Posts Tagged ‘Alive’

In Praise of Holy 40 Martyrs of Sebaste – a medieval work by Saint Clement of Ohrid (The Wonderworker)

Wednesday, March 9th, 2022

Holy_40_Martyrs-martyrdom-Bulgarian-icon

I consider / think for the will of the same mind and the equality of wisdom of these fourty martyrs and in amazement, I resort to Christ,  by whom clearly comes every good giving and every gift, as the Many-Blessed Paul said and blessed: “Thou are Christ – a God’s power and wisdom.” And with that power, were filled the many-blessed fourty warriors, martyrs for Christ.

They shone in the world like the brightest stars and illuminated the whole universe with the rays of the knowledge of God, having among them the spiritual sun – Christ. Illuminated by its light and adorned with great beauty, they blossomed with special faith like fragrant lilies, abundantly watered with the dew of the Holy Spirit. Decorating themselves with good deeds, they became beloved of their Lord, because in purity and love they surpassed each other. They shone like lamps with spiritual radiance: some with fasting and abstinence, others with good faith and hospitality; some with kneeling prayer and sincerity, and others with humility and meekness; some with vigilance and sincere love, and others with love and mercy for the poor. Indeed, the power of the Holy Spirit was with them, urging them to every good deed and by faith protecting them from every calamity.

And so, they were as homogeneous in appearance and beauty. Weaved through faith and love like a golden necklace, they were connected to each other by unanimity. Leaving the vain way of life, they zealously wished to stand before the unspoken glory of God through good deeds and sincere love. They urged each other to hurry to the holy path of feat. Instead of armor, they put on the faith, and instead of a shield, they armed themselves with The Cross and appeared in battle like Lightning – Riding against thousands and tens of thousands and were glorified with Victory. They fought a double war – with Visible and Invisible enemies.

Ivory_Relief-from-Constantinople_40_Martyr-10th-century-now-kept-in_Bode-museum-Berlin

Ivory Relief icon 40 Martyr 10th century from Constantinople now kept in Bode museum Berlin

The devil, who could not see their beauty and faith, as well as their pure life, fought against them by entering the malevolent court of Licinius, who was autocratic at the time. He raised persecution against Christians. Wanting to deceitfully capture the faithful martyrs, Licinius forced everyone to worship idols. But the ancient prophet proclaimed and said: “Lord will not leave the rod of the wicked on the lot of the righteous, so that the righteous do not stretch out their hands to iniquity. Lord, do good to the good and to the righteous at heart! ” With this light they illuminated themselves, striving brilliantly and wonderfully in martyrdom, despising the ordinary pleasure of joy. Cheering each other on, they said to each other, “Brethren, let us not be afraid of this short-lived torment, which passes quickly like a shadow, but brings us into the eternal dwellings. Therefore, brothers, stand firmly armed against the adversery-enemy, so that we may be adorned with victorious crowns of Christ God!
Because for the sake of earthly life and for the sake of the mortal king we did not spare ourselves in battles, but, having fallen into many troubles, protected by the power of God, we emerged victorious, then – if we try to follow him, taking upon ourselves his voluntary sufferings, we hope that he will be with us, as he promised: “When you are taken to assemblies, to authorities, to prisons, to kings and princes, and to tormentors for my name's sake, do not worry about what to say or what to answer, for I will give you words and wisdom that all your adversaries will not be able to resist or contradict. And do not be afraid of those who kill the body and can do no harm to the soul; but be afraid of him; who, after the murder, has the power to throw into hell. "

With these words, they learned and supported each other, and powerfully trampled on the devil's cunning. They gladly endured all kinds of sorrows, saying to themselves the apostolic word: "God is not unjust, brethren, to forget your labor."

40_Holy_Martyrs-of-Sebaste-Sebastia-in-the-ice-cold-lake-icon

40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste martyrdon in the Lake Εκκλησιαστικό Μουσείο (Alexandrupoli, Greece Church Museum)

When they stood at night, in the cold, in the middle of the swamp, near the town of Sebastia, here is one of them, turning away, ran to the bathroom (built near the plateau) and, touching the heat, it melted like ice and died. And suddenly an unspeakable light shone from the sky on them, and the cold turned from it into warmth. And forty crowns descended from heaven upon their heads. Only one wreath remained, with nowhere to stop.The guardian, seeing this miracle, took off his clothes, jumped to the martyrs and cried out in a loud voice: “I believe in the Son of God Jesus Christ, in whom even these holy martyrs believe; may He honor me with the same glory, so that I may complete with them a martyr's deed! ” And immediately the crown of unspeakable glory descended on his head and stood. This is God's mercy, as the Lord Himself said, "The last shall be first, and the first last."

oly_Forty_Martyrs_Church-in-Veliko-Tarnovo-Trnov-Bulgaria
Church of Holy Martyrs, ex-Capital of Bulgarian Empire Tarnovo / Trnov, Bulgaria

Therefore, how can we praise the most holy company, from which this wretched man fell away, as Judas once fell away from God's chosen company, and as the devil fell away from the angelic staff and from the light and became the ruler of darkness and deserved eternal torment. His envy engulfed this wretched man. But still the devil was trampled by the invincibles.

