love the heterodox, nor is it forbidden because we are religiously intolerant. Religious intolerance is not an Orthodox stance. Quite the opposite. We love everyone and sincerely desire that they come to know Christ and Orthodoxy. We may hate the lies, but we do not hate the liar. However, in order to pray together with someone, there must be a common faith. Otherwise, which God will we be praying to, simultaneously? The gods of the Gentiles are demons we are told by the Holy Bible; and Mother Gabriele confirms this, in her own way. But even if we talk about heresies, can we truly say that the God of the Orthodox is the same as the God of say the Latins, who is portrayed as vengeful and inclined towards a legalistic justice, according to Anselm of Canterbury? Do the Orthodox give the same description of God? One might comment that God is One, and indeed He is. But not everyone knows Him. If, for example, I were to describe the prime minister of our country (Greece) as 2,15m tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes and long nose, would my description be an accurate one? Not necessarily! Well, the same thing applies with heresies. They all talk about the persona of Christ, and they also talk about virtue or even about love, but these are mere words. They dont have any real meaning, because their meaning has been distorted. This is why the Church has forbidden joint praying, and why any transgression thereof incurs the penalty of defrocking or excommunication. Those who transgress this rule, regardless of what position they have in the Church, are committing a sin.

http://www.oodegr.com/english/oikoumenismos/Gavriilia1.htm

Concerning Elder Ephraim Ok to be in heresy

Anti-Patristic: The Stance of the Zealot Old Calendarists orthodoxinfo.com/.../anti-patristic-stance-old-calendarist-zealots.aspx 17 Jun 2007 The occasion of this article was my departure from the Zealot Fathers of the Holy Mountain and my taking up residence in the aforesaid Sacred ...---note weak

article

elder joseph and Ephraim initially separated from polis as athonite zealot monks, but then found the calling again back in their gut. First with matthewittes then florinites
Elder Joseph also heard a divine voice inform him that, "the Church is found in the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople."

T The HEAD OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IS CHRIST NOT ANY PATRAIRCH!!!

Doctrine of apokstasdtasis by Mario baghos is the thorn of ecumenism that is universal restoration and pluralism
These verbal contradictions explain why the defenders of orthodoxy should have thought that St. Gregory of Nyssa's writings had been tampered with by heretics. St. Germanus of Constantinople, writing in the eighth century, went so far as to say that those who held that the devils and lost souls would one day be set free had dared "to instil into the pure and most healthful spring of his [Gregory's] writings the black and dangerous poison of the error of Origen, and to cunningly attribute this foolish heresy to a man famous alike for his virtue and his learning" (quoted by Photius, Bibl. Cod., 223; P.G. CIII, col. 1105) The doctrine of the apokatastasis is not, indeed, peculiar to St. Gregory of Nyssa, but is taken from Origen, who seems at times reluctant to decide concerning the question of the eternity of punishment. Origen teaches the apokatastasis, the final restoration of all intelligent creatures to friendship with God. Clement allows that sinful souls shall be sanctified after death by a spiritual fire, and that the wicked shall, likewise, be punished by fire We note, further, that the doctrine of the apokatastasis was held in the East, not only by St. Gregory of Nyssa, but also by St. Gregory of Nazianzus as well; "De seipso", 566 (P.G., XXXVII, col. 1010) he doctrine was formally condemned in the first of the famous anathemas pronounced at the Council of Constantinople in 543: the 2nd Council of Constantinople in 553 CE declared apokatastasis as heresy St. Thomas Aquinas could hardly be happy, it is said, from thinking of the doom of the Devil and went so far in his pity for the prisoner of the pit as to spend a night in prayer for the pardon and restoration of the dethroned archangel. O God, he prayed, have mercy upon Thy servant the Devil (Rudwin 284). If Milton did believe in apokatatasis and disagreed with Justinians condemnation of the doctrine, then he would not be the only Protestant to share this view. Apokatatasis was championed during the Reformation in the writings of Denk (d. 1527), and Harnak has not hesitated to assert that nearly all the Reformers were apokatastaists at heart The doctrine of apokatastasis viewed as a belief in a universal salvation is found among the Anabaptists, the Moravian Brethren, the Christadelphians, among rationalistic Protestants, and finally among the Professed Universalists Francis Clarke pseudo Gregorian dialogues On purgatory 4.26 1-14 Gregory of Nyssa St. Gregory of Nyssa accepted the idea of apocatastasis from Origen. However, this part of St. Gregory's writings has been unequivocally rejected by the subsequent Church Fathers: : St. Varsanofios the Great, criticizing the doctrine of apocatastasis, when asked about St. Gregory's opinion, has answered: "do not think that people, though also saints, could completely understand all depths of God... Even if a saint speaks about such opinions, you will not find that he confirmed the words as though had the statement from above, but that they resulted from the doctrine of his former teachers, and he, trusting their knowledge of them, did not inquire of God whether it was true."citation needed

16.

St. Herman of Constantinople has also expressed a negative opinion of the doctrine, but he

supposes that the works of St. Gregory have been damaged by Origenists: "those who liked that absurd idea, as if for demons and for people who will be subjected to eternal punishment, is possible to expect the discontinuance... they have taken his clean and sensible works and have added the dark and disastrous poison of Origen's nonsense."citation needed n St. Mark of Ephesus, after citing St. Gregory, exclaims: "Are we wrong when we do not believe those words of St. Gregory of Nyssa, considering them forgeries, or, even if they are original, to not accept as contradictory to Scripture and to the general dogma?"citation needed n St. Maximus the Confessor, rejecting an Origenistic interpretation of apocatastasis, considered that St. Gregory used this term "in sense of restoration of cognitive forces of the man in that condition of the correct relation to truth."citation needed St. Photius the Great has expressed the Church's general interpretation in one phrase: "that in works of St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, where restoration is mentioned, it is not accepted by the Church."citation needed Evagrius Ponticus Isaac of Syria The Church reaction to Origenism The anathemas of the local Council of Constantinople in 453, which is understood by most commentators to be confirmed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553, posthumously excommunicated Origen and anyone following specific points of his teachings. These anathemas condemned his protology of pre-existent souls and his eschatology of universal restoration of all things "which follows from" his protology1: : If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema. (First anathema against Origen) If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day be united in one, when the hypostases as well as the numbers and the bodies shall have disappeared, and that the knowledge of the world to come will carry with it the ruin of the worlds, and the rejection of bodies as also the abolition of [all] names, and that there shall be finally an identity of the and of the hypostasis; moreover, that in this pretended apocatastasis, spirits only will continue to exist, as it was in the feigned pre-existence: let him be anathema. (Fourteenth anathema against Origen)2 The decisions of ecumenical councils have universal authority in the Orthodox Church. Only doctrinal definitions have the force of dogma. Local councils only have authority within specific geographic limits. Modern Advocates If we are going to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, then let's examine what he says about St. Gregory of Nyssa:"Further, Gregory of Nyssa [De iis qui in fide dormiunt] says: "If one who loves and believes in

Christ," has failed to wash away his sins in this life, "he is set free after death by the fire of Purgatory." http://www.newadvent.org/summa/7001.htm Stanley, This is an example of the distorted quotes which used to annoy the Orthodox so much on CAF. Saint Geregory of Nyssa who died in the 4th century could not have written that. The term "purgatorium" did not appear until the Middle Ages in the Roman Catholic Church with Pope Innocent III. Quotes from orthodox wiki Marios paper on apokatastatis is heretical and on pg 149 he states clearly that those who did not imitate Christ and be purified in this life can do so in the next life through purgatorial fire.

BYZANTINE FRESCOES AND THE TURIN SHROUD pdf

Byzantium sources and pdfs

The antichrist by st hipolytus

Creationism

2. The 'Boundless' as principle anaximander

from proof anaximander pro creation. Creation 2 file

According to Aristotle and Theophrastus, the first Greek philosophers were looking for the 'origin' or 'principle' (the Greek word 'arch' has both meanings) of all things. Anaximander is said to have identified it with 'the Boundless' or 'the Unlimited' (Greek: 'apeiron', i.e. 'that which has no boundaries'). Already in ancient times, it is complained that Anaximander did not explain what he meant by 'the Boundless' J

Texas Giant Human Skull

From Evidence giants doc

anuary 7, 2008 by David Allen Deal There are groups in our society that have always tried to suppress any evidence that supports biblical history, such as the flood of Noah, or existence of giants, wherever and whenever they have been found in the past. Sometimes the evidence is sent to the Smithsonian or a state university from which it disappears, never to be seen again. As time passes these efforts are ever increasing, and now we see attacks against all religion by wild-eyed fanatic atheists. The famous Davenport Iowa, Academy of Natural Sciences dispute with and report about the arrogance of Mr. Henshaw of the Smithsonian by Charles Putman in 1885 is another example of honest academics going up against the Smithsonian Institute and the erroneous and spiteful policies of its director, Major John Wesley Powell Creation notes.docown little summary

Darwin taught eugenics

Darwin also taught that morality has no essential authority, but is something that itself evolved, he continued. These simple (and simplistic) ideas are certainly accessible to disturbed adolescents who feel nothing stops them from taking natural law into their own hands. And Darwin himself wrote in 1881, Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.

Early fathers and creationism--- beautiful pdf

Fathers unanimous on the flood

The Extent of the Flood The Extent of the Flood The Extent of the Flood The Extent of the Flood Table 6.1: The Opinion of Ancient Writers Concerning the Extent of Noahs Flood Extent of Flood Writer Date Local Global Reference Philo c.20 BC-c.AD 50 X Abraham, 41-44 Josephus AD 37/38 - 100 X Antiquities, 1.3.4 (1.89) Justin Martyr c.100 - c.165 X Dialogue, 138 Theophilus of Antioch Wrote c.180 X Autolycus, 3.18-19 Tertullian c.160 - c.225 X Pallium, 2; Women, 3 Gregory of Nazianzus 330-390 X 2nd Theol. Orat. 18 John Chrysostom 374-407 X Genesis, 25.10 Augustine of Hippo 354-430 X City 15.27

Anaximander and pro creation ancient greeks

Anaximander claimed that the cosmic order is not monarchic but geometric and this causes the equilibrium of the earth which is lying in the centre of the universe.This is the projection on nature of a new political order and a new space organized around a centre which is the static point of the system in the society as in nature.[10] In this space there is isonomy (equal rights) and all the forces are symmetrical and transferrable. The decisions are now taken by the assembly of demos in the agora which is lying in the middle of the city.[11]

Dinosaurs reference in the bible

The book of Job is considered to be one of the oldest books of the Bible by many scholars. Job describes two large creatures called behemoth and leviathan. Behemoth was obviously as big as a dinosaur as it is described as having a tail like a cedar. Leviathan is an equally massive creature of the sea. There are sound reasons to identify behemoth with a Sauropod dinosaur and leviathan with the Kronosauru

7. Darwin Married His First Cousin

Darwin was a logical man, and he approached the important issue of marriage like he would any problem. In The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, Darwin made careful pro and con list of marriage to his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood: Image: Cambridge University Library - The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

Marry - Marry - Marry Q.E.D. It is ironic that the man who gave rise to the importance of genetics in natural selection chose to marry his first cousin (Darwin wasn't alone in this - Einstein also married his cousin), but one thing is for sure: Darwin cleverly avoided adding more relatives to visit!

English trying to use greeks as support of their barbarc medieval folly Thinkers as far
back as the Ancient Greeks discussed the merits of the theory. As Darwin noted in his Historical Sketch at the beginning of The Origin of Species, Aristotle (B.C.E. 384322) wrote in one of his best-known books that, In cases where a coincidence created a combination which seems as though it might have been arranged on purpose, the creatures, it is urged, having been suitably formed by the operation of chance, survived; otherwise they perished, and still perish. . . .2 Darwin, who was told about the statement by the British philologist Claire Grece (18311905), latched on to the fact that Aristotle recognized that some change occurred in nature.3 In fact, Darwin had misunderstood Aristotle: Aristotle was quoting a philosopher with whom he disagreed. Aristotle was no proponent of evolution

A scientific study of the myth of vestigial organs: "Vestigial Organs" Are Fully Functional.

For a long time, the concept of "vestigial organs" appeared frequently in evolutionist literature as "evidence" of evolution. Eventually, it was silently put to rest when this was proved to be invalid. But some evolutionists still believe in it, and from time to time someone will try to advance "vestigial organs" as important evidence of evolution. The notion of "vestigial organs" was first put forward a century ago. As evolutionists would have it, there existed in the bodies of some creatures a number of non-functional organs. These had been inherited from progenitors and had gradually become vestigial from lack of use. The whole assumption is quite unscientific, and is based entirely on insufficient knowledge. These "non-functional organs" were in fact organs whose "functions had not yet been discovered." The best indication of this was the gradual yet substantial decrease in evolutionists' long list of vestigial organs. S. R. Scadding, an evolutionist himself, concurred with this fact in his article "Can vestigial organs constitute evidence for evolution?" published in the journal Evolutionary Theory: Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that 'vestigial organs' provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.312 The list of vestigial organs that was made by the German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 included approximately 100 organs, including the appendix and coccyx. As science progressed, it was discovered that all of the organs in Wiedersheim's list in fact had very important functions. For instance, it was discovered that the appendix, which was supposed to be a "vestigial organ," was in

fact a lymphoid organ that fought infections in the body. This fact was made clear in 1997: Other bodily organs and tissues-the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestineare also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection.313 It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were included in the same list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column supports the bones around the pelvis and is the convergence point of some small muscles and for this reason, it would not be possible to sit comfortably without a coccyx.

The appendix (above), which evolutionists thought to be a vestigial organ, has now been understood to play an important part in the body's immune system. The coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column is also not a vestigial organ but provides an attachment for our pelvic organs so that they will not collapse. In the years that followed, it was realized that the thymus triggered the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones such as melatonin, which inhibits secretion of luteinizing hormone, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children and in metabolism and body activity, and that the pituitary gland controlled skeletal growth and the proper functioning of the thyroid, adrenals, and reproductive glands. All of these were once considered to be "vestigial organs." Finally, the semi-lunar fold in the eye, which was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, has been found in fact to be in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eyeball. There was a very important logical error in the evolutionist claim regarding vestigial organs. As we have just seen, this claim was that the vestigial organs in living things were inherited from their ancestors. However, some of the alleged "vestigial" organs are not found in the species alleged to be the ancestors of human beings! For example, the appendix does not exist in some ape species that are said to be ancestors of man. The famous biologist H. Enoch, who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows: Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this?314 Beside all of this, the claim that an organ which is not used atrophies and disappears over time carries a logical inconsistency within it. Darwin was aware of this inconsistency, and made the following confession in The Origin of Species: There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give.315 Simply put, the scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains a number of serious logical flaws, and has in any case been proven to be scientifically untrue. There exists not one inherited vestigial organ in the human body.

312 S. R. Scadding, "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?," Evolutionary Theory, vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.313 The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Home edition, Merck & Co., Inc. The Merck Publishing Group, Rahway, New Jersey, 1997.314 H. Enoch, Creation and Evolution, New York, 1966, pp. 18-19.315 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, http://www.zoo.uib.no/classics/darwin/origin.chap14.html.

Democrituss un westernized idea of happiness

5. Ethics. Democritus's moral system -- the first collection of ethical precepts which deserves the name -- strongly resembles the negative side of the system of Epicurus. The summum bonum is the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of pain. But true pleasure is not sensual enjoyment; it has its principle in the soul. It consists not in the possession of wealth or flocks and herds, but in good humor, in the just disposition and constant tranquillity of the soul. Hence the necessity of avoiding extremes;

too much and too little are alike evils. True happiness consists in taking advantage of what one has and being content with it.

unenglish Democritus democracy

The ethics and politics of Democritus come to us mostly in the form of maxims. He says that "Equality is everywhere noble," but he is not encompassing enough to include women or slaves in this sentiment. Poverty in a democracy is better than prosperity under tyrants, for the same reason one is to prefer liberty over slavery. Those in power should "take it upon themselves to lend to the poor and to aid them and to favor them, then is there pity and no isolation but companionship and mutual defense and concord among the citizens and other good things too many to catalogue." Money when used with sense leads to generosity and charity, while money used in folly leads to a common expense for the whole society excessive hoarding of money for one's children is avarice. While making money is not useless, he says, doing so as a result of wrong-doing is the "worst of all things." He is on the whole ambivalent towards wealth, and values it much less than self-sufficiency. He disliked violence but was not a pacifist: he urged cities to be prepared for war, and believed that a society had the right to execute a criminal or enemy so long as this did not violate some law, treaty, or oath.[2][27] Goodness, he believed, came more from practice and discipline than from innate human nature. He believed that one should distance oneself from the wicked, stating that such association increases disposition to vice. Anger, while difficult to control, must be mastered in order for one to be rational. Those who take pleasure from the disasters of their neighbors fail to understand that their fortunes are tied to the society in which they live, and they rob themselves of any joy of their own. He advocated a life of contentment with as little grief as possible, which he said could not be achieved through either idleness or preoccupation with worldly pleasures. Contentment would be gained, he said, through moderation and a measured life; to be content one must set their judgment on the possible and be satisfied with what one hasgiving little thought to envy or admiration. Democritus approved of extravagance on occasion, as he held that feasts and celebrations were necessary for joy and relaxation. He considers education to be the noblest of pursuits, but cautioned that learning without sense leads to error.[2][27] [edit] Mathematics

A right circular cone and an oblique circular cone Democritus was also a pioneer of mathematics and geometry in particular. We only know this through citations of his works (titled On Numbers, On Geometrics, On Tangencies, On Mapping, and On Irrationals) in other writings, since most of Democritus' body of work did not survive the Middle Ages. Democritus was among the first to observe that a cone or pyramid has one-third the volume of a cylinder or prism respectively with the same base and height. Also, a cone divided in a plane parallel to its base produces two surfaces. He pointed out that if the two surfaces are commensurate with each other, then the shape of the body would appear to be a cylinder, as it is composed of equal rather than unequal circles. However, if the surfaces are not commensurate, then the side of a cone is not smooth but jagged like a series of steps.[34]

Start of social welfare and Darwinism losing its strength in politics

fter the 1906 election, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill began to reform society according to

the Rowntree Report. The report detailed poor people from York and explained that although they tried hard to lift themselves out of their poverty, it was nearly always impossible. This contributed to changing the prevalent social view that the poor were lazy and stupid, and new policies were made concerning the 'Deserving Poor'. These social reforms earned the Liberal Party the title 'Fathers of the Welfare State' and were largely due to the implementation of Social Darwinist philosophies.

Early geologists in Darwin time

The main question, which became a serious scientific problem in Darwins day, came from the growing science of geology, specifically from the study of rock layers (called stratigraphy) and debates about the age of the earth. The question: Where do species come from? Early geologists had begun to see that each fossil species appeared only in certain rock layers but not others.(1) Other scientists proposed that the earth was much older than the Bible seemed to indicate. They believed that the rock layers represented countless eons of time.(2)These ideas inspired the belief that fossil species were laid down in layers over eons of

time

Darwinism a religious zeal

YOU WILL NOTICE THAT THE EVOLUTIONISTS HAVE CHOSEN SOME VERY LONG AND DIFFICULT-TOPRONOUNCE NAMES FOR THEIR "MISSING-LINKS", the foundation stones, or bones, on which their faith is built. Doing this sort of thing envelopes it all with a shroud of mystery and even puts a little superstitious awe into the minds of the average laymen. Like many other religious authorities, the high priests of the "sacred cow" of false-science has done this to give credence to their faith and to gain reverence for themselves!

Start of social welfare and Darwinism losing its strength in politics

fter the 1906 election, David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill began to reform society according to the Rowntree Report. The report detailed poor people from York and explained that although they tried hard to lift themselves out of their poverty, it was nearly always impossible. This contributed to changing the prevalent social view that the poor were lazy and stupid, and new policies were made concerning the 'Deserving Poor'. These social reforms earned the Liberal Party the title 'Fathers of the Welfare State' and were largely due to the implementation of Social Darwinist philosophies.

Bible reference to turning bible into myths and fables

This same "Last Days" passage also warned that "THE TIME WILL COME WHEN THEY WILL NOT ENDURE SOUND DOCTRINE (the truth); but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears (ears that want to be tickled with lies!). And THEY SHALL TURN AWAY THEIR EARS FROM THE TRUTH, AND SHALL BE TURNED UNTO FABLES!" This time has come, and these days are here, and their ears have turned from the truth and they are turned unto fables!--Like evolution!

ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS FAKES EXPOSED BY SCIENTIFIC PROOF WAS PILTDOWN MAN, found in Sussex, England ... and thought by some to be 500,000 years old. After
much controversy, it turned out to be not a primitive man at all, but a composite of a skull of modern man and the jawbone of an ape. ... The jawbone had been 'doctored' with bichromate of potash and iron to make it look mineralized." PILTDOWN MAN'S TEETH ALSO REVEALED SOME NOT-TOO-PRIMITIVE DENTAL WORK: They had all been filed down to make them appear more ancient. In fact, Reader's Digest pointed out: "Every important piece proved a forgery. Piltdown Man was a fraud from start to finish! ... All the circumstantial evidence points to Dawson as the author of the hoax." 33 --HA!

