History

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Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky slideshow

Dialogue on Katyn Massacre between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches

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This is a compelling interview, although the promise towards reconciliation it offered may be delayed, or worse, cut short, with the terrible airplane crash of Polish dignitaries near Moscow yesterday. They were flying to Russia to commemorate the Katyn Massacre (called “tragedy” below), and, if the interview below is accurate, look for some common ground to heal this grave wound of historical memory. I can’t help but think that an event of great promise has been lost. Certainly the crash is catastrophic for Poland, and the lost opportunity may be a grave loss for the rest of Europe. An Orthodox bishop was one of the fatalities.

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‘The task of the Russian Orthodox Church’s dialogue with the Catholic Church in Poland is to rise above political conjuncture’. Interview of DECR vice-chairman Hegumen Philip Riabykh with Blagovest-infor news agency.

Father Philip, on April 7 Russia and Poland will mark the sorrowful date, the 70^th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy. The Russian Orthodox Church will take part in this commemorative event. Please tells us what exactly will leaders of the two Slavic nations remember on this day?

The Katyn tragedy or the Katyn shooting are the names given to the execution of Polish officers who were captured in the course of the Red Army’s entry into the territory of Western Ukraine and Byelorussia in 1939. It is rather a conditional name because Polish captives were shot to death in other places, too, such as Kalinin (now Tver), Kharkov and other places in the former Soviet Union. The Katyn forest near Smolensk became a common grave for about four and a half thousand Polish officers. It is not the largest burial place since at Mednoye near Tver over six thousand Poles were buried.

However, these executions are firmly associated with Katyn as this place was discovered first, already during World War II.

April the 7^th, 1940, chosen as the commemoration day of the Katyn victims, is considered to be an estimated date of the executions near Smolensk, which continued till the middle of May.

Can we say that Katyn is a common grave only for Polish officers?
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The Stormy Petrel of the Cloth

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Over at Orthodox History, Matthew Namee recounts the story of a bold, decisive, and courageous priest who obviously knew the full measure of his calling. He got himself into serious trouble on occassion, but only because he refused to compromise to powerful interests who, like today, subvert the faith for their own ends.

Some highlights:

Like so many of his fellow priests, Petrides traveled throughout his region of the country, ministering to the Orthodox people he found who didn’t have a priest. One time, he went to Ithaca, New York, to do a baptism. After the service, unbeknownst to Petrides, a 16-year-old Greek girl had advertised that she would go into a “spirit trance.” Greeks had traveled from all over to witness the spectacle. Petrides caught wind of what was going on, and he burst into the room, stopped the girl’s trance, and told the people that spiritualism is against the teachings of the Orthodox Church. This was the sort of man he was – completely unafraid to stand up for what was right, no matter what.
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The Holodomor: Ukraine’s Famine

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HT: Isa Almisry

Another:

Watch Harvest of Despair (Soviet Communism engineered Ukraine Famine Genocide 1933) in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Also:
Are you listening The New York Times?

Religion as the ground of culture?

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Looks like religion may have led to civilization. HT: Mystagogy

From Newsweek Magazine:

History in the Remaking

A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution.

A pillar at the Gobekli Tepe temple near Sanliurfa, Turkey, the oldest known temple in the world

They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans began that ascent.

Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn’t just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.
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