I am so pleased to be able to
bring you this piece about the uses and properties of the mandragora,
‘mandrake’ plant, by one of the blog’s first adherents, and regular
commentator, Laura Diaz-Arnesto, who hails from Uruguay. Laura is a
pharmacologist and has offered this piece to give us an opportunity to
develop some understanding of an aspect of Byzantine medicine. It is
well researched and authoritative. Although some time off this fits well
with what I am told will be the subject of next year’s Runciman Lecture
which will be on the subject of Byzantine medicine.
RIA-Novosti Infographics
- During the reign of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, Patriarch Nikon Minin
launched new studies of Russian sacred texts, comparing them with Greek
models to identify discrepancies. The reform started with the convening
of a Sobor in Moscow in 1654, which decided to bring the liturgical
books in line with Greek manuscripts.
Pilgrims from every nation of the world pray at the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre.Six Christian groups occupy the church and offer religious
services and liturgies - Latin Catholics,
Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, and Ethiopians.
An exhibition titled "Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections" is expected to travel to the United States in the weeks to come, containing some 300 masterpieces from Greek museums, public and private collections and monasteries, as well as finds from recent excavations; it is going to be shown first at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC
(October 6, 2013 – March 2, 2014), followed by the J. Paul Getty Museum
at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California (April 9–August 25, 2014).
WHAT: St. Anthony's International Festival. Greek, Middle Eastern and
Slavic food, takeout and frozen food available; dancing, music, holiday
shopping and raffles (a helicopter tour, Grand Cayman vacation,
Broadway Weekend, among others).
CHRIS MONROE/SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
Father Joseph Allen speaking to Robyn Ziemba in the
kitchen of St. Anthony Antiochian Orthodox Church in Bergenfield as she
prepares spanakopita.
MP Theresa Villiers has had an exclusive tour around the UK’s first Greek Orthodox school.
The Chipping Barnet politician visited St Andrew the Apostle Free
School in Brunswick Park last week to meet the teachers and pupils.
A reflection of Nelson's growing multiculturalism now gleams from a cabinet shelf in Nelson Hospital's chapel.
The gold leaf Byzantine-style painting of Jesus holding a Bible is
an icon of the Eastern European Orthodox Church, and was donated to the
chapel in a small ceremony yesterday.
Angry Muslims looted and destroyed Christian-owned businesses in the
village of Zakaria after a 22-year-old Christian man had a consensual
relationship with a Muslim woman of the same age, the Assyrian
International News Agency reported.
In Europe’s poorest country, young people are turning to occult religious practices—even exorcisms—to escape everyday life.
By Casey Michel
REZINA, Moldova—Northern Moldova is one of the poorest regions in the
poorest country in Europe. Two decades after the hardly-remembered War of Transdnistria, the battered region stands on little more than dust and remittances. What it does have—in ample quantity—is religion.
MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) – A group of Russian Orthodox
priests will undergo military training at a Defense Ministry university
in Moscow, the Russian army said Friday.
(CNN) -- Bond is set at $1 million for a Louisiana
man accused of shooting and killing a church pastor as he preached in
Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Friday night.
In
my interview with the late Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian
Orthodox Church, he told me he invited the Pope to come to Jasenovac to
join him in a mass/liturgy to commemorate the dead on this 50th
anniversary in 1991. The Pope refused saying, "Its too dangerous to
come to the Balkans at this time." However, in 1993 the first pope in
history went to Croatia at the height of the Bosnian Civil War. His
first official duty was to lay a wreath on the tomb of Archbishop
Stepinac, an ally convicted war criminal. The Roman church has
beatified this criminal priest, an insult to Serbs and their murdered
relatives.
At the end of WWII, 740 Roman Catholic priests fled
to Argentina through the "Vatican Ratline." I list them by name
including their war crimes in my book. These priests murdered thousands
of Serbs with their own hands, and escaped justice making the current
sex crimes against children by Catholic priests pale in comparison.
As
the first Plaintiff in a law suit against the Vatican Bank for "money
laundering," the only crime for which we can sue, it is past due that a
Pope apologize for the crimes of the Roman Catholic church and to
compensate the relatives of their victims who were killed at Jasenovac,
including 90,000 Serbian children under the age of ten.
President Franjo Tudjman destroyed and bulldozed the Jasenovac Concentration camp and museum in 1995.
The traditional way of getting dinner is buy food and
cook it, or to go to a restaurant. But what if someone in
a nearby street has cooked more than they need and is
ready to share it for a small fee? It's already happening
in the Greek capital and will soon be starting in
London.
Marilena Zachou making tabbouleh in her kitchen
"It is a win-win situation," says the
26-year-old Gkontas. "The cooks get to earn a little
extra, while foodies get nutritious home-cooked dishes for
cheaper than if they were to get a takeaway."
Who are the great historical figures of Western
Europe who define its identity? The answers of the secular
world to this question are quite different from those of
the Church. The Western secular world exalts secular
figures like Charlemagne, Charles V, or Napoleon as
“great Europeans”. But all three of these left
Europe full of graves. Indeed, Charlemagne and Charles V
were renowned for their massacres and, as for Napoleon, he
declared that he would have had Christ hanged as a
fanatic.[1]
Crowd before an illuminated Santiago
cathedral during the festivity of Saint James the Apostle. Santiago de
Compostela, Photo: A Coruña,Turgalicia
The catalogues of the
Church exclude all such tyrants, for the true
identity of Western Europe is defined not by them,
but by the thousands upon thousands of Western
Saints.
