Сергей Еремеев
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25 Фев 2011, 14:36 |
29 Мар 2011, 16:56
Monday, March 28, 2011
Baikalling around
Moscow was like any other European city, and as such not that interesting
to me. Red Square, the Kremlin etc. all visited, but I'm not one for static
sights. My hosts were extremely gracious though, and so very eager
to help with informing me about the great city.
Spent the last night on the 34th floor of a decandently expensive hotel bar,
sucking in freezing Moscow views. Spectacular! Then we headed
to an underground bar: had the atmosphere of a pre-communist
conspirators meeting point. This impression was given creedence
by the Trotsky lookalike and his Bolshevik compatriots
on the table next to us. A very cool place.
The next day I got on the Trans-Siberian headed for a place called Irkutsk,
Siberia. Took four days, but we made it eventually. My thoughts turned
inward and I developed a kind of meditative
state throughout the journey.
Time lost its power and importance as I watched the timezones skip
by one after the other. Sleeping was hard, so I medidated at night.
I ate instant noodles everyday and felt happy for them. Intermittent train
stations gave respite to the endless repition of locomotive rythym.
When I got to Irkutsk ten thousand gold toothed taxi drivers greeted
me hungrily. With the golden wolf pack left behind I was free
to navigate myself to the IF Hostel, a wonderful place
run by a young Russian, Dimitri. Dimitri is creator of Baikal Сlub
and a fountain of knowledge for all travellers to this region.
Tomorrow I head to Lake Baikal, 20% of all the fresh water
in the world is there. It's more than a mile deep and heaven on earth,
so I'm told. I'll steam in Saunas and freeze
in ice cold water a million years old.
First day was joyfully uneventful, I just sat around mostly. My host,
Nina, and I struggled with English/ Russian language barriers for the most
part, trying to make one another understood as best we could.
Strolled onto the ice lake in the afternoon and enjoyed
a silent moment with myself.
The next day was pretty similar, although Yefghenny turned up.
He speaks english alot better, so this made communication easier
and the conversations soared. Sadly, we also said
goodbye to Nina.
On Thursday we headed to the ski slopes for some powder fun.
I've never skied before, so I fell over about 20 times, but my progress
was strong and fast, so by the end of the morning
I was navigating the smaller slopes masterfully. Not enough, however,
to manage the steeper stuff. This I didn't discover until it was too late
and I was already up in the danger zone.
By this time I was quite tired and didn't really have the strength
to control myself properly, so I fell harder and more often.
In all a very fun time, though my muscles
and bones ached severely.
Hitched a ride home with a very nice Russian girl.
She ended up staying with us for the rest of the night as we wound
down from a day on the slopes.
We wound down with food and Banya.
Banya is a kind of Russian Sauna, except super heated and as such very
intense. the idea is to stay in as long as possible, then run outside,
onto the frozen lake and into a small holed smashed through the ice.
The experience is invigorating almost to the point of spiritual enlightenment.
I must've taken the icy dive at four times in total,
and felt absolutely refreshed and exhausted
by the end of my last day on Lake Baikal.
In 15 minutes I get on a train and head for UlaanBataar,
Mongolia, where I'll be for about four days or so.
Takes about 25 hours or so.