HE ANCIENT TRADITIONS (2500 B.C. to 500 A.D.)noah ark

The oldest known written record of a deluge story seems to be the tablets from Ebla (Tel Mardik) in Syria dating from about 2500 BC. While still largely untranslated at this time, there is a report of a deluge story very similar to that in Genesis and written in a proto-Hebrew language (Horn, 1980). Unfortunately, we must await their translation to see exactly what is said about the ark and "Mt. Ararat". The next document known to mention the flood and ark, as well as a definite landing place for the ark is the Gilgamesh Epic. The now famous story was recovered from the library of Assurbanipal in Ninevah and dates from about 650 BC. It identifies the landing place of the ark as "Mt. Nisir". Exactly where "Mt. Nisir" is remains unclear. A mountain or mountain range of that name is reported from the annals of King Ashurnasurpal II of Assyria (833-859 BC). The annals place it south of the Lower Zab (Wallis Budge and King, 1902, fide Montgomery, 1972). Near 275 BC, A Chaldean priest named Berossus wrote a history of Babylon in Greek which he complied from native documents. His works have not survived, but are quoted by several later authors, including Alexander Polyhistor (last century BC), Josephus (37 to circa 100 AD), and Moses of Chorene (5th century AD). In his discussion of the Gilgamesh Epic, he places the landing site of the ark in the Gordyaean Mountains. Josephus cites several other writers in addition to Berossus in whose works the existence of the ark is discussed. The only one to mention a landing place for the ark was Nicholas of Damascus (from about the time of Christ). He states: "There is above the country of Minyas in Armenia a great mountain called Baris, where, the story goes, many refugees found safety at the time of the flood, and one man, transported upon an ark, grounded upon the summit; and relics of the timber were for long preserved; this might well be the same man of whom Moses, the Jewish legislator, wrote." Montgomery (1972, p. 62) suggests that Minyas is the same as Minni of the Old Testament and Mannu of Assyria. The Seventh Day Adventist Bible Commentary (vol. 8, p. 722) agrees that Minni and Mannu are the same, and further states that it lies "east and southeast of Lake Urmiah" in Iran. Several writers of the first century AD mention the existence of the ark. Theophilus of Antioch (circa 115-185) reports that the ark can be seen in his day "in the Arabian mountains." Epiphanes of Salamis (circa 315-403), Chrysostoma (circa 345-407), and Isidore of Seville (circa 560-636) report the existence of the ark in their times, but do not give a location where it can be found. In one of the more important works of the early Christian era, Faustus of Byzantium (4th century AD) reports the experiences of a bishop who traveled to the region of "Gortouk" to see the ark. He failed to complete the ascent and an angel of the Lord brought him a piece of the ark as a symbol of his faith. The bishop was reported to have been from the town of Nesbin, a town that today lies in northeastern Syria. The naming of this city is important because it is mentioned again in a later report. Montgomery believes Gortouk to be equivalent to the region of Cortaea of Ptolemy in which the Gordyaean Mountains are located. Faustus (in the 4th century AD) appears to be the first author to use the term "Mount Ararat" as a specific mountain (versus a region) for the resting-place of the ark, which he places in the "Gortouk" region which is probably equivalent to the Gordyaean Mountains. THE DARK AGES (700 A.D. to 1200 A.D.) History after the 7th century AD saw the rise of Islam in the Middle East and the Dark Ages in Europe. The next records in the historical progression are all from Muslim writers. They use "Jebel Judi" instead of "Ararat" for the location of the ark because that is the name used in the Koran to describe the landing place of Noahs ark. Al-Masudi (956 AD) expounding on the Koran version of the flood says, "El-Judi is a mountain in the country of Masur, and extends to Jezirah Ibn Omar which belongs to the territory of el-Mausil. This mountain is eight farsangs [about 32 miles] from the Tigris. The place where the ship stopped, which is on top of this mountain, is still to be seen." (Montgomery (1972). Ibn Haukal, in the last half of the 10th century, places Al-Judi near the town of Nesbin. Remember that this is the mountain named by Faustus 700 years earlier as the town in which the bishop started his journey to see the ark. Ibn Haukal also states that Noah built a village at the foot of the mountain that he called Themanin. The last of the Muslim commentators of the Dark Ages was George Elmacin (or Al-Makin or Ibn Al-Amid, 1223-1274 AD). He describes the desire of an emperor of Byzantium to climb Al-Judi in the

early part of the 7th century. Whether or not he accomplished his goal is unknown; he left from the region of Themanin. THE RENAISSANCE TO THE PRESENT (1250 A.D. to present) About the same time that George Elmacin was writing, William of Rubruck wrote The Journey of William Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World (1253-1255). He did not see the ark himself, but describes an Armenian tradition placing the ark atop Mt. Masis near the Araxes River. He further relates the story of a monk who attempted to scale the mountain, but was unable to finish. An angel of the Lord brought him a piece of the ark and told him to attempt no more. This story of the monk is very similar to the story written by Faustus of Byzantium in the 4th century AD, 900 years prior, but who placed the incident further to the south in the Gordyaean Mountains. This 13th century AD account appears to be the first reference to place the ark on the mountain that today is called Mt. Ararat". All prior accounts placed the ark further south. Shortly after William of Rubruck published his work, Vincent of Beausais was writing his massive Speculum Quadraplex (1256-1259). In it he also describes the attempt of a monk to climb Mt. Ararat. Again, as in the account of Faustus, the monk failed to climb the mountain and an angel of the Lord brought him a piece of it as a symbol of his faith. Montgomery (1972, p. 76) states, "This narrative appears almost certainly to depend on the account of Faustus of Byzantium" I would further suggest that Vincent borrowed this story not from Faustus, but from William of Rubruck. Vincent located the landing site of the ark near the Araxes River, as did William, but not Faustus. In both the accounts of Vincent and William, it is a monk, who makes the climb, while in Faustus, it is a bishop. By the end of the 13th century, it would seem that the tradition of Mt. Masis being Mt. Ararat had become firmly entrenched. All of the remaining authors cited by Montgomery follow this tradition. They include Jordanus (1329-1338), Odoric of Pordenone (circa 1330), Francesco Pegolotti (circa 1340), Sir John Mandeville (circa 1360), Gonzalez de Clavijo (1412), Adam Olearius (1662), Jans Janszoon Struys (1677), and Sir John Chardin (1684). All of these authors are reporting traditions of the people living around Agri Dagh at the time. None claim to have seen the ark themselves. Nevertheless, the consensus was by no means unanimous. There are several authors not sited by Montgomery who did not follow the 13th century AD Armenian tradition. Sebastian Munster published an edition of Ptolemys Geographia in 1548 in which he add the following annotation to Ptolemys "Gordaei" mountains (translated from the Latin), "These are the mountains of Armenia in which it is said Noahs ark rested after the flood. Boccatius and Haithonus call the mountains Ararat from whom this land of Ararat is mentioned in the book of Kings." (Munster, 1548, p. 97). Nicolas de Nicolay, by 1558, had completed a trip to Turkey for the King of France as the court geographer. In his account of the trip, he mentions the following of Armenia, "To come now to the original country of the Armenias, you must understand that Armenia is a region in Asia In this region (as Isidore says) is the Mount Ararat, otherwise called Mount Gordian, upon the top whereof rested and remained the ark of Noah, after the great deluge was ceased." (Nicolas de Nicolay, 1558, p. 134). In 1734, George Sale published an English translation of the Koran. In a footnote to Al-Judi (the Koran equivalent to Ararat) he wrote the following statement. It is quoted here in its entirety since it is otherwise not generally available. "This mountain is one of those which divide Armenia on the south, from Mesopotamia, and that part of Assyria which is inhabitated by the Curds, from whom the mountains took the name Cardu, or Gardu, by the Greeks turned into Gordyae, and other names. (See Bochart. Phaleg. 1. 1, c. 3.) Mount Al-Judi (which seems to be a corruption, though it be constantly so written by the Arabs, for Jordi, or Giordi) is also called Thamanin (Geogr. Nub. p. 202), probably from a town at the foot of it (D'Herbel. Bibl. Orient. p. 404 and 676, and Agathiam, 1. 14, p. 135), so named from the number of persons saved in the ark, the word thamanin signifying eighty, and overlooks the country of Diyar Rab ah, near the citles of Mawsel, Forda, and Jazirat Ebn Omar, which last place one affirms to be but four miles from the place of the ark, and says that a Mohammedan temple was built there with the remains of the vessel. by the Khalif Omar Ebn Abd'alaziz, whom he by mistake calls Omar Ebn Khattab (Benjamin. Itiner. p. 61). The tradition which affirms the ark to have rested on these mountains, must have been very ancient, since it is the tradition of the Chaldeans themselves (Berosus, apud Joseph. Antiq. 1. 1, c. 4): The Chaldean paraphrasts consent to their opinion (Onkelos et Jonathan, In Gen. viii. 4), which obtained very much formerly, especially among the Eastern Christians (Eutych. Annal. P. 41 ). To confirm it, we are told that the remains of the ark were to be seen on the Gordyaen mountains : Berosus and Abydenus both declare there was such a report in their time ( Berosus, apud Joseph. ubi sup. Abydenus, apud Euseb. Praep. Ev. 1. 9, c. 4): the first observing that several of the inhabitants thereabouts scraped pitch from off the planks as a rarity, and carried it about them for an amulet: and the latter saying that they used the wood of the vessel against many diseases with wonderful success. The relics of the ark were also to be seen here in the time of Epiphanius, if we may believe him (Epiph. Haeres. 18); and we are told the emperor Heraclius went from the town of Thamanin up to the mountain A I -Judi, and saw the place of the ark (Elmacin. 1. 1. c. 1 ). There was also formerly a famous

monastery, called the monastery of the ark, upon some of these mountains, where the Nestorians used to celebrate a feast day on the spot where they supposed the ark rested; but in the year of Christ 776, that monastery was destroyed by lightening, with the church, and a numerous congregation in it (Chronic. Dionysii Patriarch, Jacobitar, apud Asseman. Blbl. Orlent. t. 2. p.ll3). Since which time it seems the credit of this tradition hath declined, and given place to another, which obtains at present, and according to which the ark rested on Mount Masis, In Armenia, called by the Turks Agri Dagh or the heavy or great mountain, and situated about twelve leagues south-east of Erivan (al Beldawi)." (Sale, 1734; p. 214-215). In 1842, Ainsworth, recounting his travels to Persia, makes the following statement in reference to Jebal Judi, "It would scarcely be proper to leave Zakhu, with the lofty peaks of Jebel Judi, ...without saying a word upon a question agitated among Oriental travelers, concerning the comparative authenticity of the traditions which have reference to the site of the mountain called Ararat in the Old Testament. Facts i11ustrative of so remote an antiquity are naturally not numerous, and difficulty tangible. Mount Ararat has, however, been allowed by most of the ancient- profane or inspired writers, to belong to Armenia; but so do the Gordyene mountains, of which the Jebel Judi constitute a part, and to which tradition assigns its Thenanin, or Mountain of the Ark, as well as the Armenian Masis,--the Mohammedan Aghri Tagh (the Painful Mount*.) "[*Mr. Consul Brant remarks that at Bayazid there are no traditions respecting the ark, and the natives know the mountain by no other name than Aghri Tagh.] "The only Chaldean historian adopts the tradition current among the Chaldeans and Syrians as well as the Arabs and other Mohammedans of the present day that Ararat is in the Gordyaean chain, and the memory of this was preserved till A.D. 776, by a Chaldean monastery, now supplanted by a Mohammedan mesjid, which is a monument consecrated by another worship to record the same event." (Ainsworth, 1842; Vol.. II, p. 340-341.) The Islamic tradition that the ark rests on Jebal Judi is still extant today. Fraya Stark, in describing her travels in Kurdistan, says, "We were crossing the Tigris watershed, and now the land broke westward, and the long promontory of Judi Dagh, that hangs over North Mesopotamia, appeared on our left, divided Into three more or less equal portions by ravines that were unapparent in the night. On the western tip or the most easterly ravine--the one, that Is to say, attached to the central highlands--is the chapel that commemorates the stepping-out of Noah from the ark. Gertrude Bell In Amurath to Amurath, that excellent book, describes it, for we were now approaching lands visited by most of the Mesopotamian travelers during the last hundred years. Wigram, too, refers to the legend as a tale of unknown antiquity in the year A.D. 300, and adds that 'no people here save the Armenians, look on...Ararat...as the spot where the Ark rested' (pg. 335), and I myself remember seeing the snow-powdered line of Judi from the Shammar tents and being told how Nuh the prophet landed there, after first hitting Jebel Sinjar with his hull... The actual tomb of Noah, and his vineyard, are 'lower down on the hillside hard by the Nestorian village of Hasana' . . . " (Stark, 1959; pg. 90-91.) PART 2: MODERN CLAIMS TO HAVE SEEN THE ARK NATIVE OBSERVERS FROM SOUTHEASTERN TURKEY The previous reports presented above all represent various traditions or folklore. There are also several reports that claim to come from first-hand observation of the ark, rather than reports of local traditions. To our knowledge, however, only two of these reports (Hagopian and Reshit, below) are from direct interviews with the person who claims to have seen the ark, and none of those claiming to have seen the ark is still alive. Therefore, we have not been able to interview any of these sources ourselves. Their stories are quoted here in greater detail than those of the previous section, since we intend to compare them in detail for internal consistency, as well as for information to help locate the ark. Unless otherwise indicated, these stories are from Cummings, 1987. The story of Haji Yearam is the first known to us where a person claims to have seen the ark himself. He was born in 1832 in Armenia, moved at sometime to Oakland, California, where he lived until he died in 1920. He related the following story to the people who were taking care of him shortly before he died. This story was related from memory by the people taking care of Haji, to Mr. Cummings, 32 years later. "Haji Yearam' s parents and family lived at the foot of Greater Mount Ararat in Armenia. According to their traditions, they were descended directly from those who had come out of the ark, but who had never migrated from that country. The descendants of Ham and his sympathizers had migrated over into the land of Shinar and built the tower of Babel, and others had migrated to other countries, but Haji's forebearers had always remained near the mount where the ark had come to rest in a little

valley surrounded by some small peaks about three-quarters or more up on the mountain. "For several hundred years after the flood his forebearers had made yearly pilgrimages up to the ark to make sacrifices and to worship there. They had a good trail and steps in the steep places. Finally the enemies of God undertook to go to Ararat and destroy the ark, but as they neared the location there came a terrible storm that washed away the trail, and lightening blasted the rocks. From that time on, even the pilgrimages ceased, because they feared to betray the way to the ungodly and feared God' s wrath. They took that terrible storm to be a token that God did not want the ark disturbed until near the end of the world, when they believed that its presence would be revealed to the whole world. However, the tribesmen there handed down the legends from generation to generation, and from time to time lonely shepherds or hunters In very hot summers came back with stories that they had reached the little valley and had actually seen one end of the ark where it had been made visible by the melting of snow and ice. "When Haji was a large boy, but not yet a man fully grown, there came to his home some strangers. If I remember correctly there were three vile men who did not believe the Bible and did not believe in the existence of a personal God. They were scientists and evolutionists. They were on this expedition specifically to prove the legend of Noah's Ark to be a fraud and a fake. They hired the father of young Haji Yearam as their official guide. (Haji at that time had not yet become a Haji, and was just a large boy). They hired the boy to assist his father as guide. "It was an unusually hot summer, so the snow and glaciers had melted more than usual. The Armenians were very reticent to undertake any expedition to the Ark because they feared God's displeasure, but the father of Haji thought that possibly the time had come when God wanted the world to know the ark was still there and he wanted to prove to those atheists that the Bible story of the flood and the Ark is true. "After extreme hardship and peril the party came to the little valley up on Greater Ararat, not on the very top, but a little down from the top. This little valley is surrounded by a number of small peaks. There the ark came to rest in a little lake, and the peaks protected it from the tidal waves that rushed back and forth as the flood subsided. On one side of the valley the water from the melting snows and glacier spills over in a little river that runs down the mountain As they reached this spot, there they found the prow of a mighty ship protruding out of the ice. They went inside the ark and did considerable exploring. It was divided into many floors and stages and compartments and had bars like animal cages of today. The whole structure was covered with a varnish or lacquer that was very thick and strong, both outside and inside the ship. The ship was built more like a great and mighty house on the hull of a ship, but without any windows. There was a great doorway of immense size, but the door was missing. The scientists were appalled and dumbfounded and went into a Satanic rage at finding what they had hoped to prove nonexistent. They were so angry and mad that they said they would destroy the ship, but the wood was more like stone than any wood we have now. They did not have tools or means to wreck so mighty a ship and had to give it up. They did tear out some timbers and tried to burn the wood, but it was so hard it was almost impossible to burn it. "They held a council, and then took a solemn and fearful death oath. Any man present who would ever breathe a word about what they had found would be tortured and murdered." (Cummings, 1972; pg.190-192; emphasis ours). Prince Nouri, the Chaldean Archbishop of Babylon, is the next to report having seen the ark himself. Prince Nouri was traveling from Malabar, India, to Kochanis, Turkey (see fig. 4). He was making the trip to be consecrated as bishop. After departing from Kochanis, he went to Urmiah in Persia, five days from Kochanis, where he met Dr. Frederick B. Coan. He related to Dr. Coan how, during that trip, he succeeded, after three attempts, in making his way to the ark, on April 25, 1887. He later went to Belgium to recruit a company to bring the ark to the World's Fair to be held in Chicago in 1893. He could not find sufficient financial support to remove the ark to Chicago, but he did deliver an address to the World Parliament of Religions at the Chicago Fair on the existence of the ark. No statements survive, though, stating the location of the mountains where he saw it. The last of the Middle East people to reach the ark, and whose reports have reached the West, is George Hagopian. As a small boy he and his uncle reached the ark in 1902. He again visited the ark two years later. He is the only person we believe to have seen the ark that has been extensively interviewed prior to his death. These interviews were taped and are maintained by Mr. Lee, Mr. Cummings and Dr. Montgomery. The party left from Van, and traveled seven days to reach the ark. The ark was long, and made of wood like stone. It was near a very high cliff, sitting on a large rock, surrounded by snow. Elfred Lee has made a painting of the ark according to Hagopian's description and under his supervision. (See figure 5.) THE WESTERN OBSERVERS World War I saw a large influx of "outsiders" into eastern Turkey. The Turks were fighting Czarist Russian troops, and from 1914 to 1923, the front was constantly changing (see fig. 4). It is from this time that we have several reports of the ark being seen. Apparently, a Russian aviator first sighted the ark, and from his report an expedition was mounted to investigate. The following is the report of the son-in-law of a soldier from the Russian expedition.

"While in the Russian Army, they were ordered to pack for a long tramp up into the Mountain of Ararat. A Russian aviator had sighted what looked to him like a huge wooden structure in a small lake. About two-thirds of the way up, probably a little farther, they stopped on a high cliff, and in a small valley below them was a dense swamp in which the object could be seen. It appeared as a huge ship or barge with one end under water, and only one corner could be seen from where these men stood. Some went closer, especially the Captain. They could not get out to it because of the water and the many poisonous snakes and insects. The Captain told them of the details." (Cummings, 1972; pg. 114115; emphasis ours.) Following World War I, six or seven Turkish soldiers were returning home from duty in Iraq and passed by "Ararat". Few details of their sighting remain, and what exists is in a letter to whom it may concern offering their services as guides (see Cummings, 1972; pg. 259-261; see also fig. 4 above). World War II again brought many "outsiders" to eastern Turkey. This time they were American and Australian aviators who were flying supplies to Erivan in southwestern Russia from Tunisia in northern Africa. There are rumors of several independent sightings and of photographs being taken of the ark, but none have yet been authenticated. However, several people remember a photograph of the ark that was published in the military weekly newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Unfortunately, no copies of that issue have been located. As can be seen in figure 4, Erivan is only about 30 miles from Agri Dagh. We suggest that if the ark was on that mountain, the pilots effecting daily passages over and around Agri Dagh would have seen it much more often. Shortly after the war, a Swedish physician was talking to a Russian aviator in Hamburg, Germany. The aviator showed him several pictures recently taken from the air and marked as having been taken at "4500 meters", about 13,000 to 14,000 feet in elevation. "One of the pictures showed the ship protruding out of the ice approximately 80 to 90 feet and it was tilted slightly downwards. In the bottom of that area was a little melted pond or lake. The glacier was shown in the mountain summit in the upper right of the picture and the other pictures were taken at a similar angle. To me it appeared that they were taken on the north side." (Cummings, 1972; pg. 330; emphasis ours.) In 1948, there was another sighting of Noah's ark by a local native. This time the report reached the western world through Associated Press from Istanbul. "The petrified remains of an object peasants insist resembles a ship has been found high up Mt. Ararat, Biblical landing place of Noah's Ark. This is the story: Early in September a Kurdish farmer named Reshit was about two-thirds of the way up the 16,000 foot peak when he came on an object he had never seen before. Reshit climbed down to it and with his dagger tried to break off a piece of the prow. It was so hard it would not break. It was blackened with age..." (Cummings, 1972; pg. 163; emphasis ours.) In the summer of 1952 or 1953, George Greene, an oil-pipeline engineer, discovered the ark and photographed it while working for an oil pipeline company in eastern Turkey. In 1954, he showed the pictures to Fred Drake, who he had met in Kanab, Utah. Greene later went to British Guyana, were he was subsequently murdered. His photos, maps, etc. all disappeared. Mr. Drake has related what is known about the ark. Reportedly, Greene was flying when he sighted the ark and he took half a dozen pictures. According to Drake, the ark was on the northeast flank of the mountain, with the prow pointing north and slightly west. Only one side of the ark was visible, as it sat in a morass of brush and ice. It was resting on an "imbricate fault" system, near the edge of a large cliff (see fig. 6). Exactly what type of aircraft Greene was in, as well as exactly where he was, remains a matter of controversy. Mr. E. Cummings (pers. comm., 1983) states that Greene was flying in a Mobile 0il Company helicopter and had official permission to fly around Agri Dagh, but records including the AAPG Bulletin show that Mobil was not present in Turkey during the years 1952-1953. Other accounts (P. Watson, pers. comm., 1976) allow the possibility that he was actually in a fixed wing aircraft. There is also the problem of where in Turkey Greene was working. As can be seen in figure 4, the oil fields of eastern Turkey are far to the south of Agri Dagh, nearer the area of the Gordyaean Mountains and Al-Judi. It is difficult to imagine, during the Cold War years of the early 1950's, the Turkish government sponsoring an oil pipeline project from its southern region toward the Soviet Union! Regardless of where Greene was actually working, the context of a pipeline engineer prospecting near southern Turkey fits well with the historical development of oil fields in that region (see AAPG Bulletins for 1951-1955). PART 3: DISCUSSION THE TRADITIONS