On the night of September 17, 2013 approximately 25 neonazis stubbed to
death 34 years old antifascist rapper Pavlos Fissas, known as "Killah P"
in Keratsini, Athens.
Archbishop Justin
Welby’s choice of the word “martyrs” to describe the 81 Pakistani Christians killed when their church in Peshawar was
targeted by suicide bombers has raised eyebrows. It is the sort of language
avoided nowadays in the secular, sceptical West, with its taken-for-granted
religious freedoms, in case it makes people feel uncomfortable.
SOFT rain drifted across the small
town of Karyes and mist hung over the slopes of Mount Athos as our small
band of pilgrims unfolded from the cramped confines of a battered taxi
on Holy Ghost Street.
Get a taste of
Greece at this annual festival (food aside, it’s worth going just to see
the lovely church where it’s held). There’ll be plenty of gyros,
spanakopita, dolmas and baklava, as well as Greek wine and beer, live
music and traditional folk dancing.
Pakistani Christian worshippers, some of them who survived Sunday's
suicide bombing, pray during a special mass for the victims of the
bombing, at the Church where the attack took place, in Peshawar,
Pakistan, Monday, Sept. 23, 2013. Angry Pakistani Christians denounced
the deadliest attack ever in this country against members of their
faith. A pair of suicide bombers blew themselves up amid hundreds of
worshippers outside a historic church in northwestern Pakistan.
I work supporting persecuted Pakistani Christians and hear often the
horror stories of abduction, rape, false blasphemy accusations, and
murders that they suffer. However, much like the rest of the world, I
have been shocked by the scale of the attack on All Saints church in
Peshawar.
What do you think of the way the world's leading news broadcaster
covers Christians and their faith? Is it fair? Is it balanced? Is there
even enough of it upon which to comment?
Turkish
police officers stand guard as the coffin of Tilmann Geske is carried
out from a hospital in Malatya, central Turkey, in this photo dated
Friday, April 20, 2007.
Nearly six years into the court trial over the murder of three
Christians in southeastern Turkey, documents have emerged confirming
that secret military units were involved in those assassinations and
others.
Malatya's 3rd Criminal Court is forcing prosecutors and the military
to turn over previously secret documents, throwing light on a shadowy
network believed to be behind several decades of assassination and coup
plots in Turkey.
In different parts of the world skewed meat is called shish kabab or
shashlilik, to Greeks it's a souvlaki. Souvla is the Greek word for
skewer or spit. When roasting an entire lamb for Easter the souvla is a
long metal rod.
The recipe below dates back to before 1000 B.C. In those days lamb was
marinated and skewred on a sword and grilled over a fire. These days
ordinary skewres and charcoal grill will do fine. Or you could just
grill it. Ingredients:
NOTE: day before preparation
12 large mushrooms
2 tablespoons of whit wine or lemon juice
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 large bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 small leg of lamb (aprox. 1 1/4 kilos) deboned and cut into cubes for skewering
salt
1 1/2 tablespoons oregano
4 large tomatoes or 18 cherry tomatoes
3 large green bell peppers
2 large onions or 18 pearl onions (pearl onions are the ones we use for stifado) Method:
1. Clean mushrooms, sprinkle them with 2 tablespoons of white wine or
lemon juice, cover an refrigerate (this prevent them form turning dark)
2. Combine olive oil, 1/3 cup lemon juice, red wine, garlic and bay leaves in large steel pot or glass mixing bowl and mix well
3. Sprinkle meat with salt, pepper, oregano and place in marinade
4. Remove stems of cherry tomatoes and add to marinade
5. Fill a pot with water, add one teaspoon salt and bring to rapid boil
6. Wash green peppers and cut into squares. Add peppers into boiling
water and leave for 5 minutes, take out with of water and drain and
sprinkle with cold water and add to marinade with meat.
7. Peel large onion, quarter them, put in same water and par boil them
for 5 minutes, take out and spray with cold water. If using pearl onions
par boil unpeeled for five minutes, rinse with cold water and you will
find that the peel slips off. Add onions to marinade.
8. Cover this bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. It is
advisable to sit the marinade every now and then to make sure that all
meat is evenly marinated. NOTE: the meat will begin to cook in the acid
from the wine and lemon juice
9. Next day, add the mushrooms to marinade and toss
10. Light the barbecue one hour ahead (if using charcoal)
11. Prepare skewers by threading meat, pepper, onion tomato with a mushroom to cap.
12. Put skewers at least 5 cm above hot charcoal and grill for 15
minutes on one side; then turn skewers over the grill for another 10 -
15 minutes.
13. Meat is perfect if it is barely pink in centre and nice and crusty on outside
Socotra Island is home to around 800 rare species of flora and fauna
A third of the species found on the Indian Ocean island are endemic and cannot be seen anywhere else on Earth
The trees and plants on the island have
evolved to suit its hostile climate and some varieties of plant are a
staggering 20 million years
The landscape of remote Socotra
Island looks as if it comes from a sci-fi film but in fact has evolved
to look so other-worldy as the 'lost world' island has been separated
from mainland Africa for between six and seven million years.
Mandragora or Mandrake
As the author of the book "Jasenovac Then And Now: A Conspiracy of Silence", (1997) It was encouraging that you
published, "A Plea for Pope Francis to Pray at Jasenovac." 
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