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Sergey Yeremeev
[модератор]
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01 Апр 2011, 07:47 |
10 Апр 2011, 12:00
Articles in English
The Orthodox World Is Reconfigured According to the Political Events
Аржаковский Антуан / Antoine Arjakovsky
http://www.kiev-orthodox.org/site/english/1586/
It is certain that the celebration of the millennium of the baptism of Rus’ in June 1988 and the resistance of the churches to Communist ideology triumphed over the CPSU and over the desire of certain reformers to return to the myth of the Leninist ideal. The meeting of Gorbachev and John Paul II on December 1, 1989 in the Vatican was proof of the accuracy of Berdyaev’s thesis on the sources of the religious foundation of Russian Communism. Conversely, the reconfiguration of the Orthodox churches was initiated by political upheavals, starting with the victory of the Solidarity trade union in June 1989 at the Polish parliamentary elections. After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, the Central European countries obtained their independence while the old socialist republics sought to become nation-states. Some other countries in the world, especially in Africa, obtained their independence. New heads of the churches were elected: Alexis II in Moscow and Bartholomew I in Constantinople (1991), and also Paul I in Belgrade (1990), and Peter VII in Alexandria. It was thought that the free churches would be able to conduct fraternal dialogue. The pre-conciliar meeting in Chambesy of 1990, then the assembly of the heads of all Orthodox churches in March 1992 in the Phanar, gave hopes in particular for the churches of the diaspora. In France the Inter-Episcopal Committee of Orthodox bishops created in 1967 became an assembly of Orthodox bishops in 1997. And in the United States the SCOBA created in 1960 also took on more importance. But the international context placed these badly prepared churches in the midst of a storm. Very quickly conflict erupted in the former Yugoslavia (between 1991 and 1995) and in the Chechen republic (1994-96, then again 2000).
The countries of Orthodox tradition obtained their independence or were separated into smaller states as in the former Yugoslavia, where war was declared between Serbs and Croatians in 1991. The heads of the churches wasted time coordinating with each other. It was only in February 1994, just a year before the agreements of Dayton on Bosnia-Herzegovina, that the Bosporus declaration was published. (It was renewed in 2005 two years after the start of the war by the American coalition in Iraq). Patriarch Bartholomew gathered together in Constantinople many leaders of the three great monotheistic traditions, especially from Southeastern Europe. They denounced the crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia and the nationalist use of religion. Paul, the Patriarch of Serbia, also declared: «If the price of the crime is not a large but small Serbia, I would not accept it either.» The forces of NATO however would have to intervene in Serbia in the spring 1999 and to install the KFOR in Kosovo in order to avoid a new conflict. The churches during this conflict were forced to make the distinction between people, territories and identities. Indeed certain Orthodox populations were, as in Kosovo, in minority situation in territories which were regarded as Orthodox, and were not able to assert their rights.
In Turkey and in Cyprus, the Christians persecuted by the Turkish authority do not have much more than a hope of survival once Turkey is integrated within the European Union (the official negotiations on this issue began in 2005), and it will be controlled by the Declaration of Human Rights. The Churches of the Greek tradition, as in Jerusalem and Alexandria, were not inculturated enough, despite all efforts of such a great hierarch as Anastassios Yannoulatos, to be able to hold a profound dialogue with Islam. After the failure of the Israel-Palestinian negotiations, violence began again in October 2000. This caused a new conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in July-August
2006.
The Orthodox churches set up new relations with the post-Communist states. Usually they obtained a privileged status in comparison with the other confessions and were successful in limiting the rights of the non-traditional religions, as in Russia in 1997. In July 2001, the former king of Bulgaria, Simeon of Saxony-Cobourg, became the Prime Minister and made a point of taking the oath of office in the presence of Patriarch Maxim, thus inaugurating new relations between the state and the Orthodox Church. The Bulgarian President, George Parvanov, also took the oath in January in the presence of the Patriarch.
On the other hand, in Greece, Orthodoxy, which is the official state religion, is more and more the object of scandal and dispute, in particular because of its integration within the European Union. Moreover, corruption scandals have scarred the Greek Church since 2005. Similar corruption scandals involving the hierarchy and other church officials emerged the same year within the Church of Jerusalem and in 2006 within the OCA. The failure of the adoption of the European Constitution, however, will not prevent the European Commission from consulting the Orthodox churches in a more systematic way. Taking into consideration the entry in 2007 of Romania and Bulgaria into the European institutions and the surge of immigrants from Eastern European countries in Western Europe, they will number tens of million of faithful.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev holds doctoral degrees from Oxford and Paris. He was consecrated bishop of Podolsk, has subsequently become bishop of Vienna and Austria, and serves in Brussels as Russian Orthodox representative to the European institutions. A member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, he is also active, together with Sergius Hovorun and Ihor Vyzhanov, in Orthodox-Catholic conversations. In his book, Orthodox Witness Today, published in 2006, he writes that Orthodox Christians «must be able not only to criticize others, but also to be self-critical» (Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, Orthodox Witness Today, Geneva, WCC, 2006, p. 4). Such independent institutes in Moscow as the Museum of the Russian Emigration, the parish Saints Cosma and Damian or the Institute of Saint Philaret diffuse the more open theological thought of the Russian emigration. The new Orthodox Encyclopedia (under the direction of Serguei Kravets) is a good example of this renewal. In Arkhangelsk Ioann Pryvalov has organised many spiritual and cultural events, and in Saint Petersburg Vladimir Fiodorov is very involved in ecumenical and social work.