As can be seen in Table I, there is a clear trend in the history of traditions surrounding the landing place of the ark. Mt. Nizer is the first, but its exact location remains uncertain. The Gordyaean mountains appear very early in tradition, continuing through to the 19th century. The name "Gordyaean" is an Anglicization of the Greek word "gordyae" which means Kurds, the people still inhabiting the area (Sale, 1734). Kurd is variously spelled Cardu, Gardu, Qardu, Cortae, etc., depending on the language of the particular author. The Gordyaean mountains are literally "the mountains of the Kurds". Sale's suggestion (1734) that Al-Judi is a corruption of Jordi or Giordi and equals the Gordyaean mountains is an interesting one. It follows what later authors such as Ainsworth (1842) say. The location of the Gordyaean Mountains is difficult to ascertain. Early maps, such as found in Schott (1513) and Munster (1548), are difficult to interpret; different sources disagree on exactly where to place the Gordyaeans. The information was obviously incomplete, as the relationship of Thospitis Lake (modern Lake Van ) to the Gordyaean Mountains in the two editions of Ptolomy ' s work as illustrated in figure 7 are different. This should not be surprising, since the term probably never meant a particular range, but an area. The same is true for Ararat in the Bible, and both probably refer to the same area. Modern examples of this practice include the Rocky Mountains, Alps, Himalayans, etc. These are really broad tectonic areas composed of many individual ranges, such as the Wind River range, the Bighorn Range, etc., within the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. The tradition for Agri Dagh to be the landing place for the ark is comparatively young. The first reference we could find to it was William of Rubruck in the 13th century A.D., although from that time on it seems to be well entrenched in the Christian world. Both it and the Al-Judi traditions are the most popular today. THE OBSERVATIONS That the ark has been seen in this century, there can be little doubt. Key characters concerning the ark that were listed by seven of the many accounts are illustrated in Table II, where the characters have been grouped according to the number of sources that share them. It should be readily apparent that there is close harmony between them. Most sources describe the ark as being between two-thirds and three-quarters of the way up the north/northeast side of the mountain, in a small wooded valley surrounded by small peaks, near a high cliff, with part of the ark submerged in a small lake or swamp and partly covered with snow and ice. Most also describe the ark as being made of a dark brown wood as hard as stone, but with the grain still visible--like petrified wood. The importance of this general concordance is that these reports are completely independent and span over one hundred years. Most of the reports mention Mount Ararat as the place where the ark was seen. This should not be surprising since, as previously noted, to western minds, any mountain found to hold the ark would, by definition, be called Mount Ararat. PART 4: CONCLUSIONS W We have derived the following conclusions from this study: Noah's ark is still in existence and has been seen many times in this century. It seems most unlikely that reports from so wide a cultural diversity and spanning so large an interval, could be entirely fictional and still share so many fine details. We do not believe the ark rests on Agri Dagh for the following reasons: The associated details of where the ark is located cannot be reconciled with the topography of Agri Dagh. The mountain has been extensively explored, and no small lake in a wooded valley, especially surrounded by several small peaks, can be associated with the known topography of the two volcanic cones of Agri Dagh. The tradition that Agri Dagh holds the ark is a relatively recent one, the most recent one known to us. At the time Moses wrote Genesis, Agri Dagh was not within the kingdom of Ararat (Urartu), but the area containing Jebel Judi was (see fig. 2). Although archeology has brought to light some remains from the 3rd and 2nd millenia B.C. from the area we call the Kingdom of Urartu (Plotrovsky, 1969); "there is at present no sound evidence attesting to the existence of The Kingdom [of Urartu] before the ninth century B.C." (Burney and Lang, 1971; pg. 127). Even if we accept that Urartu is equivalent with Uruatri mentioned in the annals of Shalmaneser I (1280 to 1261B.C.), Uruatri designates a group of "eight countries ... situated in a mountainous area southeast of LakeVan-- perhaps in the upper valley of the Great Zaab." (Plotrovsky, 1969; pg 43. Emphasis ours). That area does not include Agri Dagh. The topography of Agrl Dagh is also inconsistent with the description of the landing site of the ark given by Yearam and White where the ark was harbored by a cluster of mountains, resting first on one the another, and they were mountains God had p preserved through the flood. Two volcanic cones do not qualify. We suggest that the more ancient traditions of the Gordyaean mountains and Jebel Judi area be f further searched. Fernand Navarra (1974) has not found any part of the ark, as he has claimed. We believe this

17. 0

1 2

because: His discoveries were on Agri Dagh, which we have excluded on other grounds. 1 The wood he found has a radiocarbon date too young (see Noorbergen, 1974; pp. 142-161) and its composition is not "hard like stone". Since the wood found in the fossil record has an infinite radiocarbon age, and we believe that the bulk of the fossil record was deposited during the deluge of Noah, we would expect the wood from Noah ' s ark to also have an infinite radiocarbon age. 2 Navarra "forgot" where he found the wood, and despite several subsequent attempts, has not been able to re locate the ark. It seems unlikely that the mountain referred to by most eyewitnesses as Mount Ararat (Agri Dagh) is the Biblical Ararat. If one returns to figure 1, it can be seen that there are no little lakes noted, especially near a high cliff and in a small, wooded valley surrounded by small peaks. Agri Dagh consists of twin, giant volcanic cones generally void of vegetation. 0 Other reasons to doubt Agri Dagh as the landing site include the account of the Turkish soldiers returning home from Iraq following World War I, and the account of George Greene. The Turkish soldiers were returning from Baghdad to their home in Adana (Benzatyan, pers. comm., 1983). As can be seen in figure 4, travelers to Adana would traverse the area of the Gordyaen Mountains, but would be unlikely to pass through the area of recent fighting along the Russian border. That would be far out of the way, as well as being a good excuse to be drafted into the war again.. This is especially true since they encountered the ark "by chance". The final reason to doubt Agri Dagh involves the account of George Greene. As previously mentioned, it seems very unlikely that anyone would be flying near the Soviet border during the Cold War. In addition, is seems more likely that an oil pipeline engineer would be working near the oil fields, which are further to the south, near the Gordyaean Mountains and Al-Judi.

REFERENCES Ainsworth, H. 1622. Annotations vpon the five books of Moses, and the Booke of the Psalmes...(comparing Hebreue words wlth Greek and Chaldeen versions...) -- annotations vpon Gen. VIII:4. Iohn Harlland for Iohn Bellanie, London. pp. 292. Ainsworth, W. 1842. Travels and researches In Asia Minor Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia. J. W. Parker. London. Vol. II., PP. l-xll, 1-399. Burney, C. and D. Lang. 1971. The peoples of the hills: ancient Ararat and Caucasus. Weldenfield and Nocolsen. London. PP. l-xv, 1-324. Cummings, V. 1972. Noah's Ark: fact of fable. Creation-Science Research Center, San Diego. PP. 1352. Horn, S. 1960. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary. Review and Herald. Washington, D.C. PP. l-xxxli, I-II99. ..... 1980. The spade confirms the Book, 2nd Ed. Review and Herald. Washington, D.C. PP. 1-320. Kurkjian, V. 1959. A history of Armenia. Armenian Gereral Benevolent Union. New York. PP. 1-526. Montgomery, J. 1972. The quest for Noah's Ark. Bethany Fellowship. Minneapolis. PP. 1-335. Munster, S. 1540. Claudius Ptolemaeus Geographia. Basle. Facsimile reproduction by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Amsterdam, 1966. Navarra, F. 1974. Noah's Ark: I Touched It. Logos International. Plainfield, N.J. PP. l-xv, 1-137. de Nicolay, N. 1558. The Nau I gat Ions into Turkie. London. Facsimile reproduction by Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Amsterdam,1968. PP. I-17 I. Noorbergen, R. 1974. The Ark file. Pacific Press. Mountain View, CA. PP. 1-207. Plotrovsky, B. 1969. The ancient civilization of Urartu. Cowles Book Co. New York. PP. 1-224. Translated from the Russian by James Hogarth. Sale, G. 1734. The Koran, translated into English, with explanatory notes from the most approved commentators. Frederick Warne, London, unknown date, PP. l-x I v, 1-608. Schott, J. 1513. Claudius Ptolemaeus Geographia. Strassburg. Facsimile reproduction by Theatrum

Orbis Terrarum, Amsterdam, 1966. Stark, F. 1959. Riding to the Tigris. Harcourt, Brace, and Co. New York. PP. l-x I, I-I I 4. White, E. 1864. Spiritual Gifts. Steam Press, Battle Creek, MI. Facsimile reproduction by Review and Herald, Washington, D. C., 1945. Vol. III, PP. l-v I, 1-304. Creation support doc. below

Creation summary points[not all]

concept of plate tectonics has revolutionized thinking in the Earth sciences in the last 10 years and combines many of the ideas about continental drift and sea-floor spreading.[1] The theory of continental drift was put forth by a creation scientist named Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, who published the concept in his book, La Cration et ses mystres dvoils (Creation and its Mysteries Unveiled), in 1858.[2] In 1912 by Alfred Wegener furthered developed the theory of continental drift (Kontinentalverschiebung), and sea-floor spreading was suggested originally by Harry Hess of Princeton University.[1] To form his theory, Snider drew from Genesis 1:9-10 where it is explained that God gathered the seas into one place, suggesting the possibility of one single landmass at that point in time. He also observed the close fit of the Eastern South American coast and the Western African coast. He concluded that the Flood of Noah had caused subsequent horizontal movement of the supercontinent causing it to break, thus forming the tectonic plates. Snider's idea was overlooked, possibly due to the fact that Darwin's book had been published in the same year. Snider wrote a book and even had it translated into French, but still, his theory went unnoticed until the early twentieth century. At that time, the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener wrote a book on the idea of one original supercontinent called Pangaea. But still, for about 50 years this thought was neglected due to a small group of seismologists who professed that the strength of the mantle rock was too great to allow continents to drift in the way Wegener had calculated. They estimated the rocks strength by watching the behavior of seismic waves as they went through the earth. But they were calculating the strength of the rocks at the time of their testing, not from back when the earth was in it's pre-flood state. During those 50 years, scientists who believed in the theory of one original supercontinent were considered ignorant people who didn't look at the facts. But today, that view has reversed. Today, most scientists believe in the fact that the earth was once a supercontinent. Now we have more information on our planet due to mapping the ocean floor using sound waves, measuring the magnetic field above the seafloor, timing geomagnetic reversals of the past by unlocking the magnetic memory of the continental rocks, and locating earthquakes with a world-wide network of seismometers. [3] Supporting evidence

In particular, four major scientific developments spurred the formulation of the plate-tectonics theory: : D Demonstration of the ruggedness and youth of the ocean floor C Confirmation of repeated reversals of the Earth magnetic field in the geologic past Emergence of the seafloor-spreading hypothesis and associated recycling of oceanic crust

Precise documentation that the world's earthquake and volcanic activity is concentrated along oceanic trenches and submarine mountain ranges.[4] History and Development

One of the most prominent geologic thinkers was Niels Steensen (16381686) who was responsible for the development and observation of superposition. The term superposition describes the process of sedimentary rock deposition in a successive, mainly horizontal fashion. In his book entitled, Forerunner (1669) Steensen implied a roughly 6,000-year-old Earth and that fossils within the rock strata laid down through superposition were deposited by Noahs Flood. The century after Seensen's death saw several prominent authors stand firm in the principles put forth in Steensen's book. The English geologist John Woodward (16651722) and the German geologist Johann Lehmann (1719 1767), to name a few, wrote books ultimately reinforcing that view.[1] The idea of an old earth is based on the principle of uniformitarianism, which is the doctrine that geologic processes have acted in the same regular manner and intensity throughout geologic time. This concept was begun in 1795 by James Hutton and further developed by Charles Lyell who is considered the father of modern geology. Charles Darwin took Lyell's book "Principles of Geology" during his historic voyage on the Beagle. Lyell's book inspired Darwin to form his theory of slow biological change known as gradualism. The Global Flood or Biblical Flood of Noah (17 Bul 1656 AM) is an event described in the Biblical book of Genesis, wherein the entire world was covered with water as divine punishment, and only a small number of humans and animals survived. In The Genesis Record, Henry Morris states:

The word for flood (mabbul), used here for the first time, applies only to the Noahic Flood; other floods are denoted by

was the mabbul, unique in all history...Similarly, when the Genesis Flood is referred to in the New Testament, the Gree

(Matthew 24:39; Luke 17:27; 2 Peter 2:5; 3:6) instead of the usual Greek word for flood. This Flood was not to be comp be absolutely unique in all history.[1] The account in Genesis is the best known and the most detailed account, but the event recorded in ancient histories in various forms across cultures worldwide. It is described in the Islamic Qur'an, the Book of Jubilees, and the Book of Enoch. Direct references occur in the Critias and Timaeus of Plato, and the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.

Reduction of Life Expectancy Main Article: Human longevity Ancient historical records (including Genesis) state that prior to the flood of Noah, humans lived to approximately 10 times our current life expectancy. Methuselah is known for living longer than any other human in history, dying at the age of 969.[6] This longevity is believed to be so extraordinarily long in part because environmental conditions were optimal before the Earth was destroyed. However, immediately after the flood, the lifespans recorded in the Biblical genealogy dropped quickly. Creationists have proposed a number of explanations for this, and it can not be overlooked as significant that immediately prior to proclaiming the coming of the global flood, God states that "Man's days shall be 120 years;"(Genesis 6:3 ). This statement may well indicate that one of the purposes of the flood was to reduce the lifespan of humans.[7] Extrabiblical Sources

Main Article: Flood legends Native global flood stories are documented as history or legend in almost every region on Earth. In The Antiquities of the Jews, first-century historian Josephus cites myriad ancient histories recording the flood, including those by Berosus the Chaldean, Hieronymus the Egyptian, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus. (Antiquities I:3:93-95.) In addition to these written accounts, scores of oral traditions about the flood exist throughout the world even today, including Native American and Aboriginal societies. Old world missionaries reported their amazement at finding remote tribes already possessing legends with tremendous similarities to the Bible's accounts of the worldwide flood. H.S. Bellamy in Moons, Myths and Men estimates that altogether there are over 500 Flood legends worldwide. Ancient civilizations such as (China, Babylonia, Wales, Russia, India, America, Hawaii, Scandinavia, Sumatra, Peru, and Polynesia) all have their own versions of a giant flood. "You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth." - Psalm 104:6-9 This passage tells us that mountains rose and valleys sank during the Flood. Mount Everest rose up during the Flood, so the Flood did not need to reach the height that Mount Everest is today. There is enough water on earth for a global flood. If the earth was smoothed out, the water in the oceans would cover it to a depth of about 8,813 feet (2.6 kilometres). This does not include the water in rivers, lakes, glaciers, and other sources. They would add about another 23 thousand feet (600-900 metres). In reality, the Flood would only need to be a little over 7,000 feet (2.1 kilometres) deep. So the real question is whether it is possible for Mount Everest to have risen to its current height fast enough to fit a time-scale consistent with the Flood. The earthquake that caused the Indonesian tsunami of December 26, 2004 caused an uplift of at least 20 feet (six metres) in a few minutes, which is a speed of about 240 feet per hour (84 metres per hour). At that rate Mount Everest could have reached its current height in about five days. Forces observed in earthquakes are sufficient, if extended long enough, to quickly raise the highest mountain to its current height in just a few days. supporting sudden change The result is that, based on the amount of water on earth, and observed tectonic forces, there was the potential to quickly raise mountains. So the global Flood of the Bible is theoretically possible. You can see a seafloor study that traces culprits behind Indian Ocean tsunami[10] for further explanation. In many cases Talk Origins' "refutation" of out of place human traces such as the Paluxy footprints does not withstand examination. This assertion is also challenged by Human Skeletons that were found in Cretaceous strata, this is severely damaging to evolutionary theory. It was reported in Desert Magazine in 1975. Many other out of place fossils have been found but are rarely reported in the "scientific" literature because of the overwhelmingly corrupt scientific establishment where if you do not favor evolution you do not favor science.

Unfossilized dinosaur bones (Redirected from Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones) Unfossilized (or unmineralized) dinosaur bones have been found at various locations in Canada and Northern Alaska. Unfossilized or carbonized wood has also been found at various other locations in

strata associated with dinosaurs, or even (supposedly) "older" strata. Both the dinosaur and woody materials have been dated by Carbon-14, and the dates obtained are between 9,800 and 50,000 years. Contents [hide] ] 1 Soft Tissue 2 Unfossilized Wood 3 Axel Heiberg

F Fossils
4 The Rate of

O Organic Decay
5 Related

R References
6 See Also Soft Tissue

Soft tissue would only be preserved in specimens (i.e. bones) that were either not mineralized like ordinary beef or chicken bones, those that are partially mineralized, or those that are mineralized but still retain their original organic material. In other words, in some cases where bones or wood appear to be completely "fossilized", or "mineralized", if the minerals are leached out of the wood or bones, what is left is the original (now demineralized) organic remains. John W. Dawson did this with wood that is said to be over 300 million years old, and what was left behind was a piece of wood that could be flexed or burnt in a fire. See the, "Organic Material Intact" section of a paper called, The "Fossil Forests" of Nova Scotia [1]. Unfossilized Wood Unfossilized Wood has also been found on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands [2] in northern Canada. The wood from these trees thaws out every year, and can be sawed, or burned in a fire, and yet they are said to be 45-60 million years old: even though the wood carbon-dates quite young. Frozen trees from northern Siberia have been dated to only 7000 years old. See above link for more information. Radiocarbon Dating Dinosaurs? "Carbon dating dinosaur bones is ludicrous, and the fact they yielded numbers is meaningless," says a museum curator. Is it ludicrous or is it the bias of evolutionists that is ludicrous?

DIRECT RADIOCARBON DATING OF DINOSAUR BONE FRAGMENTS:

The dating of dinosaur fossils is not as simple a matter as the media and mainstream science would like us to believe. There are no magical dating machines generate a report which reads 70 million year old; rather most dating of fossils is done by dating nearby lava flows or other igneous or metamorphic rock assumed to have lost all daughter products and been "set" at the time of the dinosaur or other fossil formation. Then stratagraphic correlation is used to reconstruct the sequence and time. The only method that dates the fossils themselves is carbon dating but evolutionists believe that dinosaurs are

too old for carbon dating. This begs the question, are they really that old? In 1970, Professor Robert Whitelaw of Virginia Polytechnic Institute examined the radiocarbon data reported in the journal, Radiocarbon. He was surprised to find that several of these came from specimens which would be considered several million years old by evolutionary dating. Examples are: Sabre-toothed tiger: Petrified wood: Carboniferous coal: 28,000 years (evolution: a few million) 10,000 years (evolution: several million)

1,680 years (evolution: above 300 million)

Bone fragments from the 30 ft. long Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur were excavated by members of CEM (Creation Evidence Museum) of Glen Rose TX and CRSEF of Columbus OH. These were subjected to the radiocarbon dating process at three different laboratories. The table below lists these dates and those of four other samples from four separate excavations of other dinosaurs; three came from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh PA. The dates ranged from about 9,890 to 36,500 Radiocarbon years (Beta system) before the present (B.P.). Evolutionists insist these bone are between 65 Million and 150 Million years old. Carbon-14 dating and mass spectroscopy dating are best for specimens up to 50,000 years or so," said another. "If a scientist believes the bones are millions of years older, the usual procedure is to date the age of the surrounding rock strata using potassium argon dating, all of which measure the amount of decay of those elements." These are some of the more kind remarks noted in major AP releases. In other words to date a fossil you need to know how "old" it is first. How is that for objectivity! The selective use of dating methods and the underlying circular reasoning of evolutionary geology speaks for itself. Meanwhile the carbon dating of fossils seems to indicate a recent flood catastrophe is a viable working hypothesis for the formation of many of the Earth's features. Further research is still needed but it appears global patterns of young C14 dates will continue to be a thorn in the paw of evolutionary geology. With regards potassium argon dating of recent volcanic eruption material it must be pointed out that such material from Mt. St. Helens eruptions of the 1980's gave very old ages in the range of 300,000 to 2.7 million years This is not only so for Mt. St. Helens but also for modern volcanism in Hawaii and New Zealand. It's then logical to ask the question, if you can not get the age right for modern volcanism how can you get a correct age for unknown magma such as that in Africa, from where our alleged ancestors came? Indeed, French sedimentologist Guy Berthault of France also discovered that the 17th century principles of sediment formation in the geologic column is badly flawed based on recent flask and flume studies He has challenged geologists to come to grips with these lab, flume and field studies that support the conclusions that (1) the geologic column needs to be completely restudied based upon paleohydraulics (sediments in moving waters) and (2) date the fossils not the rocks (www.geology.ref.ac.berthault). Unfortunately for the advancement of science these so-called 17th observations (assumptions) were treated as principles and had never been thoroughly evaluated in the lab until the late 20th century; scientists from other nations are just now beginning to look at the new data thanks to Guy Berthault's persistence. Scientists recover preserved soft tissue from dinosaur WASHINGTON (AP) Scientists who had to break a dinosaur bone to remove it from its sandstone location say they have recovered 70-million-year-old soft tissues from inside the bone. 9A. Dinosaur Blood and "Ancient" DNA: Before the existence of supposedly "ancient" organic material had been well publicized, it was predicted that "no DNA would remain intact much beyond 10,000 years." 34 This prediction was based upon the observed breakdown of DNA. Not long after this prediction was made, very old DNA started turning up. For example, at the Clarkia Fossil Beds, in Idaho, a green magnolia leaf was discovered in strata that was said to be 17 million years old.35 Because it was so fresh-looking and even pliable, scientists decided to see if any DNA was present. And to their surprise they discovered that there was: and that it matched the DNA of modern magnolia trees. Since then, DNA claims have been made for supposedly older material such as dinosaur bones,36,37 and insects in amber.38 It was said that the reason the magnolia leaf was preserved was because it was buried in clay; 39 however, the 17 million year date is still doubtful. Likewise, scientists say that DNA from the insects was preserved because they were entombed in amber.