The church nourished them with spiritual food, crowned them with the brightest wreaths; he made them companions of the angels and showed them to the whole universe as bright lamps. With their miracles they shine more than the sun. The prophet announced about them in antiquity, saying: “You have tested us, O God, you have melted us as silver is melted; put men over our heads. We went through fire and water and you set us free. " As they desired this eternal peace, they left behind the beauty of life, houses, wealth, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, wife, children, and even despised their lives, according to the Lord's command. That is why the Lord has miraculously shown all His favor to them. Indeed, they were vessels of good use, chosen for the service of the only ruler and our savior, Jesus Christ. Nothing could separate Christ's love from them: no fire, no water, no other suffering.

That is why today we celebrate their memory with respect and, giving them the due praise, we say: "Rejoice, all-honorable and wonderful company of the most glorious army!"

They became like the disembodied forces and surpassed them; for they, being disembodied, stand in their place and enjoy the unspeakable beauty. And the martyrs, having swum the earthly ravaged sea , illuminated the whole world with their blood. With spiritual wings, they flew up and stood before the unspeakable glory of God. They abundantly heal the sick, cast out demons, alleviate suffering, enlighten churches, keep the peace, guide people to good deeds, cast out demons and quickly destroy their cunning, enrich the poor in two ways – mentally and physically – destroy heresies. Shining with the brightest dawns, they became great advocates – martyrs for the faith.


Chapel_of_the_Forty_Martyrs_holy-martyrs-holy-relics-Church-of-Holy-Sepulchre-Jerusalem

Chapel of the Forty Martyrs containing the Holy Relics Church of Holy Sepulchre Jerusalem


So what mouth or which tongue will be able to praise these heavenly lamps, which appeared brighter than the sun? With their pure relics, they illuminated the whole world like stars. They warmed the day's frost, ignited by the Holy Spirit. And fiery flames extinguished them, as once the godly youths in Babylon. With their golden bones they illuminated the streams of the river, adorned all the churches with their fragrant relics, delighted the world with their unspeakable miracles, banished deception, and planted the truth, stepped on the devil, rejoiced Christ! That is why the right hand of the Almighty adorned them with bright wreaths and illuminated them with the rays of the unspeakable light, honored them wonderfully and with the honor to stand before God, clothed them with God-woven clothes, filled them with the power of the Holy Spirit and made them equal to disembodied forces. . That is why God is wonderful among his saints, always glorifying those who glorify him, and miraculously honoring them with unspeakable miracles. I want to tell one of their many miracles, namely how children listen to their noble mother.

Sveti-40_Mychneici-Bylgaria-Holy-40-Martyrs-Manastir_-_Vrachesh-Bulgaria

A Nun Monastery near Vrachesh Village, Bulgaria – Monastic Church

When these blessed martyrs surrendered their holy souls into the hands of the Lord, one of them was still breathing. His mother, seeing that he was left alive, rejected the female weakness, took male audacity, took his beloved son on his shoulders and, following him (after the car loaded with the bodies of the martyrs), said to him: "Do your best, Sufferer for Christ, be courageous and strengthen your heart, and may my soul rejoice for you! Do not fall away, as Judas once fell away from the apostles, nor as one of you has now fallen away, but give God all your hope and your spirit, and he will support you; for, behold, Christ is standing before you, brother, to receive your soul and await your arrival. ” As she spoke this, her son, carried by her, surrendered his soul into the hands of the Lord. She took it, placed it with the saints, and said, "Rest, child, with your holy company, and remember me with them in your holy prayers, so that I may accomplish your martyrdom." Then she returned with joy, praising God. Have you heard, brethren, of the love and boldness of the Christ-loving mother? How she feared neither the king, nor the tormentor, nor the sword, nor the fire, but only the life-giver of God.

Merdanya_monastery_40_Martyrs-after-the-battle-of-Klokotnitsa-by-Bulgarian-ruler-Ivan_Asen-II-near-Lyaskovec

Church of 40 Holy Martyrs in Merdanya Monastery near Lyskovec Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria (The monastery in thankfulness to the martyrs for helping the Bulgarian King Ivan Asen II in the Famous Medieval battle of Klokotnitsa which occured on 9th of March year 1230 near the Village of Klokotnitsa – As a result, Bulgaria emerged once again for short time as the most powerful state in South-Eastern Europe)

Therefore, if we reject from ourselves any fear of men, let us make room in ourselves for the fear of God. May he enlighten our souls and hearts! May we always abide in fasting, in purity and sincere love, in meekness and obedience, abstaining from all evil. Let us adorn ourselves with good deeds, like these most holy martyrs, glorifying the Most Holy Trinity, one in three persons – the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – now and always, and forever. Amen!

