Turkey Takes Over 50 Churches, Monasteries

Close to 50 churches and monasteries were taken over by the Turkish government in Mardin, a city located in the southeastern part of the country, reported the news outlet Agos.

The move was made during the time that the villages that comprise the city were turned into an official municipality. As per legislation that established the city, a “liquidation committee” was established to distribute institutions of the city whose legal permits had expired.

“For years, minority foundations could not acquire property in Turkey,” explained Kuryakos Ergun, the chairman of Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation. “Then legislative amendments were introduced in 2002 upon which we engaged in a number of initiatives.” We were able to have some of the title deeds registered in the name of our foundation. And for others, the legal process was ongoing.

“It was not possible for us to follow-up on all the title deeds … we are (now) filing lawsuits to the extent possible. In places where we couldn’t follow up the situation, some monasteries and other property were given to the legal entity of the village.”

In the latest move, the liquidation committee gave ownership of the village’s churches, monasteries and cemeteries to the Treasury Department, which in turn transferred ownership to the Diyanet, the Religious Affairs Ministry.

Appeals have been filed but with no success to date.

Source

Cardinal Müller; the Head of the Vatican's Doctrinal Office is Sacked by Pope Francis

Multiple sources are reporting this though I believe it was Rorate Caeli that first broke the news. He was a moderate, but in the Bergoglian Vatican he might as well have been trying to revive the Inquisition.

According to Edward Pentin at NCR (the good one) the most likely candidates for the position are Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer S.J., Secretary to the CDF, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, and Archbishop Bruno Forte of Chieti-Vasto. If I were still Catholic, I would be trembling.

OK I Yield

Thanks to everyone who has posted such nice things about the blog. I appreciate the kind words. Also I am not ignoring the many messages posted in the preceding thread and sent to me privately asking that I reconsider my retirement. So I have decided to stick with it for a while longer. However I must caution that my posts may be less frequent. Also starting in August I am going to be stuck in a technological black hole, possibly for a couple of months. Mom is having surgery which will require my moving in to help out for between four and eight weeks. Her house is in small sheltered valley where even cell phones don't work. She does have satellite TV and a microwave oven. But otherwise it's like stepping into the 1960's. It's a twenty minute drive to the 21st century and internet access. So posting during that time frame will be very rare.

More to follow.

Thanks for the memories

I hesitate to speak or write in absolutes, but after more than eleven years, I think it likely that this will be my last post. I've been thinking about folding the tent for a couple of years now, as my heart really isn't in it anymore and the state of the world grows more depressing by the day. That and I have other interests which are increasingly taking up my time. It seems to me that this is a good stopping point. Ten + years is a good run as blogs go.

In saying au revoir I would like to thank all of my regular and occasional readers. This blog was never anywhere near being in the top tier of the Orthodox/political blogosphere but we had some good conversations. And while I did not always agree with every comment, I rarely found them unreasonable and often walked away more enlightened for them. My intention is to leave the comments open for another couple of weeks after which I will turn the lights off.

Finally, I ask forgiveness for any injury or hurt I may have caused as a result of anything I posted here.

Goodbye and God bless each of you.

What do with Illinois?

llinois is like Venezuela now, a fiscally broken state that has lost its will to live, although for the moment, we still have enough toilet paper.

But before we run out of the essentials, let's finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people's money.

Those "other people" include taxpayers who've abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday.

So as the politicians meet in Springfield this week for another round of posturing and gesturing and blaming, we need a plan.

And here it is:

Dissolve Illinois. Decommission the state, tear up the charter, whatever the legal mumbo-jumbo, just end the whole dang thing.

We just disappear. With no pain. That's right. You heard me.

The best thing to do is to break Illinois into pieces right now. Just wipe us off the map. Cut us out of America's heartland and let neighboring states carve us up and take the best chunks for themselves.

The group that will scream the loudest is the state's political class, who did this to us, and the big bond creditors, who are whispering talk of bankruptcy and asset forfeiture to save their own skins.

Read the rest here.

The Anti-Gnostic's Problem with the Benedict Option

This one is worth reading. Please leave your comments there.

The USS Fitzgerald

 -- Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, Virginia -- Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego -- Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, Connecticut -- Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, Texas -- Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, California -- Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, Maryland -- Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, from Elyria, Ohio

O God of spirits and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down death and overthrown the Devil, and given life to Thy world, do Thou, the same Lord, give rest to the souls of Thy departed servants in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment, a place of repose, where all sickness, sighing, and sorrow have fled away. Pardon every transgression which they have committed, whether by word or deed or thought. For Thou art a good God and lovest mankind; because there is no man who lives yet does not sin, for Thou only art without sin, Thy righteousness is to all eternity, and Thy word is truth.

For Thou are the Resurrection, the Life, and the Repose of Thy servants who have fallen asleep, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thy Father, who is from everlasting, and Thine all-holy, good, and life-creating Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages. Amen.

Memory eternal! Memory eternal! Memory eternal!

Many Years!

To HM The Queen on her (official) 91st birthday.

Baseball

It's not a good sign when an article on your team includes this line...

"At least Mr. Met hasn't flipped off anybody in a couple of weeks."

The Latest from Lutheran Satire

Whatever you may suspect this is about... you are wrong.

