St. Christina of Tyre

Joyous feast! St. Christina of Tyre lived in what today is Lebanon in the 3rd century, born into the family of Urban, the Roman governor of Tyre. The Saint was exceptionally beautiful and because of this and her privileged background was sought after as a bride. St. Christina's father, however, wanted his daughter to become a priestess and settled her in quarters set apart from the family and filled with many idols and charged her with the duty of offering the daily incense to the idols.

It was in this solitude that St. Christina began to wonder which god had created the heavens and the earth. Casting aside the worship of the idols as foolishness since they had been made by men, the Saint came to believe in the one God and began to fast and to pray to Him with increasingly fervor to reveal Himself to her. God heard her prayers and sent an angel to the Saint to tell her of the coming of the Christ into the world and to forewarn her of the sort of death she would suffer for her faith in Christ her Bridegroom.

After the angel's visit St. Christina destroyed the idols she had cared for and cast them out. When the Saint's father learned what had happened he had his daughter beaten and thrown into prison. When she would not recant the Christian Faith at her trial the governor had St. Christina bound to an iron wheel with a fire set beneath and tortured in this way before being returned to prison. An angel visited the Saint the following night, healing her many wounds and giving her food. Seeing this Urban had his daughter thrown into the sea with weights, but the weights sank while she remained on the sea's surface.

St. Christina underwent many tortures for her faith in the Christ and her witness was so strong that roughly three hundred of the people of Tyre were converted to the Orthodox Faith because of her sufferings. The Saint was finally taken from this world to the next when the new governor of Tyre had her beheaded. More on her life can be found here. May St. Christina's blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Joseph of Damascus

Joyous feast! St. Joseph the New Hieromartyr of Damascus was born in the Syrian city at the end of the 1700s under the Turkish Yoke. As a youth he became zealous for learning and quickly became well known by the Orthodox living in Damascus and so loved that in 1817 he was ordained to the priesthood at the age of twenty-four and assigned to the patriarchal cathedral in Damascus.

St. Joseph enjoyed the favor of both the patriarch who ordained him, Patriarch Seraphim of Antioch, and his successor Patriarch Methodius. He was also well loved by the Antiochian Orthodox faithful in Damascus thanks to his sermons, so much so that some called St. Joseph a new Chrysostom. When Damascus was struck by yellow fever the Saint worked tirelessly to comfort and care for the sick without regard for his own life and so became even more deeply loved by the Damascenes.

Because of his great learning St. Joseph attracted students desiring to study under him and eventually formed a patriarchal theological school in Damascus. The Saint also engaged in dialogue with the members of the then newly formed Melkite Catholic Church, bringing many of them back to the Orthodox Faith by strengthening them in their support of the Apostolic Faith and the Julian calendar when the Melkite Catholic Patriarch Clement forced the Gregorian calendar and various latinizations upon his flock. St. Joseph's influence within the Melkite Catholic Church was said to be so strong that had he not been martyred it would not have survived his lifetime because of the number of its member who were returning to Orthodoxy.

In 1860 a great persecution of all the Christians in Damascus and its region took place, with many of the Antiochian Orthodox taking refuge at the patriarchal cathedral. St. Joseph traveled along the city's rooftops from his home to get to the cathedral and strengthen the faithful there with both sermons and communion. When the cathedral was finally attacked St. Joseph was martyred together with the faithful gathered there on 10 July. For this reason we also commemorate today St. Joseph's companions in martyrdom, whose names are not known to us.

More on St. Joseph's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

"The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature"

I finally found an online version of Sebastian Brock's article on the femininity of the Holy Spirit in Syriac, "The Holy Spirit as Feminine in Early Syriac Literature." Enjoy!

St. Maron

Again, a joyous feast! St. Maron is usually associated with the Maronite Catholic Church in Lebanon, which views him as its founder, but is in fact also a saint in our Orthodox Churches for and against Chalcedon. He lived as a hermit in the mountains near Antioch where he was renowned for his asceticism and holiness and even met with St. John Chrysostom, who asked for his prayers.

St. Maron's disciples were initially centered in northern Syria, but came to be concentrated on and around Mount Lebanon. Today the Maronite Catholic Church claims to have always been in communion with Rome, but in reality it is more likely that St. Maron's followers either went into schism or heresy, electing their own patriarchs of Antioch until submitting to Rome during the Crusades.

More on St. Maron's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

A Pilgrimage to Syria and Lebanon

An account of a recent trip by Mother Alexandra (Magan), a nun at St. Thecla's Monastery in Bolivar, Pennsylvania, to St. Thecla's Monastery in Ma'aloula and other holy places in Syria and Lebanon together with a number of lovely pictures can be found here.

Beirut Cathedral Opens Museum

Beirut's St. George's Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral has opened a museum on its premises highlighting the nearly 2,000-year long history of Orthodox Christianity in Lebanon. The modern cathedral is the seventh church structure to be built on the site. More here.

Pictured is St. George's Cathedral.

St. Ignatius of Antioch

Joyous feast! St. Ignatius was a great light of the early Church. Reading his writings helped convince me of the falseness of the new teachings about Christianity from Western Europe and North America and the truth of Orthodoxy. More on his life can be found here (under 20 December). Some of his writings can be found here. May his blessings and prayers be with us all! Many years to everyone celebrating their namedays!

"A Letter to the Priest" by Fr. Thomas (Bitar)

A beautiful talk on the priesthood by Archimandrite Thomas (Bitar) of the Douma Monastery in Lebanon to the priests of the Metropolis of Tripoli can be found here.

AFR Interview with Seyidna Philip

It seems like everything in the Church of Antioch is about the wording. There's no concern over the reality behind the words; that can change at any moment! What's important is that everyone be happy with the wording and that the wording itself be vague enough to mean whatever every individual involved wants it to mean.

That aside, the only other generally significant thing I got out of Ancient Faith Radio's rather disappointing interview with Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) was that there is no self-rule or autonomy or whatever you want to call it for the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America. There is no real local synod and the next Metropolitan of New York of the Church of Antioch will not only be confirmed by the Holy Synod, he will be elected by it too. Seyidna Philip tried to dodge the question by saying no autonomous Local Orthodox Church elects its own first hierarch, but this simply is not true - the Japanese, Ukrainian, and Finnish Orthodox Churches as well as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia are all examples of this. The choices of their local synods are subject to the ratification of their holy synods, but they do not send their holy synods lists of nominees - they send them the name of the man they have elected.

It's pretty rich that the metropolitan of one of North America's Orthodox Christian jurisdictions best known for playing fast and loose with the canons can claim that in his metropolis "we practice the canons of the Church perfectly." God help us all if that's the case! And people are surprised when clergy and laity from the Church of Antioch on this continent leave for other jurisdictions and even for schisms...anyways, the whole interview with Metropolitan Philip can be found here. Please pray for the Archdiocese, which is close to my heart (I became a catechumen in an Antiochian Orthodox parish in high school), and for Bishop Mark of Toledo, who has endured much persecution in recent years for his good conduct as a shepherd of the flock God has given him.

Holy New Martyrs of Damascus

Joyous feast! I've just been reading about St. Joseph of Damascus and those Damascenes martyred with him in 1860. You can read about St. Joseph's life and martyrdom here. May the New Martyrs' blessings and prayers be with us all!