Text originally existing in Church Slavonic and translated to Bulgarian language by Archimandrite Dr. Atanasii Bonchev (who was also the Author of the Book the Living of the Saints used in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church even today)
 

The Menaion (one of Liturgy service books) of the Eastern Orthodox Church lists the names of the Forty Martyrs as follows:

  • Hesychius, Meliton, Heraclius, Smaragdus, Domnus, Eunoicus, Valens, Vivianus, Claudius, Priscus, Theodulus, Euthychius, John, Xantheas, Helianus, Sisinius, Cyrion, Angius, Aetius, Flavius, Acacius, Ecditius, Lysimachus, Alexander, Elias, Candidus, Theophilus, Dometian, Gaius, Gorgonius, Eutyches, Athanasius, Cyril, Sacerdon, Nicholas, Valaerius, Philoctimon, Severian, Chudion, and Aglaius.


A curious fact is in the Eastern Orthodox Church, there is a prayer mentioning the Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste is also placed in the Orthodox Wedding Service (referred to as a "crowning") to remind the bride and groom that spiritual crowns await them in Heaven also if they remain as faithful to Christ as these saints of long ago.

Hearing on the enormousness of Saintship of the Holy Fourty Martyrs and their endurance. 
Let us ask them for their holy prayers for more peace, love, faith and hope and endurance and patience on the hard trials each one of us face constantly!

Holy 40 Martyrs of Sebastia Pray the Lord Jesus Christ so we find mercy in God!

How to automate open xen Hypervisor Virtual Machines backups shell script

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021

openxen-backup-logo As a sysadmin that have my own Open Xen Debian Hypervisor running on a Lenovo ThinkServer few months ago due to a human error I managed to mess up one of my virtual machines and rebuild the Operating System from scratch and restore files service and MySQl data from backup that really pissed me of and this brought the need for having a decent Virtual Machine OpenXen backup solution I can implement on the Debian ( Buster) 10.10 running the free community Open Xen version 4.11.4+107-gef32c7afa2-1. The Hypervisor is a relative small one holding just 7 VM s:

HypervisorHost:~#  xl list
Name                                        ID   Mem VCPUs      State   Time(s)
Domain-0                                     0 11102    24     r—–  214176.4
pcfrxenweb                                  11 12288     4     -b—-  247425.5
pcfrxen                                     12 16384    10     -b—-  1371621.4
windows7                                    20  4096     2     -b—-   97887.2
haproxy2                                    21  4096     2     -b—-   11806.9
jitsi-meet                                  22  2048     2     -b—-   12843.9
zabbix                                      23  2048     2     -b—-   20275.1
centos7                                     24  2040     2     -b—-   10898.2

HypervisorHost:~# xl list|grep -v 'Name ' |grep  -v 'Domain-0'  |wc -l
7


The backup strategy of the script is very simple to shutdown the running VM machine, make a copy with rsync to a backup location the image of each of the Virtual Machines in a bash shell loop for each virtual machine shown in output of xl command and backup to a preset local directory in my case this is /backups/ the backup of each virtual machine is produced within a separate backup directory with a respective timestamp. Backup VM .img files are produced in my case to mounted 2x external attached hard drives each of which is a 4 Terabyte Seagate Plus Backup (Storage). The original version of the script was made to be a slightly different by Zhiqiang Ma whose script I used for a template to come up with my xen VM backup solution. To prevent the Hypervisor's load the script is made to do it with a nice of (nice -n 10) this might be not required or you might want to modify it to better suit your needs. Below is the script itself you can fetch a copy of it /usr/sbin/xen_vm_backups.sh :