However, a serious problem arises when we come to the dinosaur bones; for these were not entombed in amber or clay, but in sandstone.40,41 And because sandstone and bone are both porous, this means that ground and rain water would be able to seep into the rocks, and thus into the bones as well. The fact that the outer part of one of these bones was mineralized 42 gives strong evidence that water -- and thus oxygen -- had access to the bones. The fact that the inside of the bones are not mineralized is an indication that they are young. The fact that the partially mineralized bone had (what looked like) red blood cells in it 43 is a strong indication that it is young: probably less than 10,000 years old. When Mary Schweitzer first saw the bones under a microscope, she said: "I got goose bumps,"..."It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But ... I couldn't believe it. I said to the lab technician: 'The bones, after all, are 65 million years old. How could blood cells survive that long?'" 44 Emphasis Adde 9C. 165 Million Year Old Surprise: In May of 1996 it was reported that ammonites in pristine condition have been found in "a 'mysterious network' of mud springs on the edge of the 'market town' of Wootton Bassett, near Swindon, Wiltshire, England." 56 What is so interesting about these purportedly 165 million-year-old ammonites is that: "many still had shimmering mother-of-pearl shells ... (and) they retain their original... aragonite [a mineral form of calcium carbonate] ... The outsides also retain their iridescence... And... in the words of Dr. Hollingworth, 'There are shells ... still have their organic ligaments and yet they are millions of years old.'!" 57,58Emphasis Added It is a fact that water is a component of mud. It is also a fact that oxygen is a component of water. Oxygen allows oxidation to take place. Oxidation causes things to break down. These mud springs are further evidence that something is wrong with the current evolutionary scheme for dating fossils. 9B. Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones: A 1987 article in the Journal of Paleontology begins as follows: "Hadrosaur bones have been found on the Colville River north of Umiat on the North Slope of Alaska."
52

What is perhaps most interesting about these "many thousands of bones" is that they "lack any significant degree of permineralization." 53,54 In fact, the people who discovered them didn't report it for 20 years because they thought they were bison bones. Because the bones were partially exposed in a "soft, brown, sandy silt," 55 and because every year the snow melts and subjects them to the elements for two to three months, these bones also call in question the evolutionary-based ages of dinosaurs, and the Geological Time Chart itself. See also 8 and 9A above. For more on Dragons and Man living together at the same time see Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones. See also this CBS News story and USA Today article for more on organic dinosaur remains.9C. 165 Million Year Old Surprise: In May of 1996 it was reported that ammonites in pristine condition have been found in "a 'mysterious network' of mud springs on the edge of the 'market town' of Wootton Bassett, near Swindon, Wiltshire, England." 56 What is so interesting about these purportedly 165 million-year-old ammonites is that: "many still had shimmering mother-of-pearl shells ... (and) they retain their original... aragonite [a mineral form of calcium carbonate] ... The outsides also retain their iridescence... And... in the words of Dr. Hollingworth, 'There are shells ... still have their organic ligaments and yet they are millions of years old.'!" 57,58Emphasis Added It is a fact that water is a component of mud. It is also a fact that oxygen is a component of water. Oxygen allows oxidation to take place. Oxidation causes things to break down. These mud springs are further evidence that something is wrong with the current evolutionary scheme for dating fossils. 10. Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands: Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands are located in northern Canada, above the Arctic circle. The winters are so cold there that the only "trees" able to grow are small shrubs less than a foot in height.59 However something very strange has been found on these islands that testifies to a very different past: i.e. numerous large trees and tree stumps lying on, or buried just beneath the surface.60,61,62 How did they get there? And more importantly, when did they get there? It is claimed that the trees are leftover remnants of forests which inhabited this area 40-65 million years ago. 60,61,62 The scientific data suggests otherwise. For instance, they are not petrified, 60,61,62 but can be sawed and burned. In addition, pine cones, pine needles, and leaves are also preserved in the sandy/silty soil. 60,61,62 Another clue to the puzzle is that the roots of these trees are missing. 60,61,62 This suggests that they didn't grow here but were uprooted by a catastrophic event and later re-

deposited at different levels. This is exactly what has happened in Spirit Lake near Mt. St. Helens; however, the upright trees on the bottom of this lake are still under water. At some time in the future, they may be left standing upright -- looking as if they grew there. 63-70 In regard to this, Quiring, states : "During the eruption many trees from the surrounding hillsides were washed into the lake. Today, thousands of logs, protected within the monument, float back and forth with the changing winds. As some of the trees sink, roots first, they settle upright on the lake floor to form a 'sunken forest.'" 71 In regard to the preservation of the organic matter on Axel Heiberg Island, an online article states the following: "The Axel Heiberg fossils are largely preserved as mummifications. Although usually compressed, the wood and other remains are relatively unaltered chemically and biologically (Obst et al, 1991). Preservation of the fossils is exquisite, including leaf litter, cones, twigs, branches, boles, roots, etc. Where these are not compressed, they are virtually indistinguishable from equivalent tissues found in the forest floor of modern conifer forests ... The reasons why preservation is exceptional and there is so little mineralization remain obscure. Analysis of the organic remains indicate that they were buried in a fresh-water environment (Goodarzi et al, 1991)." Emphasis Added Although these trees are frozen for most of the year, each summer the snow melts and for about three months the temperature reaches into the 70 degree Fahrenheit range.72 Such warm temperatures should (normally) allow decomposition to take place. One explanation for the remarkable degree of preservation is the suggestion that these trees were "mummified" by being buried under significant amounts of strata, and then, over time, this overlying strata was eroded. This is perhaps possible, however, it is also possible that these trees are not millions of years old, but rather only a few thousand. Also, the fact that the roots of some of these upright trees are missing suggests that they were uprooted by a catastrophe, and transported by water to these islands (perhaps) in the not-too-distant past. Otherwise they would have decayed. Similar trees from Siberia are only 7,000 years old. For example, in "Cataclysms of the Earth," by Hugh Auchincloss Brown, on page 31, Mr. Brown makes the following comments: "In certain areas of northern Siberia innumerable tree trunks called by the natives "Adam's wood" and said to be in all stages of decay are embedded in the solidly frozen tundra. Because they were once growing trees, of types which do not grow in that climate, they confirm that a change in climate has taken place, such as would be caused by a careen of the globe. They could have been broken by a hurricane or flood. If so, they will show a clean break on the side on which the breaking force was imposed and torn fibers on the lee side. A reexamination of the wood, to determine genera and species of the trees, will enable us to establish the latitude range or climate in which these trees grew." Emphasis Added"A so called mammoth tree, with fruit and leaves still on it, was discovered and reported after a landslide of Siberian tundra. Such cold storage of fruit 7,000 years old can only be explained by a sudden transportation of the fruit from a warm climate in which it grew to the cold storage climate in which it has been refrigerated. This specimen of fruit, with leaves, and many other specimens of leaves reported found in Siberia also confirm the careen of the globe." Emphasis Added Velikovski, in his book "Earth in Upheaval" (1955, Edition), reported similarly preserved trees in the frozen tundra of Alaska. See also Discovery of 260 million year old fossil forest from Antarctica, where we find the following: "The wood was most interesting to me. In some cases branches were preserved, suggesting that the wood had not been transported far by streams. We found an impression of a piece of bark with a knot preserved clearly not bad for about 250 million years old! The stumps were not replaced by silica, and thus are not petrified, but they have been freeze dried in a way that has preserved the growth rings in some cases. On one tree, we counted 26 annual rings, and it was p probably older because not all the growth rings were preserved."Emphasis Added For more on these trees and other (supposedly very old) material see: Carbon Dating of "Fossil" Wood and Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones.A Tropical Reptile in the 'Cretaceous' Arctic, by Michael Oard Sustainability: A Glacial Perspective -- Lessons of a Forty Million Year Old Forest, By Dr. Richard Jagels The Oldest Wood in the World by Carla HelfferichScientists Battle over turf in Arctic land that time forgot, by Ed Struzik

11. Carbon-14 in the Atmosphere: Carbon-14 is produced when radiation from the sun strikes Nitrogen-14 atoms in the earth's upper atmosphere. The earth's atmosphere is not yet saturated with C14. This means that the amount of C14 being produced is greater than the amount that is decaying back to N14. It is estimated that a state of equilibrium would be reached in as little as 30,000 years. Thus, it appears that the earth's atmosphere is less than 30,000 years old. In fact, the evidence suggests it is less than 10,000 years old. 73,74,75 Some of these estimates place the atmosphere's age at 50,000 years, and others at 100,000 but they each pose serious problems for old-earth scenarios. See also Item 20 below, and associated Links. 12. The Dead Sea: The Dead Sea is in Israel. It is receives fresh water from the Sea of Galilee via the Jordan River. The Dead Sea has a very high salt content. Even so, it continues to get saltier since it has no outlet other than by evaporation. Scientists have measured the amount of salt added each year by the Jordan River; and they have also calculated the amount of salt in the Dead Sea. From these it is possible to estimate how long this process has been going on for. Assuming a constant rate of salt/water flow, and a zero salt level at the beginning, then the age of the Dead Sea is only 13,000 year old. 76,77 For more on this subject, Click Here and scroll down.13. Niagara Falls: Up until the recent past, when the top of Niagara Falls was reinforced with concrete, the water was carving a channel upriver toward Lake Erie at the rate of about four to five feet per year. Since the channel is now about seven miles long (35,000 feet), this means that the age of Niagara Falls is between 7,000 and 8,750 years old (or less). This, of course, assumes that the rate of erosion has been constant. The age of North America, is likely the same.78,79,80 For more on this see the following comments by Ian Juby.14. Historical Records: Depending on which book one consults, historians claim that human history goes back 4,600- 5,400 (or more) years; however, according to Froelich Rainey, 1870 B.C. (plus or minus 6) is the "earliest actual recorded date in human history." 81,82,83 Also on this point, Sylvia Baker quotes Professor Libby as follows: "Professor Libby learned this when he tried to verify his Carbon-14 method. He said. 'The first shock Dr. Arnold and I had was when our advisers informed us that history extended back only 5,000 years... You read statements in books that such and such a society or archeological site is 20,000 years old. We learned rather abruptly (that) these... ancient ages, are not known accurately; in fact, it is at about the time of the First Dynasty in Egypt that the first historical date of any real certainty has been established.'" 84 See also "How Far Back to the Records Go?" 15. The San Andreas Fault: The San Andreas Fault is one of the most active faults in the North America. It runs into the Pacific Ocean at Tomales Bay, just east of Pt. Reyes, about 30 miles north of San Francisco. It is said to move from 1/2 to 2 inches per year. 85 How long has it been moving for? The answer varies greatly. Some say it has moved for tens of miles, and others say perhaps hundreds. The evidence is highly questionable.86 There are a few granite outcrops that hint that it may have moved 12,000 feet;87 however this too is questionable since the origin of granite itself is uncertain. Some geologists believe most granites are igneous while others believe the majority are metamorphic. 88 If the granite referred to above is of volcanic origin, then it could have come straight up from the ground. One thing that appears certain is that there is much disagreement with regard to how long this fault has been active. Looking at a geology map of the Pt. Reyes area, one may note that there are a few features that suggest that the fault has not been moving very long. These are: Sand Point, Tom's Point, and Lagunitas Creek. 89 The fault crosses each of these and yet none of them appear to be offset at all. This evidence suggests that this fault is quite young -- on the order of a few thousand years old. See also Continental Drift. 16. Eve's Mitochondrial DNA: Mitochondrial DNA is different from nucleus DNA in that it has "only 37 genes, compared to the estimated 100,000... in the cell's nucleus..." 90 It is also different in that it is only passed on from the mother, 90,91,92,93 or at least, so it was once thought; however that is now very much in question, as is brought out in the Links below. In 1989 scientists said that they had compared the Mitochondrial DNA of various different races of people and concluded that they all came from a single woman (they called her Eve) who lived from 100,000-200,000 years ago.90,91,92 This story was widely reported in the press. A few years later scientists actually measured the rate of Mitochondrial mutations and discovered that they changed about 20 times faster than was earlier reported.94 This means that Eve did not live 100,000-200,000 years ago but rather only 5,000-10,000. This greatly revised date is very close to the Biblical account of Adam and Eve. Unfortunately for those who want the whole truth, this didn't make the headlines. See also: "The Demise of Mitochondrial Eve" and Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past Through our Genes. 17. Population Growth: Today the earth's population doubles every 50 years. If we assumed only half of the current growth rate and start with one couple, it would take less than 4,000 years to achieve today's population. 95,96,97 See Population Statistics for more on this.

18. Minerals in the Oceans: By measuring the amounts of various minerals that are present in the oceans and calculating the amounts of each that are added each year by river runoff, scientists can estimate how old the oceans are. When doing so the great majority of minerals yield young ages for the earth's oceans -- many of which are less than 5,000 years. 98 See also The Sea's Missing Salt, 99 by Dr. Steve Austin. 19. Rapid Mountain Uplift: In March of 2005, Dr. John Baumgardner released his assessment of the "Recent Rapid Uplift of Today's Mountains" in an Impact article. In it he discovered that: "An ongoing enigma for the standard geological community is why all the high mountain ranges of the world -- including the Himalayas, the Alps, the Andes, and the Rockies -- experienced most of the uplift to their present elevations in what amounts to a blink of an eye, relative to the standard geological time scale. In terms of this time scale, these mountain ranges have all undergone several kilometers of vertical uplift since the beginning of the Pliocene about five million years ago. This presents a profound difficulty for uniformitarian thinking because the driving forces responsible for mountain building are assumed to have been operating steadily at roughly the same slow rates as are observed in today's world for... the past several hundred million years." 100 20. Carbon 14 from (supposedly) Old Sources: Carbon 14 is found in organic materials of all types, including diamonds, coal seams, carbonized wood, unfossilized wood and dinosaur bones. In fact, that is the problem. In other words, Carbon 14 is found where it shouldn't be -- if the earth were "billions of years" old. Commenting on this in their extensive paper: "Measurable 14C In Fossilized Organic Materials: Confirming The Young Earth Creation-Flood Model," Dr's Baumgardner, Humphreys, Snelling, and Austin stated in their Conclusion that: "The careful investigations performed by scores of researchers in more than a dozen AMS facilities in several countries over the past twenty years to attempt to identify and eliminate sources of contamination in AMS 14C analyses have, as a by-product, served to establish beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of intrinsic 14C in remains of living organisms from all portions of the Phanerozoic record. Such samples, with ages from 1-500 Ma as determined by other radioisotope methods applied to their geological context, consistently display 14C levels that are far above the AMS machine threshold, reliably reproducible, and typically in the range of 0.1-0.5 pmc. But such levels of intrinsic 14 C represent a momentous difficulty for uniformitarianism. A mere 250,000 years corresponds to 43.6 half-lives for 14C. One gram of modern carbon contains about 6 x 1010 14C atoms, and 43.6 half-lives worth of decay reduces that number by a factor of 7 x 1014. Not a single atom of 14C should remain in a carbon sample of this size after 250,000 years (not to mention one million or 50 million or 250 million years). A glaring (thousand-fold) inconsistency that... exists between the AMS-determined 14C levels and the corresponding rock ages provided by 238U, 87Rb, and 40K techniques. We believe the chief source for this inconsistency to be the uniformitarian assumption of time-invariant decay rates. Other research reported by our RATE group also supports this conclusion [7, 23, 42]. Regardless of the source of the inconsistency, the fact that 14 C, with a half-life of only 5730 years, is readily detected throughout the Phanerozoic part of the geological record argues the half billion years of time uniformitarians assign to this portion of earth history is likely incorrect. The relatively narrow range of 14C/C ratios further suggests the Phanerozoic organisms may all have been contemporaries and that they perished simultaneously in the not so distant past. Finally, we note there are hints that 14C currently exists in carbon from environments sealed from biospheric interchange since very early in the earth history. We therefore conclude the 14 C evidence provides significant support for a model of earths past involving a recent global Flood cataclysm and possibly also for a young age for the earth itself." 101 Emphasis Added See also: Carbon-14 Dating Shows that the Earth is Young,
102

and What about Carbon 14.

103

Abbreviations: Ma = Million years ago.pmc = percent modern carbon 21. Dark Matter and Spiral Galaxies: Although it isn't well known, the galaxies themselves also provide strong evidence that the Universe itself is less than (a maximum of) 500 million years old. That's because spiral galaxies should lose their "structure," or spiral arms, in only four or five revolutions, but for some reason they don't. Perhaps it's because they're Young? See also What Happened to all the Dark Matter?, 104 Exploding Stars point to a Young Universe 105 and Part Three of this series on the Age of the Earth. 22. Zircons: Zircons are tiny volcanic crystals. They also are found to contain far more helium and lead than they should -- IF the earth were "billions of years old." Humphreys, Austin, Baumgardner, and Snelling have written a paper on this subject as well, and in their summary they said that:

"We contracted with a high-precision laboratory to measure the rate of helium diffusion out of the zircons ... Here we report newer zircon diffusion data that extend to the lower temperatures ... of Gentry's retention data. The measured rates resoundingly confirm a numerical prediction we made based on the reported retentions and a young age. Combining rates and retentions gives a helium diffusion age of 6,000 2,000 years. This contradicts the uniformitarian age of 1.5 billion years based on nuclear decay products in the same zircons. These data strongly support our hypothesis of episodes of highly accelerated nuclear decay occurring within thousands of years ago. Such accelerations shrink the radioisotopic "billions of years" down to the 6,000year timescale of the Bible." 106 Emphasis AddedSee also: Helium Diffusion Age of 6,000 Years Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay.

E Evidence for a Young EarthPart Five of a Five-Part Series on The Age of the Earth. P Don't you think it's a bit odd that there are virtually NO Public debates between evolutionbelieving scientists and Creation scientists? And considering the fact that roughly half of all scientists (and 88 % of the public) believe in (either) spontaneous or slow Creation this is even more astounding. What are evolution-believing scientists and the media so afraid of? In other words: IF the theory of evolution is anywhere near as sound as they claim, then why not have some publicly televised debates on this issue? And why are so few media reporters afraid to give Creation Scientists ANY of their time? Are they afraid that the facts might upset their "faith" (or lack of it), or that their liberal bosses and co-workers won't approve of what they might Discover: IF they reported on what they found? And that's a mighty BIG IF. Introduction:Contrary to what we've been told over and over by the evolution-believing mass media, the "scientific" establishment, and old-Earth (slow) Creationists (who don't want God to receive too much glory), there are, in fact, numerous geophysical and astronomical clocks which point to a young age for the earth, solar system, and universe. In fact, such young-earth indicators are in the majority. But because the scientific establishment and the media are biased in favor of evolution, and against the Creator, and because evolution requires an old earth to appear plausible, the public at large is rarely informed of the mounting evidence that contradicts the old earth dogma of evolution. In the pages that follow we discuss 22 clocks, or indicators that the Earth and Universe are young. Or to say it another way: there is a LOT of scientific evidence that suggests the Earth is perhaps only thousands of years old, and that the 4.5 billion year age that evolution-believing "scientists" have LOUDLY proclaimed -- over and over -- is incorrect. Time Clocks:A "clock" is any geophysical or astronomical process that is changing at a constant rate. Clocks may be used to estimate how long a process has been going on for. All clocks (including radiometric ones) require the use of at least three assumptions. These are: 1. The rate of change has remained constant throughout the past.2. The original conditions are known. 3. The process has not been altered by outside forces. In each of these cases it is not possible to prove that the assumptions are true. For example flooding can greatly alter sedimentation rates, and with clocks over 5,000 years old, the original conditions cannot be known with certainty. Therefore scientists must make a guess with regard to what they believe the original conditions might have been. The shorter the time involved, the more likely that a specific process has been constant, and unaltered by external influences.The following clocks point to a young earth, solar system, and universe. Taken together, they suggest that the earth is quite young -- probably less than 10,000 years old.

Clock

1.

Receding Moon

2.

Oil Pressure

3.

The Sun

4.

The Oldest Living Thing

5.

Helium in the Atmosphere

6.

Short Period Comets

7.

The Earth's Magnetic Field

8.

C-14 Dating of Dino Bones

9A. Dinosaur Blood and Ancient DNA

9B. Unfossilized Dinosaur Bones 9C. 165 Million Year Old Ligaments 10. Axel Heiberg Island

11.

Carbon-14 in Atmosphere

12.

The Dead Sea

13.

Niagara Falls

14.

Historical Records

15.

The San Andreas Fault

16.

Mitochondrial Eve

17.

