I've been 28 years old and for good or bad never travelled hitch hiking. Today however with a friend of mine Kimba thx God I lived to experience what it is like to stay on the road "begging" people to take you on their way to somewhere.
I always wanted to hitch-hike as a youngster but my restrictive controlling parents was too vigilant not to let me have my personal freedom and try hitch hiking. Now as I've grown "old" I have the freedom to do it and I'm glad I could. For sure it is better to do something you always wanted later than never 🙂
We took the "STOP" from a place few meters away from the "scratching sign" indicating the end of Dobrich city area – located about 4 / 5 km from Dobrich center. To come to the well known hitch-hiker's place (which my friend Kimba) knew pretty well since he travelled probably more than 20 times hitch-hiking.
To reach the hitch-hiker place we walked about 1 hour which in the early morning (07:50 to 09:00) came to be quite refreshing. About 09:00 we started doing the well know hitch hiker gesture to beg traveller to take us 🙂
It felt quite unconfortable and a bit like begging to be on the road waiting for somebody to pick you up on the other hand it felt very challenging as it seemed to be a good "exercice" to raise up self-confidence. We were lucky and we didn't met any drivers to mock us with gestures or car beep. Besides that we only had to wait less than 20 minutes (probably 18 mins) until a car stop and ask her for our direction. The driver seemed had to travel close to Aksakovo (a small village like town 1 km far from beginning of Varna and just few km away from the city center).
He pick us up and as we go he happened to be a familiar person which I've seen many times in the (International College Albena) where I previously studied. The guy happened to be a merried for the librarian of the college. We had a nice chat in his car about Bulgaria before in communism and now and who is doing what (which I guess is quite normal) for hitch-hikers. As he drived a very funny scene appeared as we saw a donkey leading a cart full of wood running on the road. Now you might wonder what would be funny of a rural donkey with a cart full of wood, well the cart didn't have any person leading it. It seemed the donkey run away scared by a truck or a noise so the person leading the cart either fall somewhere on the road or the donkey had untight itself and took the direction to its home place 🙂
… Our hitch-hiking plan was to travel from Dobrich to Varna (if possible or the closest village or suburb), then we aimed to take a bus from Varna or somewhere nearby to the city center and from the city center to Travel to the so called (Asparuh's bridge / (Asparuhovia Most) – which is a common hitch-hike waiting and pick-up destination).
As we were left in Aksakovo by the driver, we were lucky to have a close bus stop near us. We went to the bus stop and we only had to wait about 8 minutes until the next bus driving to Varna city center arrived. We pick up a bus number 207 and travelled 'safely' to the city center (on the price of 1 lv per ticket). So our overall travelling for both of us instead of 10 lv (5 lv per person bus tick) costed only 2 lv 🙂 Along with the low price for travelling the hitch-hiking was also very healthy as we had a long walk to the place to depart from and after that had a small walk to pick up the bus to Varna. We made a mistake to not go out of the 207 bus near Varna city center Cathedral but two stops earlier, so we also had a small 15 minutes walking to the Cathedral. As we were not sure which bus we need to take to go to Asparuhov's bridge, we asked few people on the city center. We were told we need to pick bus number 2 or 17 (IIRC).
Eventually as we're waiting near the bus station where the bus-es leading to Asparuhovo stopped, we came to meet a taxi driver driving people to Asparuhovo on the price of a bus ticket (1 lv). In 5 minutes time, again obviously by God's might intervention the driver was able to collect 2 more people so he offered that we all immediately travel. The taxi-st left us on a place a bit after Asparuhovo's bridge which was the common place for hitch-hikers. We had to climb a little hill like place and walk a bit on the highway on (the car damage and wreck area). Very near us was a police car waiting to catch violators of speed limits. I didn't know about this very moment that Hitch-Hiking in Bulgaria is considered illegal!, happily I found this sad fact not by the police man but from Kliment (Kimba). The policeman did not stop us as we found a way to walk through a place which is bit far from them. Kimba choose a place and we started doing the hitch-hiker "PLEASE STOP AND TAKE US" gesture once again (actually the as Kimba was a professional in hitch-hiking he was mostly doing the hitch-hike sign.
There we had to wait about 40 minutes or so until, a good man with a small bus carrying some paper palettes stop and took us. Thanks God he had to travel to Jambol to deliver the palettes so his travel route passed by near Bourgas (and respectively Pomorie). We had a an intimaditing chat with the person by which I found out he seem to be having many money issues and a lot of debts (just like many of the people in BG nowdays). Unfortunately he shared that just like a lot of us the common people in Bulgaria he is underpaid and often even though he works extra in Saturdays and Sundays it is almost impossible for him to pay his rent, food and family expenss …..
As the conversation progressed, he asked us where are we going if we're going to find a work and I told him we're going to be guests and pilgrims to Pomorie Monastery and in the mean time help the monks if there is work to be done….
It was a pleasure for me to meet such an honest bulgarian middle aged man, which also was good enough to pick us up. The time passed quite quickly as we shared some of common living joys and griefs. The bus quickly approached pomorie so we left us and we split. As I was thankful to the guy and felt pity for his bad life misfortunes and I wished in my mind that God bless, help him and return him for the good deed he done to pick us up.