#!/bin/bash

# Author: Zhiqiang Ma (http://www.ericzma.com/)
# Modified to work with xl and OpenXen by Georgi Georgiev – https://pc-freak.net
# Original creation dateDec. 27, 2010
# Script takes all defined vms under xen_name_list and prepares backup of each
# after shutting down the machine prepares archive and copies archive in externally attached mounted /backup/disk1 HDD
# Latest update: 08.06.2021 G. Georgiev – hipo@pc-freak.net

mark_file=/backups/disk1/tmp/xen-bak-marker
log_file=/var/log/xen/backups/bak-$(date +%Y_%m_%d).log
err_log_file=/var/log/xen/backups/bak_err-$(date +%H_%M_%Y_%m_%d).log
xen_dir=/xen/domains
xen_vmconfig_dir=/etc/xen/
local_bak_dir=/backups/disk1/tmp
#bak_dir=xenbak@backup_host1:/lhome/xenbak
bak_dir=/backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_images/$(date +%Y_%m_%d)/xen/domains
#xen_name_list="haproxy2 pcfrxenweb jitsi-meet zabbix windows7 centos7 pcfrxenweb pcfrxen"
xen_name_list="windows7 haproxy2 jitsi-meet zabbix centos7"

if [ ! -d /var/log/xen/backups ]; then
echo mkdir -p /var/log/xen/backups
 mkdir -p /var/log/xen/backups
fi

if [ ! -d $bak_dir ]; then
echo mkdir -p $bak_dir
 mkdir -p $bak_dir

fi


# check whether bak runned last week
if [ -e $mark_file ] ; then
        echo  rm -f $mark_file
 rm -f $mark_file
else
        echo  touch $mark_file
 touch $mark_file
  # exit 0
fi

# set std and stderr to log file
        echo mv $log_file $log_file.old
       mv $log_file $log_file.old
        echo mv $err_log_file $err_log_file.old
       mv $err_log_file $err_log_file.old
        echo "exec 2> $err_log_file"
       exec 2> $err_log_file
        echo "exec > $log_file"
       exec > $log_file


# check whether the VM is running
# We only backup running VMs

echo "*** Check alive VMs"

xen_name_list_tmp=""

for i in $xen_name_list
do
        echo "/usr/sbin/xl list > /tmp/tmp-xen-list"
        /usr/sbin/xl list > /tmp/tmp-xen-list
  grepinlist=`grep $i" " /tmp/tmp-xen-list`;
  if [[ “$grepinlist” == “” ]]
  then
    echo $i is not alive.
  else
    echo $i is alive.
    xen_name_list_tmp=$xen_name_list_tmp" "$i
  fi
done

xen_name_list=$xen_name_list_tmp

echo "Alive VM list:"

for i in $xen_name_list
do
   echo $i
done

echo "End alive VM list."

###############################
date
echo "*** Backup starts"

###############################
date
echo "*** Copy VMs to local disk"

for i in $xen_name_list
do
  date
  echo "Shutdown $i"
        echo  /usr/sbin/xl shutdown $i
        /usr/sbin/xl shutdown $i
        if [ $? != ‘0’ ]; then
                echo 'Not Xen Disk image destroying …';
                /usr/sbin/xl destroy $i
        fi
  sleep 30

  echo "Copy $i"
  echo "Copy to local_bak_dir: $local_bak_dir"
      echo /usr/bin/rsync -avhW –no-compress –progress $xen_dir/$i/{disk.img,swap.img} $local_bak_dir/$i/
     time /usr/bin/rsync -avhW –no-compress –progress $xen_dir/$i/{disk.img,swap.img} $local_bak_dir/$i/
      echo /usr/bin/rsync -avhW –no-compress –progress $xen_vmconfig_dir/$i.cfg $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
     time /usr/bin/rsync -avhW –no-compress –progress $xen_vmconfig_dir/$i.cfg $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
  date
  echo "Create $i"
  # with vmmem=1024"
  # /usr/sbin/xm create $xen_dir/vm.run vmid=$i vmmem=1024
          echo /usr/sbin/xl create $xen_vmconfig_dir/$i.cfg
          /usr/sbin/xl create $xen_vmconfig_dir/$i.cfg
## Uncomment if you need to copy with scp somewhere
###       echo scp $log_file $bak_dir/xen-bak-111.log
###      echo  /usr/bin/rsync -avhW –no-compress –progress $log_file $local_bak_dir/xen-bak-111.log
done

####################
date
echo "*** Compress local bak vmdisks"

for i in $xen_name_list
do
  date
  echo "Compress $i"
      echo tar -z -cfv $bak_dir/$i-$(date +%Y_%m_%d).tar.gz $local_bak_dir/$i-$(date +%Y_%m_%d) $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
     time nice -n 10 tar -z -cvf $bak_dir/$i-$(date +%Y_%m_%d).tar.gz $local_bak_dir/$i/ $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
    echo rm -vf $local_bak_dir/$i/ $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
    rm -vrf $local_bak_dir/$i/{disk.img,swap.img}  $local_bak_dir/$i.cfg
done

####################
date
echo "*** Copy local bak vmdisks to remote machines"

copy_remote () {
for i in $xen_name_list
do
  date
  echo "Copy to remote: vm$i"
        echo  scp $local_bak_dir/vmdisk0-$i.tar.gz $bak_dir/vmdisk0-$i.tar.gz
done