In Lebanon theologians such as Tarek Mitri and Michel Nseir, marked by the successive wars and the reunion which took place between Christians for common charity work, are regarded as ecumenical and pro-Arab. In Cyprus bishop Basil of Trimithus, moderator of the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC, is also one of the leading theologian of his Church.
In America, a new generation of thinkers is appearing on the scene (John Behr, Peter Bouteneff, Paul Meyendorff, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Chrysostom Nassis, David Hart, Vigen Guroian, John Jillions, Anthony Ugolnik, Anton C. Vrame), following the example of Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Archbishop Dimitrios of Xanthos, Bishop Serafim Sigrist, Archbishop Vsevolod Maidanski, Bishop Anthony Scharba, Emmanuel Clapsis, John Break, Michael Plekon, Michael Meerson, Thomas Hopko, Leonid Kishkovsky, Dimitri Pospielovsky, Tristram Engelhardt Jr., John Erickson, Paul N. Tarazi, Thomas FitzGerald, John Chryssavgis. They feel freer with regards to the patristic Tradition than their predecessors Archbishop Iakovos, Jaroslav Pelikan, John Meyendorff or Alexander Schmemann.
Eucharist and Witness, Orthodox Perspectives on the Unity and Mission of the Church, Geneva, WCC, 1998, p. viii).
These intellectuals have a greater ecumenical experience and a greater realism with regard to Orthodox institutions than their predecessors. And especially due to the many improvements in theological education, with the profound reflections accomplished by the preceding generation, and with the globalized media context, Orthodox theological thought has been democratized, deconfessionalized and widened. Thus we can see more women theologians (Lydia d’Aloisio, Dimitra Koukoura, Valerie Karras, sister Magdalen of Maldon, Elisabeth Prodromou, Elisabeth Theokritoff). In certain disciplines like exegesis or the history of the Church, we find fewer and less denominational lines of division between Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant theologians. In addition, the diasporas of the second or third generation started to train great theologians who entered the dialogue with the theologians not only of their culture of origin but also with the theologians of other confessions of their respective countries. Finally, due to the Internet, one can find furthermore Web sites with personal blogs, which testify to the democratization of the Orthodox thought.
From the book: Antoine Arjakovsky. Church, Culture, and Identity: Reflections on Orthodoxy in the Modern World. Lviv: Ukrainian Catholic University Press 2007.
Дата публикации: 26.11.2007
Остров ОЛЬХОН на Байкале - храм иконы Божьей Матери ДЕРЖАВНАЯ
OLKHON ISLAND IN THE CENTER OF SIBERIAN LAKE BAIKAL + The Only Russian Orthodox Church in Olkhon named after DERJAVNAYA (Ruling) Icon of the Mother of God (BOGORODITSA) L'?le d'Olkhon au centre du lac Baikal en Sib?rie + Eglise Orthodoxe Russe ? Khujir
МИЛОСТИ ПРОСИМ на славное море – священный Байкал!
WELCOME TO THE MYSTICAL OLKHON ISLAND - CENTER OF BAIKAL LAKE!
BIEN VENU A OLKHON AU BAIKAL - LAC LE PLUS MYSTIQUE DANS LE MONDE !!!
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