My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.
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THE DESECRATION OF HAGIA (HOLY) SOPHIA BY THE INFIDEL TURKS
The Great Church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom of God (Hagia Sophia) Αγία Σοφία, will be turned into a Moslem mosque by the recent decision of the Turkish government and president Erdogan.
The official statement of His Eminence Archbishop Elpidoforos says the following: "On Friday, July 24th there will be an 'inauguration' of this program of cultural and spiritual misappropriation and a violation of all standards of religious harmony and mutual respect, we call upon all the beloved faithful of our Holy Archdiocese to observe this day as a day of mourning and of manifest grief we urge you to invite your fellow Orthodox Christians and indeed all Christians and people of goodwill to share in the following observances:
We ask that every church toll its bells in lamentation on this day. We call for every flag of every kind that is raised on church property be lowered to half-mast on this day. And we enjoin every church in our Archdiocese to chant the Akathist Hymn in the evening of this day, just as we chant it on the Fifth Friday of the Great and Holy Fast.
Let us, in this time of grief and mourning appeal to the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. She is the "only Hope of the hopeless" and as we chant to Her in the Akathist, "the Repository of the Wisdom of God, the Treasury of His Foreknowledge".
Therefore, with complete faith in the Foreknowledge of Our Trinitarian God, and in the Divine Plan for our salvation (οικονομία), we entrust the future of our beloved Αγία Σοφία to His Wisdom, and we supplicate She who is the very Treasury of that Knowledge and the Repository of that Wisdom to intercede for us, to comfort us, to give us Her strength, and to manifest to us Her counsel, that we may ever do and say that which is pleasing in the sight and in the hearing of Her Son, our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father, Who together with the Holy Spirit is worshipped One God, unto the ages of ages. Amen!"
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HAGIA SOPHIA, THE GREAT CATHEDRAL OF CHRISTIANITY
Hagia Sophia was built in six years, being completed in 537 A.D. One of the Architects was Isidorus of Meletus The Hagia Sophia combines a longitudinal basilica and a centralized building in a wholly original manner, with a huge 32-meter (150 foot), main dome supported on pendentives and two semidomes - one on either side of the longitude axis. In planning the building is almost square. There are three aisles separated by columns with galleries above and great marble pies rising up t support the dome. The walls above the galleries and the base of the dome are pierced by windows which in the glare of daylight obscure the supports and give the impression that the canopy floats on air.
The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been ordered to be built by Emperor Constantine the Great in 325 A.D. His son, Constantius II, consecrated it in 360 A.D. It was damaged in 404 A.D. by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second banishment of Saint John Chrysostom, then Patriarch of Constantinople. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman Emperor Constans I. The restored building was rededicated in 451 A.D. by Emperor Theodosius II. The church was burned again in the Nika Insurrection of January 532 A.D., an opportunity given to Emperor Justinian I to envision a splendid replacement. The structure now standing is especially the 6th-century edifice, although an earthquake caused a partial collapse of the dome in 558 A.D. (restored in 562) and there were further collapses. It was restored again in the mid-14th century.
For more than a millennium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was looted and desecrated in the year 1204 by the Venetians and the Roman Catholic Crusaders during their Fourth Crusade.
After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmet II had it repurposed as a Muslim mosque, with the addition of a wooden minaret (on the exterior, a tower used for the summons to prayer), a great chandelier, a mihrab, (niche indicating the direction to Mecca), and a minbar (pulpit).
In 1934 Turkish President Kemal Ataturk secularized the building, and in 1935 it was made into a museum. Art historians consider the building's beautiful mosaics to be the main source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Hagia Sophia is a component of a Unesco World Heritage Site.
FOR CONSIDERATION
Vladimir, Prince of Kyiv, sent ambassadors to the neighboring states of Bulgaria, Khazar, and Byzantium to examine their beliefs. The ambassadors brought back their findings and evaluation of the various religions to Prince Vladimir and based on their information he rejected Judaism of His Khazar neighbors. As for German Catholicism, the ambassadors described it as plain and dour. Their impression of the faith of their Orthodox neighbors to the south is altogether different, however. Upon attending the divine service at the Glorious Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople, they report:
"And we went into the Greek lands, and we were led into a place where they serve God, and we did not know whether we were, in heaven or on earth. All we know is that God lives there with the people and their service is better than any other country."
And, therefore, Prince Vladimir accepted the Orthodox Christian Faith for his people. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of all Orthodox Churches today, with approximately 165 million Orthodox Christians.
Let us all pray for the protection and preservation of our beloved Orthodox Cathedral of Hagia Sophia. Kyrie Eleison!
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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" -- Saint John Chrysostom
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia
The sinner and unworthy servant of God,
+Father George