#####################
date
echo "Backup finishes"
        echo scp $log_file $bak_dir/bak-111.log

}

date
echo "Backup finished"

 

Things to configure before start using using the script to prepare backups for you is the xen_name_list variable

#  directory skele where to store already prepared backups
bak_dir=/backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_images/$(date +%Y_%m_%d)/xen/domains

# The configurations of the running Xen Virtual Machines
xen_vmconfig_dir=/etc/xen/
# a local directory that will be used for backup creation ( I prefer this directory to be on the backup storage location )
local_bak_dir=/backups/disk1/tmp
#bak_dir=xenbak@backup_host1:/lhome/xenbak
# the structure on the backup location where daily .img backups with be produced with rsync and tar archived with bzip2
bak_dir=/backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_images/$(date +%Y_%m_%d)/xen/domains

# list here all the Virtual Machines you want the script to create backups of
xen_name_list="windows7 haproxy2 jitsi-meet zabbix centos7"

If you need the script to copy the backup of Virtual Machine images to external Backup server via Local Lan or to a remote Internet located encrypted connection with a passwordless ssh authentication (once you have prepared the Machines to automatically login without pass over ssh with specific user), you can uncomment the script commented section to adapt it to copy to remote host.

Once you have placed at place /usr/sbin/xen_vm_backups.sh use a cronjob to prepare backups on a regular basis, for example I use the following cron to produce a working copy of the Virtual Machine backups everyday.
 

# crontab -u root -l 

# create windows7 haproxy2 jitsi-meet centos7 zabbix VMs backup once a month
00 06 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 * * /usr/sbin/xen_vm_backups.sh 2>&1 >/dev/null


I do clean up virtual machines Images that are older than 95 days with another cron job

# crontab -u root -l

# Delete xen image files older than 95 days to clear up space from backup HDD
45 06 17 * * find /backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_images* -type f -mtime +95 -exec rm {} \; 2>&1 >/dev/null

#### Delete xen config backups older than 1 year+3 days (368 days)
45 06 17 * * find /backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_config* -type f -mtime +368 -exec rm {} \; 2>&1 >/dev/null

 

# Delete xen image files older than 95 days to clear up space from backup HDD
45 06 17 * * find /backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_images* -type f -mtime +95 -exec rm {} \; 2>&1 >/dev/null

#### Delete xen config backups older than 1 year+3 days (368 days)
45 06 17 * * find /backups/disk1/xen-backups/xen_config* -type f -mtime +368 -exec rm {} \; 2>&1 >/dev/null

June 29 the Feast of The Glorious and First among Apostles Peter and Paul in the Church and What were the names of The twelve Apostles

Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

saint-Glorious-Apostle-Peter-and-Paul-holy-orthodox-icon

Saint Apostle Peter and Paul are the most glorious of all Christ desciples thanks to whom by God's mercy and Grace the nations have received the good news of the Lord Jesus's Christ Crucifix for the sins of all us the sinful people whose evils and unthankfullness is on the way to reach its climax in this days of apostacy where the Church built on top of the Holy Martyrs blood and the Blood and tortures for Christ and the Truth of this two holy man is in one of its biggest temptetation caused by the Coronavirus hysteria exeggerated by the mass-media and purposing to mark a slavery upon human mind and took away the freedoms of man and change the life as we know it.

The Holy Apostles day is the End of the post-Pentecostal fasting which is in the Church from the ancient days of the Church. Rhe date selected being the anniversary of either their death or the translation of their relics.

Fasting is among the 4 main fasts in the One Holy Orthodox Church and the feast in the number of the biggest feasts of the Church. If one reads the historical records for all the places this two simple man was to preach the Gospel he is puzzled and couldn't comprehend how could it be for a simple Roman and a Fisherman to be able to walk through so many lands by boats, ships, through rivers, by carrets, on horses, donkeys, axes, elephants and God knows what kind of other animals typical for the multiple countries and lands this two most holy man has visit. 
It is even more amazing that their frutis of faith planted in the nations are still present today in so many Christians through the world …

The saint Peter and Paul fasting has been set for the reason the Apostles, have fasted immediately after Pentecost the descent of the Holy spirit over The desciples of Christ on the 50th day after the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The feast has been setup because the Apostles immerse joy of the Holy Spirit who filled their heart spirits, soul and body made them understood how much dirty and how much in sin they and all the humanity is and how much cleanness is necessery in order for them to start their hard mission of spreading the fact of the Resurrection they have witnessed with their own eyes. A small bracket to open here that Saint Paul never had the  chance to see in Body the Savior just like Saint Paul and the rest of the Apostles, but he was illuminated by The Lord Jesus Christ's appearance to him on the road of the mask when he was on a journey to hunt for christians and put them to court and to death.