Population Growth

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Minerals in the Oceans Rapid Mountain Uplift Carbon 14 from "Old" Sources Dark Matter and Spiral Galaxies Helium and lead in Zircons

1. Receding Moon: The gravitational pull between the Earth and Moon causes the Earths oceans to have tides. The tidal friction between the Earths terrestrial surface and the water moving over it causes energy to be added to the Moon. This results in a constant yearly increase in the distance between the Earth and Moon."1 This tidal friction also causes the Earths rotation to slow down, but more importantly, the energy added to the Moon causes it to recede from the Earth.1,2 The rate of recession was measured at four centimeters per year in 1981; 3 however, according to Physicist Donald DeYoung: "One cannot extrapolate the present 4 cm/year separation rate back into history. It has that value today, but was more rapid in the past because of tidal effects. In fact, the separation rate depends on the distance to the 6th power, a very strong dependence ... the rate ... was perhaps 20 m/year long

ago, and the average is 1.2 m/year. 1 Because of this, the Moon must be less than 750 million years old -- or 20% of the supposed 4.5 billionyear age of the Earth-Moon system.4 Note: Even though the maximum age obtained from this method is more than 10,000 years, it is nevertheless much younger than the alleged 4.5 billion year age for the Earth-Moon system proposed by evolutionists. Note also that nobody knows how the Moon got to be in its present orbit. All of the proposed theories as to where it came from have serious problems. It is a complete mystery unless it was designed that way from the beginning. See also: What does the Moon have to say about all this -- Creation going on...? 2. Oil Pressure: When oil wells are drilled, the oil is almost always found to be under great pressure. This presents a problem for those who claim "millions of years" for the age of oil, simply because rocks are porous. For as time goes by, the oil should seep into tiny pores in the surrounding rock, and, over time, reduce the pressure. However, for some reason it doesn't. Perhaps because our oil deposits were created as a result of Noah's Flood only about 4600 years ago? Some scientists say that after about 10,000 years little pressure should be left. 5,6,7,8 Here's More.3. The Sun: Measurements of the sun's diameter over the past several hundred years indicate that it is shrinking at the rate of five feet per hour. Assuming that this rate has been constant in the past we can conclude that the earth would have been so hot only one million years ago that no life could have survived. And only 11,200,000 years ago the sun would have physically touched the earth. 9,10,11,12 Also, if the sun were indeed billions of years old, then it seems a bit odd for its magnetic field to have doubled in the past 100 years, but this is what the evidence suggests. See also: Global Warming - Is the Sun to Blame?, The Young Faint Sun Paradox, and Speedy Star changes Baffle Long-Agers 4. The Oldest Living Thing: The oldest living thing on earth is either an Irish Oak or a Bristlecone pine. If we assume a growth rate of one tree ring per year, then the oldest trees are between 4,500 and 4,767 years old. The fact that these trees are still alive and growing older means that we don't yet know how old they will get before they die. It also strongly suggests that something happened around 4,500 to 4,767 years ago which caused the immediate ancestors of these trees to die off. 13,14,15 Note also that it is possible for trees to produce more than one growth ring per year, which would shorten the above estimated ages of these trees. Also, with regard to fossil tree rings, the author has been unable to find any documented instances of fossil trees having more than about 1500 rings. Janelle says 1700. This is significant since we are told that God (literally) made the Earth, and all that is in it, only about 1800 years before the Noachian Flood described in the Book of Genesis. See also Evidence from Living Things5. Helium in the Atmosphere: Helium is a byproduct of the radioactive decay of uranium-238. As uranium decays, the helium produced escapes from the earth's surface and accumulates in the atmosphere. As time passes, the amount of helium in the atmosphere increases. Scientists have estimated the amount of uranium in the earth's crustal rocks. From this they estimate the amount of helium that should be produced, and from these they can calculate how much helium is being added to the atmosphere over a given amount of time. They also know how much helium is currently in the atmosphere. If we use the same assumptions that radiometric dating experts make -- i.e.: no initial daughter/byproduct (or helium) in the earth's early atmosphere, a constant decay rate, and that nothing has occurred to add to or take away the helium -- then the earth's atmosphere is at most 1.76 million years old. 16,17 Other estimates say it is much less: or only 175,000 years. 18 For a much more detailed discussion see: Helium Evidence for a Young World Remains Crystal Clear, and Helium Evidence for A Young World Overcomes Pressure, by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D. 6. Short Period Comets: Short period comets revolve round the sun once every hundred years or less.19 With each revolution they lose 1-2% of their mass. After several hundred revolutions they disintegrate. At present there are over 100 short period comets in our solar system, many of which have periods of less than 20 years.20 Since comets are believed to have originated at the same time as the solar system. 21 This, plus the fact that they have not all disintegrated, suggests that either the solar system is young, or that new comets are continuously being added. Evolutionists have come up with theories to explain the existence of comets, and how new ones are being added. One is called the Oort Cloud theory, named after J. Oort. This suggests that a hypothetical cloud surrounds the solar system that is said to extend past the orbit of Pluto.21 The other theory is called the Kuiper belt theory, and it is directed at short period comets, as opposed to to Oort Cloud theory, which is directed at both long and short period ones. Although some people claim that the Kuiper belt has been discovered, to this author's knowledge that is not the case. Nor has even one hypothetical object (i.e. asteroid of comet material) been observed to transform into a would-be comet. See reference 20 for more on this. See also the Astronomy section of the "Young" Age of the Earth and Universe Q&A page. The existence of short period comets suggests that our solar system is less than 10,000 years old: otherwise they would have burned out long ago.22 7. The Earth's Magnetic Field: The Earth's magnetic field is decaying at the rate of about 5 % every 100 years. This means that about 1450 years ago it was twice as strong as it is today, and 2900 years ago it was four times as strong. Therefore, assuming that the rate of decay has been

constant for the recent past, then only 10,000 years ago the earth's magnetic field would have been 128 times as strong as it is today: so strong that the amount of heat produced would have prevented life as we know it from existing on earth. 23,24,25,26 In other words, it seems likely that the Earth's magnetic field is quite young, and suggests that the earth itself is also young. The fact that the earth's magnetic field is decaying is well documented. For example, a recent NOVA Special on this subject brought this out very clearly. In fact, at present rates of decay, the earth may not even have a magnetic field 1000 years from now. And although, the NOVA special strongly suggested that this may simply mean the earth is getting ready for another reversal, such may not be the case, as Dr. Humphreys work suggests. A brief portion of Dr. Humphreys findings are quoted below. "Shortly after that I published a review of the evidence for past polarity reversals, reaffirming their reality (Humphreys, 1988). Then I developed my dynamic-decay theory further, showing that rapid (meters per second) motions of the core fluid would indeed cause rapid reversals of the fields polarity (Humphreys, 1990). I cited newly discovered evidence for rapid reversals (Coe and Prvot, 1989), evidence in thin lava flows confirming my 1986 prediction. Since then, even more such evidence has become known (Coe, Prvot, and Camps, 1995). The reversal mechanism of my theory would dissipate magnetic energy, not sustain it or add to it, so each reversal cycle would have a lower peak than the previous one. In the same paper (Humphreys, 1990, p. 137), I discussed the non-dipole part of the field today, pointing out that the slow (millimeter per second) motions of the fluid today could increase the intensity of some of the non-dipole parts of the field. However, I concluded (that) ... the total energy of the field would still decrease. Despite these ... answers, skeptics today still use Dalrymples old arguments to dismiss geomagnetic evidence. Much of that is probably due to ignorance of our responses, but some skeptics are still relying on the non-dipole part of the field. They hope that an energy gain in the non-dipole part will compensate for the energy lost from the dipole part. I said, hope, because it appears that since 1967, nobody has yet published a calculation of nondipole energies based on newer and better data. So that is what I will do below. It turns out that the results quash evolutionist hopes and support creationist models." 27 Emphasis Added Another major problem with old-earth beliefs in this regard is the timing of the earth's last reversal. Old earth believers claim that it took place 780,000 years ago; however, at current rates of decay, only about 10,000 years ago the earth would have been so hot that no life could have survived on its surface. And even if we assume that in the past the earth's magnetic field decayed much slower than today, we are still only looking at about 20,000 years ago that life could have existed on the earth. This indicates that old-earth dates for the earth's past magnetic reversals (arrived at using radiometric method) are probably incorrect, and suggests that the assumptions used in old-earth (radiometric) dating were (and are) incorrect. See also: Radiometric Dating and the Age of the Earth, and Continental Drift and the Age of the Earth and the Links associated with these articles. See also: The Mystery of the Earth's Magnetic Field and Magnetic Evidence on the Ocean Floor8. M Direct Dating of Dragon Bones: By evolutionary reasoning, dragon bones only occur in the socalled Cretaceous, Jurassic, or Triassic eras.28 According to the geological time chart such creatures (now called dinosaurs) died out between 65 and 220 million years ago. What is not well known about these eras is that they are based upon the theory of evolution -- which requires extremely long periods of time. When evolution-biased scientists say that they "know" such things, they not being forthright. For while they may, in fact, believe such things, if they were honest they would admit that such "dates" assigned to these eras are highly questionable. See Are Dinosaur Bones Millions of Years Old for why dinosaurs probably became extinct in recent times. So how can we date dragon bones? One piece to the puzzle is the fact that many dinosaur bones are not permineralized or turned into stone. This means they can be directly dated by the Carbon-14 method, the exact same way a mammoth or Neanderthal bone is dated. This has also been done on numerous occasions by various laboratories in the United States and Europe, and the dates indicate that dinosaurs were alive from 9,800 -- 50,000 years ago.29,30,31 This author discussed this with Paul LeBlond, Professor of Oceanography at the University of British Columbia. Dr. LeBlond said that any C14 date over 5,000 years is highly questionable.32 Therefore, despite what popular publications may report,33 we can establish that all mammoths, Neanderthals, or other bones "dated" over 5,000 years by the C14 method are likewise questionable. If we accept any, then we must accept them all: including those that are incompatible with evolution-based "ages" associated with the Geological Time Chart.

However, the very fact that many thousands of dinosaur/dragon bones contain organic material is a strong indication that these creatures became extinct in the recent past. This is discussed in greater detail in the sections below. See also C-14 Dating. http://www.earthage.org/youngearthev/evidence_for_a_young_earth.htm#Dinosaur%20Blood%20and %20%22Ancient%22%20DNA

QUOTES:
Stanley Miller is an evolutionist who, in 1953, produced amino acids which many thought, wrongly, had proved life to arise from non-living matter. A few years ago he said; "The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be much more difficult than I, and most other people imagined."[22] I'll bet it has! We shall see later in this study that the sudden appearance in the fossil record of multi-cellular organisms cannot be explained by evolutionists.

Doctor Miles Eldridge of the America Museum of Natural History said: "There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification of multi-cellular life. There is no question about it. That's a real phenomenon."[23] Not, of course, if he believed in the Bible! 9A. Dinosaur Blood and "Ancient" DNA:

from noah doc notes. Creation 2 file

Matt 2438-39 Jesus believed literally about noah Epic of gilgamesh Mentions noahs ark and the great flood. Sumerian/Babylon . Loaded all relatives and craftsman. Only cattle for food was place on. Faustius of Byzantium 5th century Armenian Byzantine account of st. Jacob, trying to find noah and then an angel appeared. Document baroisus dallashigh priest of Babylon ---- towards one of alexander the greats general lettergeographical location to ark. -- 5 is 90 degrees and 2 timera is 36 degreesthe other angel must be 74. Is 17 miles south of mt Ararat . 5 stadiium long 2 stadium wide refered not to dimensions but to the location. 3 times 10-15 daysearthquake slowly emerged from the mountain. St jude mountain. Maths used on boat. Ph ratio of circumference to diameter Phi is golden ratioshows up in many natural formations sunflower and horns of a ramspiral of a seasheel and the breaking waveused in ships hulls to prevent turbulence Ark covered with reeds--- stone is manufacturediron imbedded on scientifically founded beams. some tar materiala hollow sound-as shown in doco. Asfalt cement.----- Used pomous, malpam and natural tar. Moon poollarge rectangular hole in middle of ship. Dimensions are exact----50 cubits average width and 300 cubits for length 50 cubits average. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVCvzGr7h1g irons rivets connect wooden beams Einstein endorsed the crustal pole shift theory, thats his connection. The book he was reading when he died was also about pole shifts, one can take that to mean that he dedicated his last remaining days to examining the concept further

Scientists' Research and Darwinism

Edited by Emerson Thomas McMullen, 2002 Introduction [against Darwin doc]

Science has many limitations, but probably its worst shortcoming involves history. For example, if scientists did not know about the Battle of Waterloo, a turning point in history, what could they tell us? If we showed them the battleground, they could dig up bones, teeth, spent bullets, some corroded weapons, and other miscellaneous items to analyze. But they could not tell us much about the battle itself. They could only guess at the most important thing: who won it. Similarly, in the Battle of Midway, a turning point in the Pacific War, four Japanese carriers were sunk: the Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga, Soryu, and one American: theYorktown. In 1998, Robert Ballard, the explorer who found the Titanic, searched for these carriers. All he found was the Yorktown. Based on this evidence, and without knowing any history, one might wrongly infer that the United States lost this battle. These examples show just how poorly science handles history. The beginning of life and the origin of living things are historical events. They are not happening now and scientists cannot observe them. We have no time machine to ascertain what really occurred. Yet we find evolutionists claiming to have the correct insights into these important historical events. Many assert that we came from chemicals and evolved from a common ancestor. Are these assertions based on science, or a naturalistic worldview? For a list of well-known scientists who dissent from Darwinism, click here: 100 dissenting scientists. Scientists on this list include Russell W. Carlson, Prof. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, U. of Georgia; Jonathan Wells, PhD Molecular & Cell Biology-U.C. Berkeley; Dean Kenyon, Prof. Emeritus of Biology, San Francisco State; Marko Horb, Researcher, Dept. of Biology & Biochemistry, U. of Bath; Tony Jelsma, Prof. of Biology, Dordt College; Siegfried Scherer, Prof. of Microbial Ecology, Technische Universitt Mnchen; Marvin Fritzler, Prof. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, U. of Calgary, Medical School; Lennart Moller, Prof. of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Inst., U. of Stockholm; Matti Leisola, Prof., Laboratory of Bioprocess Engineering, Helsinki U. of Technology; Richard Sternberg, Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institute (2002). Origins Let us first consider the origin of life. It is not happening today. If life arose in the past only from various chemicals, we have to ask two questions: 1. "How did a very complex molecule, DNA, occur when the best that can happen naturalistically is for chemicals to form amino acids?" 2. "Even given DNA, how did we obtain the intricate genetic information it contains from chemicals, which have no genetic information at all?" How does something come from nothing? Are evolutionists calling for miracles here, under the name of science? There is no genetic information in chemicals to mutate and no genetic information to undergo natural selection - mutation and natural selection being two mainstays of current evolutionary thinking. Also, there is no process that scientists know of, whereby amino acids naturally form DNA. Given these considerations, how can any clearly thinking person claim that we came from only chemicals? Yet some people do, so it would seem that their faith in a naturalistic worldview overrides reason. For more on this click here: Problems with Chemical Origin of Life Theories. Now let us consider the origin of living things. In evolution, the debated issue is the idea of descent from a common ancestor. Suppose we are given a simple common ancestor as a starting point. What is the source of the new genetic information for the alleged advance to more complex life forms? A mutation or adaptation just shuffles around the existing information that already resides in the DNA. Thus, we might find a two-headed snake (a shuffle of information), but never a winged snake (new genetic information). That is why there are no fish with feet in the fossil record. Fish carry no genetic information for feet. The idea of descent from a common ancestor predicts fish with feet, but there are none in reality. Scientists have found millions and millions of fossil fish, but not one with feet. What we have noted about fish applies to other animals as well. It is no wonder that, amongst the billions of fossils we know about, scientists have found no clear-cut transitional forms. The idea of descent from a common ancestor is testable, but is found wanting. Again, evolutionists are calling for a miracle in the name of science and their faith overrides their reason. At present, there are two types of evolutionary ideas, Neo-Darwinism and Punctuated Equilibrium. Punctuated Equilibrium Many evolutionists today are Neo-Darwinists and so this article deals mostly with them. However, a

few subscribe to Punctuated Equilibrium, an evolutionary theory proposed by Niles Eldredge and the late Stephen J. Gould. Here is two scientists' criticism of Punctuated Equilibrium: In the past 25 years, Eldredge and Gould have proposed so many different versions of their theory that it is difficult to describe it with any accuracy. If a scientific theory is to be of any value as a tool for exploring the real world, it must have some stability as a set of propositions open to empirical test. Punctuated equilibrium has undergone so many transformations that it is hard to distinguish its core of truth from the "statement that morphological evolution sometimes occurs episodically." The above quotation by Jerry A. Coyne and Brian Charlesworth, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, appeared in Science, Volume 276, Number 5311, 18 April 1997, pp. 337-341. Their point is that Punctuated Equilibrium is not testable. One criterion of science is that theories have to be testable, otherwise they are not scientific. So according to this criterion and to Coyne, Punctuated Equilibrium is not a scientific idea. Neo-Darwinism Simply stated, Neo-Darwinism is the gradual origin of species from a common ancestor by natural selection of chance mutations. (Theistic evolution introduces God into this otherwise naturalistic process.) The idea fails because of the fossil record shows none of the predicted transitional forms but rather reveals the complexity and diversity of the early animal forms. Additionally, these forms have no precursors according to the fossil record. This has always been a problem for Darwinism and NeoDarwinism from its inception until now. The following are what scientists have said about this in somewhat reverse chronological order: Some General Examples Paleontologist Alan Cheetham, a gradualist evolutionist, summed up decades of his own research: "I came reluctantly to the conclusion that I wasn't finding evidence for gradualism." Reported by R.A. Kerr in "Did Darwin Get It All Right?" Science 276:1421, 10 March 1995. ". . . no human has ever seen a new species form in nature." Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73. "There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like, . . . . Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred." Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library (New York: Time Incorporated, 1962), pp. 14-15 ."Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation." Austin H. Clark, "Animal Evolution," Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539. "When we descend to details, we can prove that no one species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution]." Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1898), p. 210 No Transitional Forms "But the curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps: the fossils go missing in all the important places. When you look for links between major groups of animals, they simply aren't there; at least, not in enough numbers to put their status beyond doubt. Either they don't exist at all, or they are so rare that endless argument goes on about whether a particular fossil is, or isn't, or might be, transitional between this group or that." [emphasis in original] Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven Ct,:Ticknor and Fields, 1992) p. 19. (See my articleThe Coelacanth, Living Fossils, and Evolution). There is no fossil record establishing historical continuity of structure for most characters that might be used to assess relationships among phyla." Katherine G. Field et al., "Molecular Phylogeny of the animal Kingdom," Science, Vol. 239, 12 February 1988, p. 748. Evolutionists believe that amphibians evolved into reptiles, with either Diadectes or Seymouria as the claimed transition. Actually, by the evolutionist's own time scale, this "transition" occurs 35 million years (m.y.) after the earliest reptile, Hylonomus (a cotylosaur). A parent cannot appear 35 million

years after its child! The scattered locations of these fossils also present problems for the evolutionist. [See Steven M. Stanley, Earth and Life Through Time (New York: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1986), pp. 411-415. See also Robert H. Dott, Jr. and Roger L. Batten, Evolution of the Earth, 2nd edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), p. 311. "And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field." Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85-1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste, Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16. "The fact that all the individual species must be stationed at the extreme periphery of such logic [evolutionary] trees merely emphasized the fact that the order of nature betrays no hint of natural evolutionary sequential arrangements, revealing species to be related as sisters or cousins but never as ancestors and descendants as is required by evolution." [emphasis in original] Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, London: Barnett Books, 1985, p. 132 ". . . there are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world." G.R. Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, ( N.Y: Harper and Row, 1983) p. 60. ". . . the gradual morphological transitions between presumed ancestors and descendants, anticipated by most biologists, are missing." David E. Schindel (Curator of Invertebrate Fossils, Peabody Museum of Natural History), "The Gaps in the Fossil Record," Nature, Vol. 297, 27 May 1982, p. 282. "Gaps at a lower taxonomic level, species and genera, are practically universal in the fossil record of the mammal-like reptiles. In no single adequately documented case is it possible to trace a transition, species by species, from one genus to another." Thomas S. Kemp, Mammal-like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals (New York: Academic Press, 1982), p. 319. "Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans - of upright, naked, tool-making, big-brained beings - is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter." Lyall Watson, "The Water People," Science Digest, May 1982, p. 44. "At any rate, modern gorillas, orangs and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no yesterday, unless one is able to find faint foreshadowings of it in the dryopithecids." Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981; reprint edition, New York: Warner Books, 1982), p. 363. It is true that the skeletal features of some amphibians and some reptiles are similar. However, huge differences exist in their soft internal organs, such as their circulatory and reproductive systems. For example, no evolutionary scheme has ever been given for the development of the many unique innovations of the reptile's egg. [See Denton, pp. 218-219 and Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (London: Rider, 1984) pp. 199-200.] "In fact,the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another." Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, 1981) p. 95 "Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information - what appeared to be a nice simple progression when relatively few data were available now appears to be much more complex and much less gradualistic. So Darwin's problem has not been alleviated in the last 120 years and we still have a record which does show change but one that can hardly be looked upon as the most reasonable consequence of natural selection." David M. Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 1, January 1979, p. 25. (He says a similar thing on p. 50.) Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum (Natural History), was asked by Luther D. Sunderland why no evolutionary transitions were included in Dr. Patterson's recent book entitled Evolution. In a personal letter, Patterson said: "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be asked to visualize such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I

could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?. . . Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say that there are no transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least `show a photo of the fossil from which each type organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." Copy of letter, dated 10 April 1979, from Patterson to Sunderland. "Surely the lack of gradualism - the lack of intermediates - is a major problem." Dr. David Raup, as taken from page 16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D. Sunderland on 27 July 1979. ". . . there are about 25 major living subdivisions (phyla) of the animal kingdom alone, all with gaps between them that are not bridged by known intermediates." Francisco J. Ayala and James W. Valentine, Evolving, The Theory and Processes of Organic Evolution (Menlo Park, California: The Benjamin Cummings Publishing Co., 1979), p. 258. The following was based on an interview with Dr. Niles Eldredge, an invertebrate paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History. "But the smooth transition from one form of life to another which is implied in the theory is . . .not borne out by the facts. The search for `missing links' between various living creatures, like humans and apes, is probably fruitless . . . because they probably never existed as distinct transitional creatures. This oddity has been attributed to gaps in the fossil record which gradualists expected to fill when rock strata of the proper age had been found. In the last decade, however, geologists have found rock layers of all divisions of the last 500 million years and no transitional forms were contained in them. If it is not the fossil record which is incomplete then it must be the theory." "Missing, Believed Nonexistent," Manchester Guardian (The Washington Post Weekly), Vol. 119, No. 22, 26 November 1978, p. 1. "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils . . . . We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study." Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 5, May 1977, p. 14. "New species almost always appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no intermediate links to ancestors in older rocks of the same region." Ibid., p. 12. "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt." S.J. Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, Vol. 86, June-July 1977, p. 23. "Most orders, classes, and phyla appear abruptly, and commonly have already acquired all the characters that distinguish them." Ibid., p. 266. "The absence of any known series of such intermediates imposes severe restrictions on morphologists interested in the ancestral source of angiosperms and leads to speculation and interpretation of homologies and relationships on the basis of the most meager circumstantial evidence." Charles B. Beck, Origin and Early Evolution of Angiosperms (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), p. 5. "The geological record has so far provided no evidence as to the origin of the fishes . . . ." J.R. Norman, A History of Fishes, 3rd edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1975), p. 343. "All three subdivisions of the bony fishes first appear in the fossil record at approximately the same time. They are already widely divergent morphologically, and they are heavily armored. How did they originate? What allowed them to diverge so widely? How did they all come to have heavy armor? And why is there no trace of earlier, intermediate forms?" Gerald T. Todd, "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes - A Causal Relationship?", American Zoologist, Vol. 20, No. 4, p. 757. "Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of `seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of `gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." David B. Kitts (School of Geology and Geophysics, University of Oklahoma), "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467. "The transition from insectivore to primate is not clearly documented in the fossil record." A.J. Kelso,