Contraception and the Orthodox Church: Contemporary Theology and the Sources of Tradition

 Introduction

The early twentieth century saw the rapid growth of technologies intended to help prevent the conception of children. As these became more widely available and more broadly accepted in the culture at large, questions began to arise among Christians as to the morality of these products. The problem of contraception in turn uncovered deeper questions about the nature of love, marriage, and the conjugal act. A substantial and satisfying response to these questions is found in the Tradition of the Church, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). By the indwelling grace of the Spirit she not only preserves the truth, entrusted by the divine Savior to his apostles and maintained throughout the centuries by the holy Fathers, but her timeless mind remains accessible in every exigency. This applies to moral as well as theological questions, for her teaching is comprised of both dogmatic definitions and ethical standards.1 Part of the ascetic struggle of faith of every Christian is to assimilate these divine truths and live them. In this regard the flock of Christ relies on its pastors for guidance and looks to educated teachers and theologians for clarification. And this is precisely what many Orthodox Christians have done in the midst of an eruption of a contraceptive culture. Laity and clergy alike have turned to synodal statements and theological literature looking for the mind of the Church on this serious issue that touches the most intimate element of the married Christian life. Yet, to their detriment, the faithful have been deprived of the gold of Tradition on this issue and have instead been handed counterfeited accommodations to modern life that fall far short of the Church’s patrimony. The Fathers of the Church, and Orthodox theologians and writers as recently as the 1960s, were unanimous in their condemnation of artificial contraception. Yet in the past several decades a growing number of authors and authorities have departed from this inheritance and put forward a novel perspective on the issue, ranging from qualified permissibility to near endorsement. Today a majority of Orthodox Christians has seemingly accepted this newer teaching, so that in less than a century the Church has witnessed the dramatic reversal of a consensus that had lasted nearly two millennia—so strong is this cultural force we call contraception. But modern apologists for contraception do not represent the mind of the Church. When they are aware of the teaching of the Fathers they either misunderstand it or dismiss it, whether in principle or in particulars. Furthermore, their treatment of the issue has generally been superficial and lacking in philosophical and theological rigor. These flaws, combined with the extreme novelty of the new morality, allow for a straightforward analysis and critique of contemporary opinions about contraception.

*This essay is indebted to Dr. Timothy Patitsas, professor of Ethics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, as well as to Mother Nectaria McLees and John Taylor Carr. I am also grateful to Fr. Maximos Constas and William Goldin for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of the paper. Since this paper was first written, the author has learned of an earlier study on the issue: Fr. John Schroedel, “Orthodox Christianity and Contraception: Perspectives on the Contemporary Discussion” (M.Div. Thesis, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2002). The present paper obviously covers much of the same ground.

This paper is intended to expose the fallaciousness of the new morality through comparison with the fountains of truth preserved in the Church and handed on to every generation.

Read the rest here.

British Election Upset

Nothing official... yet. But exit polls indicate the Conservative Party may lose its majority in the House of Commons leaving the country with a hung parliament. If true this would cap an epic electoral collapse, given that as recently as last month there were expectations of a Tory landslide. Also if true, Mrs. May's days a PM may be numbered as there is certain to be serious finger pointing both within the government and among backbenchers. The Prime Minister has already been under sharp criticism for running what might charitably be described as a lackluster campaign. Less than charitable descriptions have labeled it as among the worst in modern British politics.

And of course this is going to give a huge bump in credibility to the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a radical leftist and known terrorist sympathizer. In a perverted sort of way that might be the best news to come out of this. If the exit polls are accurate Corbyn is likely the only reason that Labour isn't going to win the election outright. He has alienated most of his party's more moderate supporters and if he retains the leadership, which now seems extremely probable, it is unlikely that Labour will be able to win an outright majority in any general election.

Again, working on the assumption that the exit polls are accurate, the question will be whether a coalition government similar to that fashioned by Mr. Cameron can be formed or if there will be a quick call for another election. Mr. Corbyn has already pledged "no deals" in the event of a hung parliament, a pledge made perhaps rashly when it looked like there was virtually no chance of the Tories bleeping this up. The real danger is if the SNP throws its support to Labour. Depending on the final composition of the Commons, it is not completely beyond the realm of possibility that Corbyn could end up in No. 10. But we shall see.

For now, expect chaos. Even if the Tories manage to hang on to a narrow majority I expect that the long knives will be coming out for Mrs. May and her job security is now very weak.

Speaking of World War II

D Day as it happened from the NBC Radio network.

And now for something a bit different...

A World War II training film for spies produced by the OSS.

Those who reject transgenderism banned from adoption, working with children in Illinois

June 1, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has instituted sweeping changes to its policies and procedures in caring for children who experience gender dysphoria that essentially weed out all employees and volunteers who cannot in good conscience support and promote transgender ideology.   

Illinois now "requires that all LGBTQ children and youth be placed in an affirming safe housing, receive LGBTQ competent medical and mental health services, and have equal opportunity and access to care."

However, in order to assure consistent achievement of that goal, the new policy requires "any person who is involved with DCFS children/youth will complete mandatory training in LGBTQ competency." This will be an integral part of DCFS core training and will be a requirement to attaining a child-welfare license.  

Read the rest here.