Saint Paul was so fierce (by his zillotism) for the Old Testamental Jewish pharisee faith who was based on human interpretation of God's laws, that he was even physically present on the Killing of Saint Archideacon Stephan.
Saint Paul was the one holding the dresses of the Killers of the first Christian martyr St. Stephan thinking that this devilish deed was truthful and pleasant to God. 
But God loved Saint Paul for his Zilotism and his heart aiming to know the Truth and because of that on the Road to Damascus appeared, blinding him from the unbearable light that was emitted by the Lord Jesus Christ who has answered the simple prayer of St. Paul who was honestly looking for the truth. On the Question Saint Paul asked the Unknown bright man who appeared in Glory and surrounded by Angels and Archangels he asked "Who are you Lord"? The reply came, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting'." Acts of the Holy Apostles 9:4-5.

This moment changed Paul forever to make him from a fierce persecutor to a truthful desciple. However as it is said in the Holy Scriptures noone who sees the Lord can't stay alive in the Flesh and perhaps due to that the appearance of Christ left St. Paul to be blind for 3 days until God sent Ananias to heal his eyes by the ordination of Hands in the name of Jesus Christ – again a miracle of God aiming to strengthen the weakness of Faith of Saint Paul and stimulate him to continue on the way of Salvation. Even after the healing of his eyes, later in his eyes by God's providence the eyesight of Paul become weak again and he had to dictate his Apostle letters in the New Testament to his desciples who put it on paper and quite rarely write with his own hand due to his visionary problems. But apperantly the weak physical eye sight doesn't always mean a blindness as with his spiritual eyes the holy apostle was seeing much more than with his physical eyes and one weakness of seeing the physical let him contemplate the eternal.

It is little known fact that saint Paul among with his preaching the Gospel everywhere he went had a profession of making Tents and has worked hardly along with praying day and night, and the sleepless nights of vigil, the tortures by different anti-christians, jews, pagans, philosophers, magicians and others multitude of people who led by his spiritual blindness and passions has done multiple evils and tried in all means to stop Paul to preach the Gospel. But they did not succeeded and we see today the Result as there is rarely a man in the civillized world in all continents who doesn't heard or know about him 20-teen centuries after his martyrdom in the Capital of Roman Empire Rome.

saint-Paul-and-Peter-holy-icon

Saint Peter on the other hand was known for his simplicity and he like all of us was suffering of sickness of weakness of faith, he even rejected to know Christ thrice on the Christ trial, even though he was with Christ for the 3.5 years of Christ's preaching his Salvation Way to the world. But again just like with Paul, God made the miracle of preliminary foretelling him the future, warning him that he is about to reject Christ as his teacher a fact that occured just like prophecised by Christ earlier. Saint Peter seeing that The Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God knows the future believed him and recover his trust in the Resurrection and with repentance came to believe and await the Resurrection of Christ which by the mercy of God he soon saw with his own eys. Soon after this mercy of God and his preparation with the Eyes of Christ and his desires to follow the will of God for his life led him to completely sacrifice all he had in his remaining earthly life for Christ. Saint Peter "Simon" (Σίμων Simōn in Greek), means stone and he is called that way for the fact he become a stone on which the Church of Christ was build and this stone is present their in the Church and everyone in both Christians and not Christians knows him well.

Saint-Apostle-Paul-and-Peter-embrace

 

In a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples (Matthew 16:13–19), Jesus asks, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" The disciples give various answers. When he asks "Who do you say that I am?", Simon Peter answers, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus then declares:

Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Cephas (Peter) (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Saint Peter is known to have been in Antioch and Corinth and many other lands and is believed to have been the First PopSaint-Apostle-Paul-and-Peter-embrace.jpge of Rome.

Saint-Apostle-Peter-Crucifix-with-head-downed-cross-as-he-said-he-is-unworthy-to-die-as-the-saviour

Early Church tradition says that Peter probably died by crucifixion (with arms outstretched) at the time of the Great Fire of Rome in the year 64. This took place three months after the disastrous fire that destroyed Rome for which the emperor (Nero) wished to blame the Christians. This "dies imperii" (regnal day anniversary) was an important one, exactly ten years after Nero ascended to the throne, and it was "as usual" accompanied by much bloodshed. Traditionally, Roman authorities sentenced him to death by crucifixion. In accordance with the apocryphal Acts of Peter, he was crucified head down. Tradition also locates his burial place where the Basilica of Saint Peter was later built, directly beneath the Basilica's high altar.

On the next day 30th of June the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and some of the other Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate another great feast The Assembly of the 12 Apostles which honors all the 12 Apostles who were the main building blocks whose preach and martyrdom for Christ put the second stones on the Building of the Church which was based on the main base cornerstone Jesus Christ whom with his holy blood for the Salvation of mankind made the existence of the Ship of Salvation (as the holy fathers) call the Church posslble.