Physical Anthropology, 2nd edition (New York: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1974), p. 141. ". . . experience shows that the gaps which separate the highest categories may never be bridged in the fossil record. Many of the discontinuities tend to be more and more emphasized with increased collecting." Norman D. Newell (former Curator of Historical Geology at the American Museum of Natural History), "The Nature of the Fossil Record," Adventures in Earth History, editor Preston Cloud (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1970), pp. 644-645. "A person may choose any group of animals or plants, large or small, or pick one at random. He may then go to a library and with some patience he will be able to find a qualified author who says that the evolutionary origin of that form is not known." Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian Faith (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: The Presbyterian and reformed Publishing Company, 1969), p. 302. "There is no more conclusive refutation of Darwinism than that furnished by palaeontology. Simple probability indicates that fossil hoards can only be test samples. Each sample, then, should represent a different stage of evolution, and there ought to be merely `transitional' types, no definition and no species. Instead of this we find perfectly stable and unaltered forms persevering through long ages, forms that have not developed themselves on the fitness principle, but appear suddenly and at once in their definitive shape; that do not thereafter evolve towards better adaptation, but become rarer and finally disappear, while quite different forms crop up again. What unfolds itself, in everincreasing richness of form, is the great classes and kinds of living beings which exist aboriginally and exist still, without transition types, in the grouping of today." [emphasis in original] Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, Vol. 2 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 32. But whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lung-fishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing, a matter of hot dispute among the experts, each of whom is firmly convinced that everyone else is wrong . . . . I have often thought of how little I should like to have to prove organic evolution in a court of law." [emphasis in original] Errol White, "A Little on Lung-Fishes," Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, Vol. 177, Presidential Address, January 1966, p. 8. ". . . to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of classification, it would be the knell [the death signal] of the theory of evolution. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. Textbooks hoodwink." E.J.H. Corner, "Evolution," Contemporary Botanical Thought, editors Anna M. MacLeod and L.S. Cobley (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p. 9 ."The [evolutionary] origin of birds is largely a matter of deduction. There is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved." W.E. Swinton, "The Origin of Birds," Biology and Comparative Physiology of Birds, editor A.J. Marshall (New York: Academic Press, 1960), Vol. 1, Chapter 1, p. 1. See my article Did Birds Evolve from Dinosaurs? Latest Research Says No! "When and where the first Primates made their appearance is also conjectural. . . . It is clear, therefore, that the earliest Primates are not yet known. . . ." William Charles Osman Hill, Primates (New York: Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1953), Vol. 1, pp. 25-26. "As our present information stands, however, the gap remains unbridged, and the best place to start the evolution of the vertebrates is in the imagination." Homer W. Smith, From Fish to Philosopher (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1953), p. 26. "It may, therefore, be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature of an evolution our of palaeobiological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of the material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled." Nilsson, p. 1212 "In spite of the immense amount of the paleontological material and the existence of long series of intact stratigraphic sequences with perfect records for the lower categories, transitions between the higher categories are missing." Richard B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist", American Scientist, Vol. 40, January, 1952, p. 98. "There is, however, no fossil evidence bearing on the question of insect origin; the oldest insects known show no transition to other arthropods." Frank M. Carpenter, "Fossil Insects," Insects (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1952), p. 18. "It has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which

existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years. As yet we have not been able to trace the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present." Chester A. Arnold,An Introduction to Paleobotany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947), p. 7. "When a new phylum, class, or order appears, there follows a quick, explosive (in terms of geological time) diversification so that practically all orders or families known appear suddenly and without any apparent transitions." Ibid., p. 97. "This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all orders of all classes of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate. A fortiori, it is also true of the classes, themselves, and of the major animal phyla, and it is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants." George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution (New York: Columbia university Press, 1944), p. 107. ". . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution. In other words, there are not enough intermediates. There are very few cases where one can find a gradual transition from one species to another and very few cases where one can look at a part of the fossil record and actually see that organisms were improving in the sense of becoming better adapted." Ibid., p. 23. Complex and Diverse Early Animals Developmental biologist Rudolf Roff of Indiana University concludes from the fossil evidence from Canada, Greenland, China, Siberia, and Nambia of a Cambrian explosion of life: "There must be limits to change, after all we've had these same old body plans for half a billion years." Reported by J.M. Nash in the cover story, "Evolution's Big Bang: New discoveries show that life as we know it began in an amazing biological frenzy that changed the planet almost overnight," Time Magazine, 4 December 1996, p. 74. (See my article, The Implications of the Cambrian Explosion for Evolution). "Vertebrates and their progenitors, according to the new studies, evolved in the Cambrian, earlier than paleontologists have traditionally assumed." Richard Monastersky, "Vertebrate Origins: The Fossils Speak Up," Science News, Vol. 149, 3 February 1996, p. 75. "Evolutionary biology's deepest paradox concerns this strange discontinuity. Why haven't new animal body plans continued to crawl out of the evolutionary cauldron during the past hundreds of millions of years? Why are the ancient body plans so stable?" Jeffrey S. Levinton, "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 267, November 1992, p. 84. "The most famous such burst, the Cambrian explosion, marks the inception of modern multicellular life. Within just a few million years, nearly every major kind of animal anatomy appears in the fossil record for the first time . . . . The Precambrian record is now sufficiently good that the old rationale about undiscovered sequences of smoothly transitional forms will no longer wash." Stephen Jay Gould, "An Asteroid to Die For," Discover, October 1989, p. 65 ."If there has been evolution of life, the absence of the requisite fossils in the rocks older than the Cambrian is puzzling." Marshall Kay and Edwin H. Colbert, Stratigraphy and Life history (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1965), p. 103 ."There are no fossils known that show what the primitive ancestral insects looked like, . . . . Until fossils of these ancestors are discovered, however, the early history of the insects can only be inferred." Peter Farb, The Insects, Life Nature Library (New York: Time Incorporated, 1962), pp. 14-15. ". . . it is well known that the fossil record tells us nothing about the evolution of flowering plants." E.J.H. Corner, "Evolution?" in Macleod and Cobley, eds., Contemporary Botanical Thought (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961) p. 100. "Granted an evolutionary origin of the main groups of animals, and not an act of special creation, the absence of any record whatsoever of a single member of any of the phyla in the Pre-Cambrian rocks remains as inexplicable on orthodox grounds as it was to Darwin." T. Neville George (Professor of Geology at the University of Glasgow), "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science Progress, Vol. 48, No. 189, January 1960, p. 5. "One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution is the occurrence of diversified, multicellular marine invertebrates in Lower Cambrian rocks on all the continents and their absence in rocks of greater age." Daniel I. Axelrod, "Early Cambrian Marine Fauna, " Science, Vol. 128, 4 July 1958, p. 7.

"There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks." Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 348. "The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formations, has been urged by several palaeontologists - for instance , by Agassiz, Pictet, and Sedgwick - as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection." Ibid., p. 344. "To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer." Ibid., p. 350. "The case at present must remain inexplicable, and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views here entertained." Ibid., p. 351. Acknowledgments Many of these quotes were compiled by Walt Brown, In the Beginning, spec.ed., (Phoenix, Az: Center for Scientific Creation, 1996). Sharon Ann McMullen did the word processing.

Scientists Find No Genetic Evidence For Evolution by Bill Sardi Critics of Darwin's theory of evolution point to flaws in the fossil record (no new species, no missing links) as evidence that the theory is false. But in the 1960s scientists discovered genetic material called DNA and were quick to suggest that the rate of change in DNA is evidence that confirms Darwin's theory of evolution. While it is convenient for evolutionary biologists to assume that various DNA proteins evolve at a fixed rate, a recent study blows a hole in this theory. The September 25 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, geneticist Francisco Rodriguez-Trelles and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, indicate the idea of a molecular clock may be hopelessly flawed. "It may be ripe for the pawnshop" say Menno Schilthuizen, writing in Science Now. Calculating the different mutation rates for three well-known genes for 78 species, researchers found widely different mutation rates even for closely related species. "Molecular clocks are much more erratic than previously thought and practically useless to keep accurate evolutionary time," says Schilthuizen. The authors of the research conclude that the neutral theory of molecular evolution (predictable or constant rates of change) is flawed and that changes in the rate of variation are left to the vagaries of natural selection (randomness). With no evidence to confirm the neutral theory of molecular evolution, scientists say this amounts to a "denial of there being a molecular clock." Phosphate - - - - Guanine Cytosine Adenine Thymine - - - - Sugar A DNA Nucleotide Sequence Positions of the middle four proteins differs DNA is made up of many subunits or strings of sequenced proteins strung between a sugar and a phosphate molecule (called a nucleotide). Think of a wash line in the back yard. There are two poles (the sugar and phosphate molecules) with four proteins (amino acids guanine, cytosine, adenine, thymine) hanging on the wash line. There are many of these "wash lines" in one gene and over time some of the proteins hanging on the wash line change their positions. One protein may be substituted for another, which is called a mutation. Different species of life have some of the same genes and therefore the rate of change (number of protein substitutions) can be used to calibrate a DNA clock. Comparative studies of different proteins in various groups of organisms tend to show that the average number of amino-acid substitutions per site per year is typically

around 10-9. Calculating backwards, scientists have attempted to use the DNA clock to determine when, let's say, chimpanzees and man diverged from the same genetic tree. There are a lot of assumptions here (even that there is a genetic tree at all) but the scientists believe humans and chimps split off from a common ancestor about 5.5 million years ago. But the DNA clock is not so reliable. Paleontologists calculate the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance of a fossil record that is rich in almost every species of life, occurred about 540 million years ago. But DNA clock estimations come up with a date of 1 billion years ago for the Cambrian explosion. So there is an unexplainable 500-million year gap. Which provides the most accurate dating, the fossils or the genes? The so-called neutral theory of evolution holds that DNA mutations (protein substitutions) accumulate at an approximately constant rate as long as the DNA retains its original functions. The differences between the sequences of the same DNA segment (or protein) in two species of life would then be proportional to the time the species diverged from a common ancestor. The undeniable problem is, different DNA protein sequences (or even different parts of the same gene) "evolve" or change at markedly different rates. For example, mutation rates in primates are slower than in rodents. This also assumes that all mutations move progressively rather than in reverse. If what these researchers say is true, that the theory of a molecular clock is hopelessly flawed, scientists have some real reorganization on their hands. There are no less than 30 textbooks written on molecular evolution in the past decade and numerous PhDs awarded in this area of investigation. To date, no convincing evidence for a phylogeny tree has ever been produced. The evolutionary trees shown in biology textbooks are simply theory, not science. Genetics does not confirm its existence either, though it took scientists more than three decades to determine this. Few scientists are expected to abandon the theory of neutral molecular evolution anytime soon. Sources:

Francisco Rodriguez-Trelles, Rosa Tarrio, Francisco J. Ayala, Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA, Volume 98, pages 11405-10, September 25, 2001 Schilthuizen, M, Molecular Clock Not Exactly Swiss, Science Now, Sept. 28, 2001. Dictionary of Biology, Oxford University Press, Market House Books, 2000. National Human Genome Research Institute October 2, 2001

Bill Sardi is a journalist residing in Diamond Bar, California. His new book is Big God vs. Big Science (Here & Now Books, 107 pages, illustrated, $7.00) at www.hereandnowbooks.com. Copyright 2001 by the Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/sardi5.html

http://www.matthewmcgee.org/creation.html

Introduction Our textbooks, televisions, and newspapers commonly teach, as though it were proven fact, that the earth is 4 to 5 billion years old. But what is not commonly taught is how the scientists determined that age. What assumptions did they make? What evidence did they use? What evidence did they discard? We will examine these questions in this article. We will see that the scientists began with the assumptions that (a.) the general theory of evolution is correct and that (b.) creation is incorrect. The scientists did not come to these conclusions based upon on an examination of the evidence. They simply made these assumptions from the beginning. We will also show that they use some of the most unreliable measurements available as evidence that the earth is very old, while at the same time they discard the overwhelming majority of the evidence which shows that the earth is very young. They also attempt to reinforce their error by claiming that various geological processes took millions of years to complete, even though there is ample evidence to prove that these processes took place very rapidly. Definition of Terms Before we get into this discussion, we need to define a few terms. The special theory of evolution is sometimes called horizontal variation. These are minor changes in plants or animals over time, not changes from one kind to another. These minor changes can be observed, shown through experimentation, and can be reproduced. So the special theory of evolution is within the boundaries of science. But in this article, when I refer to "evolution", I will be referring to the general theory of evolution, which states that all life evolved from simpler forms of life, which in turn evolved from inorganic material over vast periods of time. Unlike the special theory of evolution, the general theory of evolution cannot be observed, cannot be shown through experimentation, and cannot be reproduced. The general theory of evolution is therefore altogether outside of science. Those who believe in evolution must accept it on faith. Someone once properly summed up the situation by rewording Hebrews 11:1 for evolutionists as follows, "Now the faith of the evolutionist is the substance of fossils hoped for and the evidence of links unseen." One other term we need to define is uniformity. Uniformity is an assumption often made in determining the age of the earth, in spite of the fact that it is almost always wrong. It assumes all of the processes that we see in nature today, have always been occurring at the same rate that they do today. Since uniformity is gradual uniform change over millions of years, it is sometimes also called "gradualism". How Rocks are Dated Many people think scientists determine the ages of rocks by radiometric dating. Later in this article, we will discuss radiometric dating in detail in its own section. But the fact is that the dating of rocks to a particular time period in the past is not done by any sort of objective measurement. The dating of rocks is done by dating the index fossils which are found in the rocks! The scientist dates the fossils by determining when he thinks those fossils best fit into the assumed general theory of evolution. Any measurement, whether done radiometrically or otherwise, that disagrees with the assumed general theory of evolution is deemed incorrect and is discarded. The scientist then finds that when the rock samples are arranged according to the age he has determined, the fossils in them progress along the time line in accordance with the general theory of evolution. But it was the assumption that the general theory of evolution was correct that was used to date the rocks in the first place. This is circular reasoning, plain and simple. But of course the scientists will conceal enough of the facts and disguise their arguments well enough so that most people will not recognize their circular reasoning for what it is. Here is an example to show just how illogical this circular reasoning is. A person could assume that no life existed on the earth prior to one hundred years ago. He would then logically conclude that all fossils must be no more than one hundred years old. Then one could use the fossils to date all rocks that contain fossils to one hundred years or less. Then he could say that all of the rocks are evidence that no life existed on the earth prior to one hundred years ago. This argument and conclusion are ludicrous of course. One could prove anything they wanted about the earth's age by this process, but this is just the kind of thinking that is used to support the general theory of evolution. Evidence of the Young Age of the Earth There are many natural processes which can be used to estimate the age of the earth. Henry M. Morris, Ph.D. of the Institute for Creation Research has an article called "The Young Earth" at http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-017.htm. In it, he shows a table of 76 different processes in nature that can be used to estimate the age of the earth. The table includes processes such as the influx of various elements into the oceans, the decay of the earth's magnetic field, the accumulation of

meteoric materials on the earth, and many other processes. Of these 76 processes: 26 show the earth to be less than 10,000 years old 15 show the earth to be more than 10,000 up to 100,000 years old 11 show the earth to be more than 100,000 up to one million years old 5 show the earth to be more than one million up to 10 million years old 13 show the earth to be more than 10 million up to 100 million years old 6 show the earth to be more than 100 million up to half a billion years old None of the 76 processes show the earth to be more than half a billion years old. More than half of these processes show the earth to be less than 100,000 years old. It should be noted that these processes assume uniformity and further assume that none of the daughter component (the substance being formed) was present in the sample in the beginning. If any of the daughter component was present in the sample in the beginning, then that would cause the actual age to be even younger. The assumption of uniformity, that all conditions remained constant over the period of the measurement, is much more likely to be correct for short time periods than for long time periods. Therefore, the estimates that yield younger ages are more likely to be accurate. Yet the evolutionists say the earth is ten times older than even the longest of the estimates shown above. But they certainly do not say this by preponderance of the evidence. Radiometric Dating One of the primary "evidences" that evolutionists like to point to show that the earth is very old is radiometric dating. As the table in the preceding section showed, there are many geological systems which could be used to estimate the age of the earth. But with each of them, there are potential problems that could throw off the results. Radiometric dating is no exception. Picture in your mind a simple hourglass that has half of the sand in the top half and half of the sand in the bottom half. We might assume from looking at it that it, has been sitting there for half an hour. This would be assuming uniformity, but would this really be a correct assumption? (A.) Someone could have poured all that sand in the top shortly before you looked at it. In this case, the hourglass may have really been sitting there for several days before you looked. (B.) Someone may have poured all of that sand in the bottom shortly before you looked at it. In this case, the hourglass may not have been sitting there but a second or two before you looked. (C) Someone could have tampered with the opening in the middle of the hourglass, either clogging or widening it. In this case, the hourglass may have been sitting there either much longer or much shorter than is apparent. (D.) Perhaps the hourglass has always looked just as it now appears, and therefore gives no real indication of how long it has been there. Radiometric dating involves the process of a radioactive element, such as uranium, decaying into another element, such as lead. Uranium-lead radiometric dating would be a good clock for estimating the age of rocks if we knew the following. (A.) The rate at which uranium decays into lead. (B.) How much lead was in the rock when it was formed. (C.) All of the lead that was not in the rock when the rock was formed came from decaying uranium. (D.) There is no way any extra lead or uranium could have gotten into the rock from the outside. (E.) There is no way any of the original lead or uranium could have gotten out of the rock, such as by differential leaching. (F.) The process has always been uniform. In other words, A, C, D, and E have each always remained constant throughout the age of the rock. However, most of these requirements are either unknown, or are known not to be true. But there is a flip-side to the uranium-lead dating method. Uranium decays into lead, which is a very common element on the earth. When the uranium decays, it also produces helium-4 as a by-product. But unlike

lead, helium-4 is very rare. Rocks which the uranium-lead dating method estimates to be more than 100 million years old, contain only enough helium to account for a tiny fraction of that time. The evolutionists claim that the helium must have escaped from the rocks. But if that were the case, we should be able to find vast amounts of helium-4 in the atmosphere. But the tiny amount of helium-4 present on the earth indicates only a few thousand years of uranium decay, not 4 to 5 billion years. Even uranium-lead radiometric dating provides evidence that the earth is young when one considers the lack of helium-4 on the planet. Another radiometric dating method is the Potassium-Argon method. With this method, ages found from samples taken from a single rock may differ drastically. Rocks formed from the active Kilauea volcano in Hawaii were found to increase in age as the depth of the rock increased. Lava flows known to be less than 200 years old yielded dates of up to 22 million years using this method. Part of the problem is that argon, which is abundant in the atmosphere, can be incorporated into the rocks under pressure, making the Potassium-Argon method yield older dates. The radio-carbon (C-14) dating method is another very inaccurate dating method. Results differ greatly even in the same rock layer. In rocks that are supposed to be 110 million years old, dinosaur bones and wood were taken and dated to 19,000 years old and 890 years old respectively using this method. In addition, the shells of living mollusks regularly date to more than 2000 years old using the radio-carbon method. One other interesting note about C-14 is that its level on the earth is presently increasing exponentially, and is now 30 per cent short of equilibrium. It has been estimated that it would have taken less than 8000 years for the C-14 to reach its present level of concentration. Rapid Processes Evolutionists also attempt to support their claim that the earth is billions of years old by saying that the earth's various rock strata each took millions of years to form. For example they say it takes 1400 to 2700 years to form a single foot of limestone. They calculate these formation rates by first assuming how many millions of years, according to the general theory of evolution, that the rock strata must cover. Then they simply divide by the depth (thickness) of the stone layer. But the evolutionists ignore the overwhelming evidence which strongly supports rapid limestone formation. This includes many fossils which plainly illustrate that the rock was formed very quickly. One such fossil is of a fish in the process of swallowing a smaller fish, with the tail of the smaller fish clearly sticking out the mouth of the larger one. Now following the assumption of uniformity and the speed of limestone formation that the evolutionists calculate, it would have taken hundreds of years to cover this fish. But clearly this fish was covered in much less than one day's time at the very most, perhaps instantaneously. There are also fossils of fern leaves which did not even have time to wilt before they were covered. There are fossils of whole shrimp, dragonflies, and other insects preserved with minute detail. All of the tiny soft parts of can be clearly seen. So these tiny creatures had no time to decompose. Large dinosaurs with the soft parts preserved have also been found. One fossil shows a 30 foot long ichthyosaur (an aquatic fish-like animal) with a baby ichthyosaur visible in the womb. Yet another fossil shows the same type of animal giving birth with half of the baby out of the mother and half still inside the mother. Assuming the uniformity theory of 1400 years per foot of limestone, and a body thickness of about 5 feet for such a large animal, it would have taken at least 7000 years to cover this ichthyosaur. But obviously, that is not the case. It is as if someone suddenly dumped a whole truckload of cement on this animal, causing it to be instantaneously sealed in rock. This was a catastrophic destruction, with no time to finish dinner and no time to finish giving birth, much less time to decompose. If that is not enough evidence, trees over 40 feet tall have been found standing vertically in the limestone. The trees did not decompose in the time it took them to be covered, which would have taken more than 50,000 years by the evolutionists' uniformity processes. There are many other processes which were thought to have taken vast stretches of time, that were actually accomplished rather quickly. For example, the formation of coal is supposed to have taken millions of years. However, fossils of tree trunks have been found extending vertically in the coal beds, revealing that coal was formed rapidly. If the coal had taken eons to form, the tree would have died, become rotten, fallen down, and decomposed long before the coal could cover it. Many rock formations which are supposed to have been formed over millions of years actually contain flow structures that can be plainly seen, including ripple marks and swirls around internal obstructions. This is clear evidence of rapid formation. Stalactites, rock-like formations that hang down from the ceilings of caves, were once supposed to have required vast stretches of time to form. Some estimates were approximately one cubic inch per 100,000 years. But now stalactites have been found to form much faster. They have even been found underneath modern man-made stone or concrete structures, such as in the basements of old buildings or underneath old bridges. The Geological Column