Feast-of-The-Assembly-of-the-Holy-Apostles-and-St-Peter-and-Paul

Below are the Church Troparions and Kontaktions (Praising songs in the Church sang in Holy Liturgy) on 29 of June that every year marks Feast of the Glorious Apostles who enlightened the Universe, I put the songs in Both English and in Cyrillic translated out of Old Bulgarian (Church Slavonic).

Here are the names of the 12 Apostles as we know them by Church Tradition

The 12 disciples of Lord Jesus Christ

1. Peter
2. James
3. John
4. Andrew
5. Bartholomew or Nathanael
6. James, the Lesser or Younger
7. Judas
8. Jude or Thaddeus
9. Matthew or Levi
10. Philip
11. Simon the Zealot
12 . Thomas

 

Troparion — Tone 4

O first-enthroned of the Apostles, / and teachers of the universe, / intercede with the Master of all / to grant peace to the world, / and to our souls great mercy.

Kontakion — Tone 2

O Lord, You have taken to Yourself the steadfast and divinely-inspired heralds, the leaders of Your disciples, / for the enjoyment of Your blessings for and their rest; / for You have accepted their labors and their deaths as above all burnt offerings, / for You alone know the hearts of men.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Today Christ the Rock glorifies with highest honor / the rock of Faith and leader of the Apostles, / together with Paul and the company of the Twelve, / whose memory we celebrate with eagerness of faith, / glorifying Him Who glorified them.

ТРОПАРЬ, ГЛАС 4-Й

Апостолов первопрестольницы и вселенныя учителие, Владыку всех молите мир вселенный даровати и душам нашым велию милость.

Первенствующие из апостолов и Вселенской Церкви учителя, Владыку всех молите мир миру даровать и душам нашим великую милость.

КОНДАК, ГЛАС 2-Й

Твердыя и боговещанныя проповедатели, верх апостолов твоих, Господи, приял еси, в наслаждение благих Твоих и покой: болезни бо онех и смерть приял еси, паче всякаго всеплодия, Едине сведый сердечная.

Непоколебимых и богогласных проповедников, высших из Апостолов Твоих, Господи, Ты принял в наслаждение благ Твоих и покой, ибо страдания их и смерть благоволил принять как жертву, выше всякой жертвы, Единый, ведающий сердца наши.

ВЕЛИЧАНИЕ

Величаем вас, апостоли Христовы Петре и Павле, весь мир ученьми своими просветившия и вся концы ко Христу приведшия.

Прославляем вас, апостолы Христовы Петр и Павел, весь мир своим учением просветивших и приведших ко Христу народы всей земли.

Let by the Prayers of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and the Apostle James, John, Andrew, Bartholomew (Nathnael), James (the lesser or Younger), Judas, Jude (Thaddeus), Mathew (Levi), Philip, Simon Zealot and Thomas God have mercy on all Christians in our age and the ages to come till the Second Glorious Coming of Christ and in the Frightening Judgement day.

For the School-examination

Thursday, January 31st, 2008

Tell me which ideotic government would create a site based on php and would make the serverunder Windows?

Just Guess ours the Bulgarian ministry of Science and Knowledge has started a new site dedicated to helping graduating school pupils with the Future School-examinationthey have to make.

It’s pretty easy to see that just observe:

jericho% telnet zamaturite.bg 80

Trying 212.122.183.208…

Connected to zamaturite.bg.
Escape character is ‘^]’.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:10:18 GMT
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8Server: Apache/2.2.6 (Win32) PHP/5.2.5X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.5Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=fn5jtjbet7clrapi0a5e5kgvt7; path=/
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Pragma: no-cache
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection closed by foreign host.
jericho%

Just great our Bulgarian government spend money on buying proprietary software OS to run a Free Software based solution.