One common argument that evolutionists like to use is to say that as you dig deeper into the rock strata, you find increasingly simpler organisms. They call this the geological column. But in the real world, they cannot find such a column all in one place. So they have to correlate or piece together samples from around the world into columns. But how do they determine the ages of the various rock strata to know where they should go in the column? By Radiometric dating? No, as previously stated, they look at the fossils that they find in the rocks to see how primitive they think the organisms look. Then they determine the age of the rock and where it should go in the column by examining the fossils themselves. So it is all based upon the beginning assumption that the general theory of evolution is correct and that any evidence to the contrary, no matter how vast, has to be wrong. Modern human skeletons have been found with dinosaur skeletons. This is a problem for the evolutionists which say that the dinosaurs became extinct tens of millions of years before man came on the scene. But the evolutionists protest, saying that the human skeletons must have been moved or that they somehow did not live contemporaneously with the dinosaurs. However, researchers in Glen Rose, Texas have uncovered very strong, if not irrefutable, evidence that dinosaurs and humans did live at the same time. The evidence is found in and around a river bed in limestone that is supposed to be 110 million years old. The limestone contains hundreds of dinosaur tracks. But among them are many human tracks, including a path of 14 human steps which cross over and sometimes even step directly into the dinosaur tracks. Other human evidence found in the limestone includes a fossilized human finger and an iron hammer. A large cat track, nine-inches across, was also found nearby. This is significant because evidence of any large mammal living contemporaneously with dinosaurs is devastating for popular evolutionary theory which supposes that mammals came millions of years after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Grand Canyon presents other problems for the geological column. Along the walls are Cambrian and Mississippian rock layers, one on top of the other. This is interesting because those layers are supposed to have been formed separately with an intervening time gap of 150-200 million years. Why aren't there rocks between those layers in that alleged huge time gap? The evolutionists theorize that that 150-200 million years must have been a period of very heavy erosion that kept that rock layer from developing. Now we know that just a few decades of water erosion can produce major signs of erosion. Yet the line between the Cambrian and Mississippian rock layers is very level for hundreds of miles with no sign of erosion at all, much less 150 million years worth. So we know that the Cambrian and Mississippian rock layers were actually formed with very little time intervening. In addition, there are some cases of alternating strata. That is, Mississippian rock sits on top of Cambrian rock which sits on top of Mississippian rock which sits on top of Cambrian rock and so forth. Now that really fouls up the so-called geological column. The Cambrian rock is supposed to be the layer of rock in which the simplest of all life forms first began to appear. However, all of the major phyla of plants and animals may be found in the Cambrian rock strata, including the most advanced group, the vertebrates. In fact, nearly all classes and orders have been found in Cambrian rock. So the pre-Cambrian period for which there is no fossil record is far more than a missing link, but rather, it is a missing chain. The Laws of Thermodynamics First Law of Thermodynamics: This is the law of conservation of matter and energy. Matter and energy can change from one to the other. But matter-energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Matter cannot be created within the framework of the natural laws of science. Matter therefore, could only have come into existence by super-natural means (the Creator). The general theory of evolution, the big bang, and other such theories only try to explain how life was formed out of unorganized nonliving matter and energy. They provide no clues at all as to how all of the matter and energy came into existence in the first place. Second Law of Thermodynamics: This law is sometimes called the principal of entropy increase. That means that the universe is constantly becoming more and more disordered. By this law, incredibly complex life forms could never be formed from simple raw materials, even if you waited a trillion years. Some will argue that this law applies only to closed systems, and that since the earth gets energy from the sun, the earth is an open system which can become more organized. Certainly additional energy is required in order for anything to become more organized, but energy by itself is not sufficient. An increase in information is required. For example, a nuclear bomb dropped on a city adds tremendous energy to the city. Does this make the city more organized? No, it turns the city into in a mass of smoldering rubble. If a tornado hits a house, it is not going to caulk the bathtub, do the dishes, and lock up when it leaves. Likewise, the sun provides no information to the earth, and is incapable of causing an increase in organization.

No Simple Cells In "Origin of Species", page 183, Charles Darwin wrote regarding the general theory of evolution, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely breakdown." One place where his theory breaks down is in the formation of living cells. There are no such thing as simple cells. Bacteria cells, like human cells, are complex beyond our imagination. A single cell is like a huge library, astoundingly complex, not even remotely simple. Each cell contains many different systems required to keep it alive and enable it to reproduce itself. For the evolutionist to be correct, all of these various incredibly complex systems would have had to have been formed simultaneously by chance. Apes, Men, Frauds, and Mistakes In attempt to develop an evolutionary chain between ape and man, evolutionists often point to many so-called "fossil men". However, when these many links in the alleged chain are analyzed it becomes apparent that they all fall into one of three groups of fossils. These three groups are: (1.) apes, (2.) men, (3.) frauds and mistakes. Apes: Ramapithecus, Oreopithecus, Limnopithecus, Kenyapithecus, and Austalopithecines were all simply various types of apes, perhaps extinct types of orangutans. Austalopithecines is supposed to be a step above the others in the chain, but its skull was strikingly similar to that of a modern orangutan. Its brain was only 400 to 700 cubic centimeters, compared with the much larger 1400 to 1700 cubic centimeters for modern man. It should also be noted that some of those listed in above may be not be legitimate, since some were only based upon teeth or a very scant amount of bones. Men: The brains of the Neanderthals and Cro Magnons were 1600 to 1700 cubic centimeters, at least as large if not slightly larger than modern man. Neanderthals are often drawn in textbooks with primitive facial features. However, the soft parts of a face do not leave marks on the skull, so no information about the lips, nose, eyes, and ears is known about the Neanderthal. Evolutionists will draw them with ape-like features to try to support their claims, but the fact is that either chimp-like features or a human features could be placed on a Neanderthal skull. The Neanderthals were assumed to have been of stooped posture when some early skeletons of old people with arthritis were uncovered. But later, upright skeletons were also found. The Cro Magnon man was not only large brained but they averaged 6 foot 6 inches in height. So there is really no reason to think that the Neanderthals and Cro Magnons were anything other than men. Frauds and mistakes: There are hundreds of skeletal examples of those listed above which prove only that there were apes and that there were men. But of course we already knew there were apes and there were men. Between these two groups in the alleged chain is a group called Pithecanthropines, also known as Homo Erectus. This group is composed of several frauds. (1.) The Piltdown man (Eoanthropus Dawsoni), named for Charles Dawson, was fabricated around 1912. It was heralded as the missing link for about forty years, until 1953 when the Piltdown was exposed as a fraud. It was put together by using pieces of human skull cap and the jaw of a chimpanzee. The teeth had been filed down and chemicals had been used to "age" the bones. (2.) The Nebraska man (Hesperopithecus Haroldcookii) was "discovered" in 1922 by Harold Cook and was based on a find that consisted only of one tooth. As flimsy as this sounds, the Nebraska man was taken seriously for five years. Then in 1927, a jaw-bone containing more such teeth was found nearby, and it was determined to have come from an extinct pig. (3.) There are now no known Peking man (Sinanthropus Pekinensis) bones in existence. The discoverers had supposedly used various bone fragments of several specimens to put together model skull of what they think the Peking man might have looked like in 1928. However all of the fossil evidence was reportedly lost 1941. (4.) The Java man (Pithecanthropus) was "discovered" in 1891 by Eugene Dubois. He found human leg bone about 50 feet away from the skull cap of an ape with a heavy brow ridge. He then put them together and proclaimed it to be an upright walking ape-man. But in 1937, Dubois admitted that he had also found human skulls and ape leg bones in the area, and that the skull of the Java man was really just that of an extinct gibbon-like ape. (5.) Zinjanthropus was found by Louis and Mary Leakey in 1950. But ten years later, they found the skull of a human child nearby. They then decided that Zinjanthropus was simply an ape. The traditional evolutionary charts, following the idea that larger indicates "more advanced", show small apes evolving into larger apes that eventually began walking erect and getting progressively larger until we reach modern man. But the fossil record almost invariably show that things were larger in the past. Some examples of larger animals found in the fossil records include: Pigs that were the size of Rhinos, rams with horns spanning six feet, sheep that were six feet tall, donkeys 9 foot at the shoulder, a rhino 18 feet tall, armadillos 9 times longer than those that exist today, 50 foot long crocodiles, sharks measuring nearly 100 feet long, wolves 6 foot tall, dragonflies with 20 to 30 inch

wingspans, cat-tails 60 feet tall with cones 6 to 10 feet long, turtles 12 feet across, 12 foot tall birds, bison 12 foot at shoulder with 10 foot horn spans. As we mentioned earlier, the Cro Magnon man averaged 6' 6" tall, and like the Neanderthal man, had a brain at least as large if not larger than the average modern man. Punctuated Evolution In absence of credible evidence of evolution in the fossil record, many evolutionists are now attempting to explain the lack of evidence with a modified theory. They call this theory "punctuated equilibrium" or the "punctuational model". This is a move away from the idea of uniformity. This revised theory is that there are very long periods with no evolutionary change, separated by very brief periods of rapid evolution. Therefore, many evolutionists now say that the reason that no evidence of evolution can be found is that the evolution happened so fast that it left no visible record. So this theory is not based upon evidence, but rather, the lack of evidence. It has no scientific foundation. This really just causes more problems for the general theory of evolution. If punctuated evolution were correct, then there would no longer be any need for them to say the earth is 4 to 5 billion years old, since evolution could take place so quickly. Never-the-less, the evolutionists faithfully cling to the ancient earth theory anyway. Also, they are in essence admitting that they have no evidence for evolution. Evidence of the Global Flood The eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano in the early 1980's and the tremendous mud-flows that came afterward provided an excellent look at the kind of effects that the global flood had on the earth's surface. The mud-flows carved out a large gorge that is like small scaled model of the Grand Canyon. Naturally, water run-off from the hills began to flow through the gorge in the form of a small stream. Many geologists, if they had been unaware of the Mount St. Helens eruption, would have said that the stream carved out that gorge over hundreds of millions of years. But the gorge did not even exist prior to 1980. The stream did not cause the gorge, but rather, the gorge caused the stream. The many rock layers and other geological formations that we see all over the world can be explained by the global, catastrophic flood. After such a catastrophic flood, we would expect to find vast numbers of dead animals and plants, all over the world, buried in rock formed by flowing water. That is exactly what we find. Many dinosaur graveyards have been found containing the skeletons of thousands of dinosaurs together, with their bones aligned in a uniform direction, indicating they were all killed together in one massive water flow. All of the Egyptian pyramids have the horizontal streaks caused by thousands of years of erosion by wind-blown desert sand. But the older Sphinx which sits in their midst shows an altogether different type of erosion. Though the upper portion of the Sphinx has been recarved be various pharaohs, the lower portion still shows the deep rounded scars of erosion by water. Upon this realization, some scientists began to theorize that in the period 4500 years ago and beyond, Egypt used to receive much more rainfall than it has in the last 4500 years. But those of us who know the Bible know what really happened about 4500 years ago. In Closing Psalms 14:1 and 53:1 each say, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God ...." The evolutionist begins with the false premise that there is no Creator. Therefore, to explain our origins, the evolutionist has to assume that we must have somehow evolved out of inorganic material over billions of years. So basically the evolutionist pre-determines the answer from the beginning. He is convinced that the earth has to be billions of years old, and that it is just a matter of finding evidence to support it. The majority of the evidence that he finds, which suggests that the earth is much younger, must therefore be wrong and must be thrown out and ignored. However, an honest man who examines all the evidence must conclude that the earth is very young. Romans 1:20 says, "... the invisible things of him (God) from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse ...." The Bible says in Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Furthermore, Exodus 20:11 says, "... in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ...." See also Exodus 37:16-17. By counting backwards in the Old Testament Timeline using the chronological information provided in the scriptures, it is clear that the six days of creation took place sometime around 4000 BC. When we consider the absence of evidence for evolution and all of the signs that we see of the global flood, then we are left with no reason not to simply and literally believe the Word of God.

Good Resources for Further Study The Institute for Creation Research has many good books and articles including several by Henry M. Morris and an excellent video about the Mount St. Helens eruption and mud-flows by Steve Austin. Mailing address: Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021 Voice: (619) 448-0900 FAX: (619) 448-3469 Geologist Don R. Patton has some very informative video sets and can be contacted at: Mailing address: Don R. Patton, 813 Trails Pkwy, Garland, TX 75043 Email: dpatton693@aol.com Voice: (972) 279-5325 FAX: (972) 613-7008 Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia Creation Research Society Creation Science Home Page Answers In Genesis http://www.matthewmcgee.org/creation.html

Posted on: Saturday, 11 February 2006, 09:00 CST By Mark Ebersole The great sweep of Darwin's theory, that all life is connected and appears in a series of related species over time, is absolutely supported by the fossil record. Totally unsupported, in fact thoroughly discredited, are Darwin's theories about the mechanisms behind these appearances. There is absolutely no evidence that any higher species "becomes" another through genetic mutation. The great preponderance of evidence shows that once a species appears, it stays the same. There is absolutely no evidence for "survival of the fittest." Observation always shows that all species within a biosphere have their exact niche. Every species therein, from the lowliest insects and fungi to the highest mammals and plants, plays an exact role, using the nutrients provided and in turn providing sustenance to other species, maintaining balance. The "chance" development of such harmony would require many billions of "random" genetic changes, all of them exactly the right ones, at the same time, in thousands of unrelated species -- a theory totally unproven, thoroughly unlikely and entirely unscientific. "Survival of the fittest" is a strictly human phenomenon. It began perhaps with the Romans, stripping Mediterranean islands of trees, for ship-building or profit-taking, causing the water tables on these islands to fall and thus denuding them of trees permanently. This drive reached its peak in the 19th century -- Darwin's time. Only in the last 100 years has perception and nurture of earth's natural harmonies begun. Will wisdom, respecting and repairing this damaged balance, win out over the continuing orgy of resource overuse now resulting in the disasters -- among others -- of global warming? Species do not appear, as Darwin theorized, in a long, slow progression, but rather great extinctions -e.g., the dinosaurs 65 million years ago -- are followed by the relatively quick appearance of whole realms of new species. While there is no evidence of God, there is, as noted above, overwhelming balance, harmony, beauty and wisdom. There is no scientific evidence for the biblical creation. Yet we see scientists basing their case as well upon pure, unsupported belief in myths such as "chance mutation" and "survival of the fittest." Are they any better? How do I "know" anything? What effect does my "knowledge" have on the outward appearances? Quantum physics and, lately, genetics have remarked the passing of the subject-object split. Whatever wisdom may have guided evolution in the past, it does so no longer.

The intelligence that now shepherds the development of earth and all its beings is human. We desperately need to learn the nature, powers and parameters of our knowledge and consciousness -aka conscience. Only then can we know anything about whatever intelligence worked behind the wisdom-filled creation we have inherited; only then does the further "human" creation have a fighting chance. Mark Ebersole lives in East Aurora.

Source: Buffalo News More News in this Category FOSSIL MAN APES UP FROM?, DONALD JOHANSON, "At any rate, modem gorillas, orangs and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no yesterday...., LUCY, p.363 GREAT GRANDPA APE, EARNST HOOTEN, Harvard, "If we are descended from apes our remote ancestors ought to look their part. You may not bewilling to admit that you resemble an ape;.... But if that thousandth ancestor's forebearers become progressively more simian as you trace back the genealogical lines you will have to admit that somewhere in your family tree there squats an ape.", UP FROM THE APE, p.289 RECONSTRUCTIONS? EARNST A. HOOTEN, Harvard, "To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip, leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little if any scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public.... So put not your trust in reconstructions.", UP FROM THE APE, p.332 RECONSTRUCTIONS? W. HOWELLS, Harvard, "A great legend has grown up to plague both paleontologists and anthropologists. It is that one of ; men can take a tooth or a small and broken piece of bone, gaze at it, and pass his hand over his forehead once or twice, and then take a sheet of paper and draw a picture of what the whole animal looked like as it tramped the Terriary terrain. If this were quite true, the anthropologists would make the F.B.I. look like a troop of Boy Scouts.", MANKIND SO FAR, p. l38 THEORY DOMINATED DATA, DAVID PILBEAM, YALE, "I am also aware of the fact that, at least in my own subject of paleoanthropology, "theory" - heavily influenced by implicit ideas almost always dominates "data". ....Ideas that are totally unrelated to actual fossils have dominated theory building, which in turn strongly influence the way fossils are interpreted." Quoted in BONES OF CONTENTION p.127 PARANORMAL ANTHROPOLOGY, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "We then move right of the register objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible and where the ardent believer is sometimes able believe several contradictory things at the same time." BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.19 "SIMILAR" NOT NECESSARILY "KIN" - RELATIONSHIPS IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE BASIS OF "FAMILY TREE". ROGER LEWIN, Editor, Research News, Science, "The key issue is the ability correctly to infer a genetic relationship between two species on the basis of a similarity in appearance, at gross and detailed levels of anatomy. Sometimes this approach....can be deceptive, partly because similarity does not necessarily imply an identical genetic heritage: a shark (which is a fish) and a porpoise (which is a mammal) look similar, BONES OF CONTENTION, 1987, p. 123 PROVEN ANCESTRY? RICHARD C. LEWONTIN, Prof. of Zoology, Harvard, "Look, I'm a person who says in this book [Human Diversity, 1982 that we don't know anything about the ancestors of the human species. All the fossils which have been dug up and are claimed to be ancestors we haven't the faintest idea whether they are ancestors. ....All you've got is Homo sapiens there, you've got that fossil there, you've got another fossil there...and it's up to you to draw the lines. Because there are no lines.", Harpers, 2/84

RAMPITHECUS IS DISCARDED APE "APE MAN" OUT, ROGER LEWIN, Ed., Research News, Science, "The dethroning of Ramapithecus from putative first human in 1961 to extinct relative of the orangutan in 1982 is one of the most fascinating, and bitter, sagas in the search for human origins." BONES OF CONTENTION, 1987, p.86 "APES", Robert B. Eckhardt, Penn. State Univ., "...there would appear to be little evidence to suggest that several different hominoid species are represented among the Old World dryopithecine fossils... (Ramapithecus, Oreopithecus, Limnopithecus, Kenyapithecus). They themselves nevertheless seem to have been apes morphologically, ecologically, and behaviorally.", Scientific American, Vol.226, p.101 AUSTRALOPITHECUS IS AN APE SECOND "APE MAN" OUT, ROGER LEWIN, Ed., Research News, Science, Richard and his parents, Louis and Mary, have held to a view of human origins for nearly half a century now that the line of true man, the line of Homo large brain, tool making and so on has a separate ancestry that goes back millions and millions of years. And the apeman, Australopithecus, has nothing to do with human ancestry." BONES OF CONTENTION, 1987, p.18 LEAKEY DEFECTION, "Dr. Leakey bases hisrepudiation of Darwin on the results of his long search in East Africa for the remains of the original man. The generally accepted post Darwin view is that man developed from the baboon 3 to 5 million years ago. But Leakey has found no evidence of a spurt in development at that time.", Chicago American, 1/25, 1967 DISMISSED APE, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "His Lordship's scorn for the level of competence he sees displayed by paleoanthropologists is legendary, exceeded only by the force of his dismissal of the australopithecines as having anything at all to do with human evolution. 'They are just bloody apes', he is reputed to have observed on examining the australopithecine remains in South Africa.. Zuckerman had become extremely powerful in British science, being an adviser to the government up to the highest level...,while at Oxford and then Birmingham universities, he had vigorously pursued a metrical and statistical approach to studying the anatomy of fossil hominids....it was on this basis that he underpinned his lifelong rejection of the australopithecines as human ancestors.", Roger Lewin, BONES OF CONTENTlON, 1987, p.164, 165 DEFINITELY AN APE, LORD SOLLY ZUCKERMAN, "The australopithecine skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human (figure 5) that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white.", BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER, p.78 UNHUMAN, LIKE THE ORANGUTAN, CHARLES E. OXNARD, Dean of Graduate School, Prof. of Biology & Anatomy, USC, "....conventional wisdom is that the australopithecine fragments are generally rather similar to humans....the new studies point to different conclusions. The new investigations suggest that the fossil fragments are usually uniquely different from any living form: when they do have similarities with living species, they are as often as not reminiscent of the orangutan, ...these results imply that the various australopithecines are really not all that much like humans. ....may well have been bipeds, .... but if so, it was not in the human manner. They may also have been quite capable climbers as much at home in the trees as on the ground..", The American Biology Teacher, Vol.41, May 1979, pp.273-4 LIKE PYGMY CHIMP, ADRIENNE L ZIHLMAN, U. C. Santa Cruz, "Zihlman compares the pygmy chimpanzee to "Lucy," one of the oldest hominid fossils known and finds the similarities striking. They are almost identical in body size, in stature; and in brain size.... These commonalties, Zihlman argues indicate that pygmy chimps use their limbs in much the same way Lucy did....", Science News, Vol.123, Feb.5. 1983, p.89 AUSTRALOPITHECINES, William Howells, Harvard, "...the pelvis was by no means modern, nor were the feet: the toes were more curved than ours; the heel bones lacked our stabilizing tubercles; and a couple of small ligaments that, in us, tighten the arch from underneath, were apparently not present. The finger bones were curved as they are in tree climbing apes." GETTING HERE, 1993, p.79 SHRIVELED STATUS, MATT CARTMILL, Duke; DAVID PILBEAM Harvard; GLYNN ISAAC Harvard; "The australopithecines are rapidly shrinking back to the status of peculiarly specialized apes...", American Scientist, (JulyAugust 1986) p.419 FAILED LINKS: PILTDOWN MAN, NEBRASKA MAN, JAVA MAN, PEKING MAN BELIEVE IT, SEE IT, ROGER LEWIN, Editor of Research News, Science, "How is it that trained men, the greatest experts of their day, could look at a set of modern human bones the cranial fragments and "see" a clear simian signature in them; and see in an apes jaw the unmistakable signs of humanity.

The answers, inevitably, have to do with the scientist's' expectations and there effects on the interpretation of the data It is, in fact, a common fantasy, promulgated mostly by the scientific profession itself, that in the search for objective truth, data dictate conclusions. If this were the case, then each scientist faced with the same data would necessarily reach the same conclusion. But as we've seen earlier and will see again and again, frequently this does not happen. Data are just as often molded to fit preferred conclusions.", BONES OF CONTENTION, pp.61, 68 FALSIFIED CASTS, ALES HRDLICKA, Smithsonian (Re: Java Man)None of the published illustrations or castsnow in variousinstitutions is accurate." Science, Aug.17, 1923 EVIDENCE MISSING, WILLIAM HOWELLS, Harvard, "Java Man went into Dubois' locker for a time. But Peking Man seems to have gone into Davy Jones' locker, and for good. He disappeared, one of the first casualties of the war in the Pacific, half a million years after he had died the first time." MANKIND IN THE MAKING, p.165 NEANDERTHAL, CROMAGNON ARE MEN EVOLUTION OR VARIATION? "....a Neanderthaler is a model of evolutionary refinement. Put him in a Brooks Brothers suit and send him down to the supermarket for some groceries and he might pass completely unnoticed. He might run a little shorter than the clerk serving him but he would not necessarily be the shortest man in the place. He might be heavierFeatured, squattier and more muscular than most, but again he might be no more so than the porter handling the beer cases back in the stock room." EVOLUTION, TimeLife Nature Library. LARGER BRAIN, WILLIAM HOWELLS, Harvard, "The Neanderthal brain was most positively and definitely not smaller than our own; indeed, and this is a rather bitter pill, it appears to have been perhaps a little larger.", MANKIND SO FAR, p.165 MODERN CAME FIRST, O. BARYOSEF, Peabody Museum, Harvard, B. VANDERMEERCH, Univ. Bordeaux, "Modern Homo sapiens preceded Neanderthals at Mt. Carmel. ...modem looking H. sapiens had lived in one of the caves some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, much earlier than such people had been thought to exist anywhere. ...The results have shaken the traditional evolutionary scenario, producing more questions than answers." Scientific American, p.94, April 1993 MAN "OLDER" THAN PROPOSED ANCESTORS RUINED FAMILY TREE, "Either we toss out this skull 11470] or we toss out our theories of early man," asserts anthropologist Richard Leakey of this 2.8 million year old fossil, witch he has tentatively identified as belonging to our own genus. "It simply fits no previous models of human beginnings." The author, son of famed anthropologist Louis S. B. Leakey, believes that the skull's surprisingly large braincase "leaves in ruins the notion that all early fossils can be arranged in an orderly sequence of evolutionary change.", National Geographic, June 1973, p.819 HUMAN BRAIN, "Leakey further describes the whole shape of the brain case 11470] as remarkably reminiscent of modern man, lacking the heavy and protruding eyebrow ridges and thick bone characteristics of Homo erectus." Science News, 102 (4/3/72) p.324 HUMAN BRAIN, Dean Falk, St. U. of N.Y. at Albany, "...KNMER 1805 Homo habilis should not be attributed to Homo... the shape of the endocast from KNMER (basal view) is similar to that from an African pongid, where as the endocast of KNMER 1470 is shaped like that of a modern human." Science, 221, (9/9/83) p.1073 HUMAN BRAIN "The foremost American experts on human brain evolution Dean Falk of the State University of New York at Albany and Ralph Holloway of Columbia Universityusually disagree, but even they agree that Broca's area is present in a skull from East Turkana known as 1470 Philip Tobias...renowned brain expert from South Africa concurs." Anthro Quest: The Leakey's Foundation News. No.43 (Spring 91) p.13 NOT ERECTUS, "According to paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York the African skulls...assigned to erectus often lack many of the specialized traits that were originally used to define that species in Asia, including the long low cranial structure thick skull bones, and robustly built faces. In his view, the African group deserves to be placed in a separate species..." Discover, 9/94, p.88 "OLD" MODERN MEN, Louis Leakey, 'In 1933 I published on a small fragment of jaw we call Homo kanamens1s, and I said categorically this is not a nearman or ape, this is a true member of the genus Homo. There were stone tools with it too. The age was somewhere around 2.5 to 3 million years. It was promptly put on the shelf by my colleagues, except for two of them. The rest said it must ~e placed in

a 'suspense account.' Now, 36 years later, we have proved I was right." Quoted in BONES OF CONTENTION, p.156 'THE OLDEST MAN', "[African Footprints] ....they belonged to the genus Homo (or true man), rather than to manapes (like Australopithecus, who was once a thought to be the forerunner of man but is now re8arded as a possible evolutionary dead end). ....they were 3.35 million to 3.75 million years old. ....they would, in Mary Leakeys words, be people 'not unlike ourselves,'...." Time, Nov. 10, 1975, p.93 TOO HUMAN TOO OLD, Russel H. Tuttle, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Affiliate Scientist, Primate Research Center, Emory University, "In sum, the 3.5millionyearold footprint trails at Laetoli sight G resemble those of habitually unshod modem humansIf the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus...in any case we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind..." Natural History, 3/90, p.64. MODERN & TALL, RICHARD LEAKEY, ....the boy from Tukana was surprisingly large compared with modern boys his age; he could well have grown to six feet. ....he would probably go unnoticed in a crowd today. This find combines with previous discoveries of Homo erectus to contradict a longheld idea that humans have grown larger over the millennia.", National Geographic, p.629, Nov., 1985 MAN EVEN "BEFORE" LUCY CHARLES E. OXNARD Dean, Grad. School, Prof. Bio. and Anat., USC, "...earlier finds, for instance, at Kanapoi...existed at least at the same time as, and probably even earlier than, the original gracile australopithecines... almost indistinguishable in shape from that of modern humans at four and a half million years..." American Biology Teacher, Vol.41, 5/1979, p.274. HENRY M. MCHENRY, U. of C., Davis, "The results show that the Kanapoi specimen, which is 4 to 4.5 million years old, is indistinguishable from modern Homo sapiens..." Science Vol.190, p.~28. WILLIAM HOWELLS, Harvard, "...with a date of about 4.4 million, [KP 2711 could not be distinguished from Homo sapiens morphologically or by multivariate analysis by Patterson and myself in 1967 (or by much more searching analysis by others since then). We suggested that it might represent Australopithecus because at that time allocation to Homo seemed preposterous, although it would be the correct one without the time element.", HOMO ERECTUS, 1981, p.79-80. EVE KICKED OUT, STEPHEN J. GOULD, "...'mitochondral Eve' hypothesis of modern human origins in Africa, suffered a blow in 1993, when the discovery of an important technical fallacy in the computer program used to generate and assess evolutionary trees debunked the supposed evidence for an African source...disproving the original claim.", Natural History, 2/94, p.21

Radiometric Dating and the Age of the Earth Part One of a Five-Part Series on The Age of the Earth.
The only dating methods discussed (over and over again) by evolution-believing scientists and the mass media are ones that supposedly "prove" that the earth is billions of years old. One of the most popular of these is known as radiometric dating. However, not as well known is the fact that such methods have a number of serious flaws which are usually glossed over, or ignored when writing on, or discussing this subject in public.With the exception of Carbon-14, radiometric dating is used to date either igneous or metamorphic rocks that contain radioactive elements such as uranium. And even though various radioactive elements have been used to "date" these rocks, for the most part, the methods are basically the same. They consist of measuring the amount of radioactive (mother) element and comparing it to the amount of stable (daughter) element. A discussion of the Uranium/Lead method follows.Uranium is radioactive, which means it is in the process of changing from an unstable element into a stable one. The most common form is uranium-238. It has a half-life of about 4.5 billion years. This means that if you had some pure uranium-238 with no lead in it, 4.5 billion years later one half of it would have decayed into its stable daughter product (lead-206). And after 9 billion years there would be 75% lead and 25% uranium, and so on. Few people realize it but all radiometric dating methods require making at least three assumptions. These are: 1) The rate of decay has remained constant throughout the past.2) The original amount of both mother and daughter elements is known.3) The sample has remained in a closed system.

Constant Decay Rate: For purposes of radiometric dating it must be assumed that the rate of decay from mother element to daughter element has remained constant throughout the past. Although there is no way to prove whether or not this has been the case, scientists have attempted to alter the rate of decay of radioactive materials and have found that they are almost immune to change. Most creationists have few qualms in accepting this first assumption. Original Amounts Known: The second assumption is much more speculative since there is no way to verify whether or not some (or most) of the daughter element was already present when the rock solidified. Therefore, a guess must be made. However, in some cases, a few scientists are telling us that they have solved this problem. For example, with the uranium/lead method scientists have attempted to estimate what the original ratio (of uranium-238 to lead-206) was when the Earth formed. To do this they have selected a certain meteorite, which contained various types of lead (including lead 204, 206, 207 and 208) but no uranium, and they have assumed that this ratio is equivalent to the earth's original lead ratio. They did this because it is almost certain that these lead isotopes were all present in large quantities when the earth was created. This is because "common" lead contains both radiogenic (lead 206, 207 and 208) and non-radiogenic lead (204) but it does not contain any uranium. In fact, about 98% of "common" lead is "radiogenic" (containing lead 206, 207,208) and only 2% non-radiogenic. 1,2,3,4,5,6 A Closed System: The third assumption is that the sample has remained in a closed system. This is necessary due to outside influences such as heat and groundwater that can seriously alter the original material. And since the earth is not a closed system, these last two assumptions make radiometric dating highly subjective and questionable. For example, if a rock sample was below the water table at any time, leaching would take place. For Uranium/Lead dating this means that some of the uranium that was initially present would be "leached" out of the rock. Leaching can also cause uranium to be leached into rocks that have little or no uranium in them. Therefore, in virtually every case, scientists do not know what the original condition of the rock was; and, even if they did know, they don't any more due to heat contamination, 4 mixing, and leaching. This is discussed in great detail by Dr. Snelling in his article on this subject. 4 Note: As for the few cases where scientists do know what the "original" condition (or date of eruption) was, they still have not been able to come up with the correct "date" for the age of the rock without all sorts of fancy footwork and massaging of data. That's because radiometric dating (with the exception of Carbon 14) is almost always performed on igneous rocks (i.e. those that were once in a molten state). Also because, when different substances are in a liquid state, something known as mixing almost always takes place: meaning that whenever a liquid (or molten) rock is erupted out of the earth, both the mother and daughter elements will be "mixed" together, thus making it virtually impossible to determine the time that an eruption took place. Heat Contamination: Another problem that calls into question the credibility of radiometric dating is heat contamination. For example, In 1973, in Alberta, Canada (near the town of Grand Prarie) a high voltage line fell which caused nearby tree roots to fossilize almost instantly. When scientists at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan were asked what the results would be if these roots were dated by Potassium Argon method. Their response was that the results: "WOULD BE MEANINGLESS; it would indicate an age of millions of years BECAUSE HEAT WAS INVOLVED IN THE PETRIFICATION PROCESS." The Mysteries of Creation, by Dennis Petersen, p. 47. Two well-documented examples of "heat contamination" are the 1800 and 1801 eruptions from two Hawaiian volcanoes. Although these eruptions were less than 200 years old, the radiometric "dates" obtained from them were 140 million to 2.96 billion years for one, and from 0 to 29 million years for the other -- depending upon the (ocean) depth at which the lava sample was obtained. This is documented in Table 1 below.This also brings up an important question:If radiometric dating methods are unable to produce the correct date in cases where the actual date of eruption is known, why should we believe that these same methods can produce accurate dates when the date of eruption is unknown? The point is simply this: radiometric dating is known to produce grossly erroneous dates when heat is involved in the formation or fossilization process. And since the only rocks which yield ages in excess of 100,000 years are of volcanic origin, this method of dating the earth is not based on science, but rather speculation and subjecting reasoning. Unfortunately, the public is rarely informed of these facts. The bottom line is that there are only two ways to verify whether or not radiometric dating m methods have any credibility at all. These are:1. To compare the results with known dates based on historical and/or archeological data,2. To cross-check the results with one or more different methods of radiometric dating.The following tables illustrate the highly questionable, if not totally unreliable, nature of the radiometric methods that are currently in use or have been used in the past to "date" volcanic materials. Table 1: The following is a comparison between rocks of known age Vs radiometric "age."

Rock Sample Obtained From Sunset Crater, Arizona

7

Known Age from Historical or Archaeological Data 1,900 yrs

Rocks Age from Radiometric Dating 210,000--230,000 yrs

Russian Volcano Mt Rangitoto, New Zealand 9 Vulcan's Throne, Grand Canyon 10

24,000 yrs

50 m.---14.6 b. yrs

3,300 yrs

485,000 yrs

10,000 yrs max.

114,000--120,000 yrs

Hualalai Volcano, Hawaii 11,12,13 Hualalai Volcano, Hawaii 11,12,13 *Mt. Kilauea, Hawaii
14

200 yrs

140 m.---670 m. yrs

200 yrs

160 m.---2.96 b. yrs

200 yrs

0 yrs at 1400 meters depth

*Mt. Kilauea, Hawaii

14

200 yrs

10-14 m.y. at 3420 meters depth

*Mt. Kilauea, Hawaii

14

200 yrs

13-29 m.y. at 4680 meters depth

Note: Where abbreviations are used: b. = billion; and m. = million.* The depth here refers to the depth below the surface of the water, since this volcano produced a lava flow that flowed down the mountain and into the ocean. Table 2: The following is a comparison between different methods of dating rocks of unknown age. Known Age from Historical or Archaeological Data Rocks Age from Radiometric Dating

Rock Sample Obtained From

Meth

Salt Lake Crater, Hawaii

15,16,17

Unknown

2.6 m.---140 m. yrs

He

Salt Lake Crater, Hawaii 15,16,17 Cubic Diamonds, Zaire 18,19 KBS Tuff, E. Turkana, Kenya KBS Tuff, E. Turkana, Kenya

Unknown

400,000---3.3 b. yrs

Unknown

6,000,000,000 yrs

Unknown
20,21

290,000---221 m. yrs

22

Unknown

2,420,000 yrs

Fissio

Cardenas Basalts, Bottom of Grnd Canyn. 23,24,25,26 Cardenas Basalts, Bottom of Grnd Canyon. 23,24,25,26 Uinkaret Plateau, Top of Grnd Canyon 23,24,25,26 Uinkaret Plateau, Top of Grand Canyon 23,24,25,26 Uinkaret Plateau, Top of

Unknown

715,000,000 yrs

K/Ar I

Unknown

1.17 b. yrs

Rb/Sr

Unknown

0.01--117 million yrs

Unknown Unknown

1,340 million yrs

Rb/Sr

2,600 million yrs

Pb/Pb

Grnd Canyon

23,24,25,26

Morton gneisses, Minnesota 27 Morton gneisses, Minnesota 27 "Allende" Meteorite

28,29,30

Unknown

2.5 billion yrs

Unknown

3.3 billion yrs

Unknown

3.91 b.--11.7 b. yrs

Ur/Th/P

"Allende" Meteorite

28,29,30

Unknown

4.49 b.--16.5 b. yrs

Ur/

Moon Rocks

31

Unknown Unknown

4.6 b.--8.2 b. yrs

Moon Rocks

32

2.3 -- 3.76 b. yrs

Moon Rock (breccia)

33

Unknown

123.8 -- 125.5 b. yrs

* Notes: Where abbreviations are used: b. = billion; and m. = million. * "Allende" is the name given to the meteorite that was used to "date" the age of the earth. * KBS stands for Kay Behrensmeyer Site. It is the site where the famous 1470 skull was found. * Cubic Diamonds from Zaire were included because the "age" derived from them is greater than the purported (4.5 b.y.) age of the earth. Dr. Plaisted, and many other scientists like him have also came to a similar conclusion. For example, in his paper on this subject he stated that: "After study and discussion of this question, I now believe that the claimed accuracy of radiometric dating methods is a result of a great misunderstanding of the data, and that the various methods hardly ever agree with each other, and often do not agree with the assumed ages of the rocks in which they are found. I believe... there is a great need for this information to be made known, so I am making this article available in the hopes that it will enlighten others who are considering these questions...." 34 Emphasis Added Various other links are provided below. Copyright, 2006 Randy S. Berg; No part of this paper may be reproduced, used, or sold for profit without the express written consent of the author. Copies may be distributed freely for w educational purposes only. References

Java man hoax

The next fella the evolutionists usually show us on their near little evolutionary sequence from monkey to to man is "PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS," whom they affectionately refer to as "JAVAMAN" for short. He was discovered in a Javanese river bed in 1891 by Professor Dubois, a young Dutchman who was greatly influenced by the erroneous teachings of Ernst Haeckle. Haeckle was an ardent German evolutionist who concocted and was caught in several 'scientific' frauds' openly praised and perpetrated evolutionary theory as a means by which he hoped to destroy Christianity and all faiths in God, and was the first to construct the imaginary evolutionary "family tree" showing how life rose from

non-life and how today's creatures evolved from more primitive forms.

The section of Haeckle's fraudulent family tree that most interested and eventually obsessed young Dubois was the branch which led from ape to man, where, by an act of blind faith, Haeckle had placed an unknown, undiscovered "link" whom he named "Pithecanthropus erectus," which literally means "walking ape-man."

DUBOIS WAS CHALLENGED WITH THE THOUGHT OF PERSONALLY DISCOVERING THE "MISSINGLINK" and soon forsook home and career as he set out for Java, where in 1887 he began a determined search, digging doggedly for the as yet unknown bones. Then four years later this dog had his day and Dubois' moment of glory arrived as he gleefully made his announcement to a waiting world: At last, out ancient ancestor, the long sought "link" between man and monkey was found! Thus was "Java Man" born and christened with the name his godless godfather Haeckle had reserved for him, "Pithecanthropus erectus." HIS FAME AND ACCLAIM WERE IMMEDIATE and today in almost any museum of natural history you can find elaborate busts and reconstructions of him, giving his viewers the impression that they are beholding a creature who was found like the mastodon, embedded in ice, perfectly preserved for our awe and admiration. Or if you prefer full-colour portraits of him romping about in his natural habitat with his friends and fellows, you need but consult any standard textbook on biology or anthropology and there you'll find him in colourful detail--showing that, indeed, the very hairs of his head are numbered.

On the neanderthanl man

The next gentleman the evolutionists introduce us to in this imaginary journey on their nonexistent road from monkey to man is a certain "NEANDERTHAL MAN." He is often kindly referred to as "the best known of our fossil relatives," and like "Java Man" you can easily find convincing full-colour photograph-like portraits of him hunting and cooking his supper, chatting with his mates around the campfire, doing his household or cavehold chores, etc. In such illustrations he is usually very hairy, ape-like and moronic looking, just what you'd expect a "missing link" to look like. However a recent edition of The Collegiate Encyclopedia wrote regarding Neanderthal Man's bestiality:

"As a consequence of preconceived notions as to what Neanderthal Man should have looked like, an unfortunate myth has been perpetrated upon several generations respecting his appearance. He has been traditionally represented with a bull neck, knock knees, a stooped gait and a rather bestial appearance. The truth is that Neanderthal Man had none of these traits, that he walked erect and that his appearance was almost certainly not less benign than that of contemporary man.

"A remarkable fact about Neanderthal Man is that in males brain volume varied between 1,425 and 1,641 cc. with an average of 1,553 cc. The average brain volume of contemporary man is about 1,350 cc. Thus the average size of the brain in Neanderthal Man was substantially greater than it is contemporary man." 34 SO THE SO-CALLED "NEANDERTHAL MAN" WAS "NOT LESS BENIGN" IN HIS APPEARANCE THAN YOU OR I, AND HIS AVERAGE BRAIN SIZE WAS "SUBSTANTIALLY GREATER" THAN OURS! This indicates that mankind is not evoluting--but if anything he's devoluting or degenerating which is what I've said for years. Man today has devolved and degenerated--and that's why you can see some people running

around today looking like missing links, because of degeneration and sin and devolution.