This example is pretty examplary of what our country looks like. Sad …

END—–

Dead Turns Alive

Thursday, March 29th, 2007

I decided to put some words on my blog, for long time I haven’t. The last weekend we was with Nomenon the Botevo Village again we decided spontaneously 1:10 to go to the St. Marina Monetery ( Near Botevo ). So we catched the train in the last moment and went to Botevo.There was a map on the Station on Botevo which showed where the monestery is. First we take the wrongpath. After 30 minutes looking back to a picture on the phone of Nomen we realised we have takenthe wrong path. We walked back to the Station to see the map and then we catched the realpath. We walked in a forest, great experience I really was happy and fulfilled there. After walkingin the forest for maybe 2 hours we get out of the forest and walked in a way encircled by fieldswith crops (probably weat). The time was 16:30 p.m., so the sunrise was going to be after a maximum of 3 hours,even less. So we decided if we will work for more 50 minutes and if we don’t find the monestery we arecoming back. Suddenly we saw a jeep coming to us, Nomen stopped the jeep and asked did the man have ideawhere the monestery is located. The man said he would bring us to the monestery (after that we spokewith him while in the jeep). The man told us he has restored the monestery with some of his friendsinvesting 100, 000 lv of money for the restoration. He said there is an intersting story aroud it.If somebody drinks of the near monestery water on a specific day ( I forgot the day ), he would be curedfrom any disease. After 6 minutes we was to the monestery. There was anchoret there ( or at least that’swhat the guy from the jeep(Petar) said ), he was there for 5 years already. The anchoret guy (Ivailo)welcomed us and walked us through the monestery and the rooms for guests. Later we spoke with himabout the Lord it turns I asked him few questions about the holy scriptures and about his opinion aboutthe meaning of life in general. He said his peronal undestanding of What Christ ( God ) is, is thatActually Christ has divided himself through all the universe. We put the food out of my and Mitko’s bagand we ate the with Ivailo. We asked him why he does choose to live their and he answered it is mainlybecause he wanted to know himself ( and this is not forbidden right? ). He said he had a reallybad luck in life and one day he was in the Cathedral in Varna he saw a bishop who offered him thisjob to take care for the monestery and guard it and he accepted cause he also needed money.The place around the monestery was really great like a small paradise there was something like a small lakethere, faucet and a cradle. Ivailo said he really likes this place because there is no pain аnd suffer.It was really hard to speak with this guy after 20 minutes of talk he said he is going in his room.And that we could stay there as many time as we want if we want we can fire a fire etc, he told uswhere the way for a village where we can take a bus is, and he went away. So we started walking in the wayhe said to walk in. But probably we mistakenly take the wrong one it was 19:00 and we were on a field,the sun has started going down dusk was going to the earth, and there was no forest or something aroundus to possible fire a fire and stay for the night there. We had no torch we had no food only 1 bottle of water,our situation seemed really dangerous. We tried to walk faster then we run for some time. Thirteen minutes laterwe used to be in some village non having idea where we was. We asked a lady in one of the houses about in whichvillage are we, she said we are in “Krumovo”, we asked is Botevo’s railway station away and she cofirmed it is.She said we can get a bus maybe if it hasn’t already passed through the village ( yes our situation was reallynot good ). The night has almost fallen and it was dark in another house we asked some ppl how many timeis to Botevo’s railway station and he said it’s only 5.5km away, whilst 500 meters away there is another villageand after that we have to walk for 5 kilometers more and we’re there, this raised our spirits. We had3 hours and half to go to the Botevo’s railway station cause our train to Dobrich was in 22:40 p.m.. We usedto work for maybe 1 km while we entered the next village. While walking around the village we saw a sort of a shop or pub.There was a man standing there watching tv. Mitko wanted to buy cigarettes so he went to check if the shop is opened.Luckily the shop was opened and Mitko bought a cigarettes so opened coversation with the man and we explained himfastly what happened where are we coming from etc, when we told him we are walking to the Botevo’s railway stationand we asked if Botevo is 5 km away from here. He walked at us changing expression and said Big Botevo’s is 5km awayand the train passes through Small Botevo which is maybe 13 kilometers away. ( Well we were in a really not pleasand situation there was no way to succeed to pass 13 km for less than 3 hours we have already walked for probably 20 km and we was already tired ). The man adviced us to try to try to get some car or truth going to a near village where there is railway station too and to try to take the train from there. We were still talking with the man while we saw a bus coming and we stoppedit and walked in and sit. We asked where the bus was going to. It seemed it is for Varna ( Wow this was better from spending a night in a dark village in the open air. The bus left us in Varna and our plan was to try to get the trainfor Dobrich. We hastened but we was too late for the train we was on the railway at the same moment while the train has already leaved. I tried calling to Vaso asking him if it’s possible to stay for the night with Nomen cause we have no placeto stay for the night, unfortunately our luck again played tricks, it was not possible to stay at his home for the night nor he had any friends where we can possibly stay. Happily I remembered there was a bus in 10:30 or something coming from Sofia to Dobrich and we went to the bus station to be sure is there any. Luckily there was a bus but the tickets costed double from the normal price 8 lv per ticket that was much. Luckily when the bus come in 10:30 it seemed the driver would give us the ticket for 4 lv per ticket which was cheap and was the normal ticket price ! PRAISE THE LORD. You know God has his finger in all our travel and he helped us in everything ! HalleluYah. 23:10 we was in again in Dobrich. And before we took the bus to Dobrich we had even time to drink a coffee with Vaso. We went home extremely happy. PRAISE OFCOURSE IS TO THE LORD OF HOSTS :]END—–