We were now only 2 km from Pomorie entrance so to the monastery we had to walk only about 4 or 5 more kilometers. On the gas (oil) station, where we were left a fun story happaned as the computers counting the gasoline stopped working. People who filled the car tanks with Gasoline had to wait until someone comes and fixes the computer, neither nobody can purchase anything from the station (a snacks, a coffee, even a bottle of water) was impossible to buy. We stayed on this little station (Petrol) located just 2 km from Pomorie for 20 or 25 minutes and in this time this people who couldn't pay for the gasoline had to just hang up there loosing their time waiting for someone to fix the BUGGED PC ,,,
This scene has once again confirmed my theory that computerization is not always necessery a good think and the over-computerization of everything as the trend is nowdays could create a lot of time lags in many places and often create a great havoc if systems somehow reject working as planned ….
Anyways to be sure which way to walk to Pomorie Monastery we had to consult few local people. Nicely the road leading to Pomoriiski Manastir was easy we just had to walk straight and then turn right. Actually the monastery bell tower is visible on the way so it is not likely that anyone walking straight will not notice the tower which is taller than other one or two stage housed highed buildings.
We came to the monastery and by Gods grace as we asked previously the abbot for a blessing to come to the monastery, they were expecting us. Immediately one of the persons serving in the monastery gave us a room. I asked for the abbot and we found him in his Abbot place and gave us a blessing. That's the over of my first and hopefully not last great hitch-hiking adventere. The moral from my trip is:
To sum it up, if you never tried stopping on a highway give it a try! 🙂
hitch-hiking is a great must experience in a life-time thing;
Obviously we were lucky and it is always a great think to travel with an Abbot blessing
Hitch-hiking in Bulgaria is illegal, so there is thrill in doing it 🙂
hitch-hiking could be a very healthy initiative
Hitch-hiking is a great raise up and experience new random people self-confidence exercise 🙂
As a person interested in history and antrophology. Just recently on my last trip to Romania as I travelled a very interesting question poped up in my mind – How it happened that RoadSigns we use on every street highway and practically everywhere on the road came to be. Interestingly now with the standartization of road signs often the most popular road signs are used as a basis for development on other popular prohibit or allowance signs, we read on airports public institutions, pubs and mostly everywhere.
So in short I did a short research on Road Sign History, just to find out once again that the ancients, were wiser than we think. The first road signs probably came to existence with the existence of humanity, however officially, there was no standartization of using signs to point on road locations travellers before it was introudced in the Roman Empire. In Rome a pillars on the roads were placed to point to major road arteries leading to Rome and various important empire city centers.
During the middle ages, milestones pillars were no longer used, but for practical reasons wooden markers placed across european cities instructed tradesman and travellers to major city important centers and were used to show a general road direction leading to nearby city. The wooden signs practice had been in use until the first modern roadsigns erected on a wide scale designed for riders of 'high' and ordinary bicycles in the late 1870 and 1880s. The modern road signs as we know it today however emerged as a result of the first International Road Congress meeting that occured in Rome in 1908. On the meeting a four standard pictures were selected to note the basic for road signs further development. The need for the meeting was the large increase of roads across european artery cities. The road signs developed on the meeting were bump, curve, intersection and railroad crossings. The invention and adoption of cars and the boom of the car producing industry quickened the need for international road sign standard. The intensive work on international road signs that took place between 1926 and 1949 eventually led to the development of the European road sign system as we know it. The signs were quicky spread to America and in 1960, the road signs become universal in America and almost everywhere all around the developed and developing world.
As of today 2012 it can be said road signs exist all around the civilized world.Though most of road signs are identical across all countries around the world today still some road symbols varies from country to country. I remember seeing some very unique road signs during my travelling through Serbia, 2 years ago.
On Tuesday Zlati (A friend of mine introduced to me by Father Veliko), came to Arnhem. The plan was that he came on Tuesday here and afterwards in Wednesday morning the Trip to Amsterdam was going to happen. First we had settled that he will be in Arnhem in 12:00 o’clock. So Around 10:50 I walked down the way to the trainstation. I was on my way when Zlati ringed and told that he still, haven’t catched the train and he is not going to make it for 12:00, though he will be on Arnhem Central Station in 04:35 in the afternoon. I came back to home and on my way bought some apples as well as a oily sweet thing from the Turkish shop “Sultan” 🙂
Around 3 I took my way to the city center again, on my way I had toleave Sali’s laptop in his home. I had taken his laptop to re-install Windows and setup his Windows in Bulgarian as well as configure it to be able to watch Bulgarian TV channels online. In order to achieve that I used a proxy donated to me by Amridikon. Thanks Amri!
To make Windows Vista Home Premium to Bulgarian I had to use a small proggie “Vista Change Language 1.0”. I had to burn the program to a CD and boot into it and then use the downloaded language pack to change the vista text language to Bulgarian. I did so all went well, unfortunately after an upgrade the text in the menus did screw up. So I have to boot again in the Vista Change Language 1.0 boot CD and revert it back to Bulgarian. Then I had to disable Windows Vista updates in order to prevent the same language mess up to occur again. This was a little out of the topic, but I decided it’s nice to have it on paper.
So back to where I was with my TTA .. I took Zlati from the train station,we went to Sali and he treated us with some kind of traditional turkish soup meal. The soup was quite nice btw. He was extremely happy that he could watch Bulgarian TV’s online through the bg.gledai.tv website. I was glad to that God helped me and blessed me in succeeding in all the things I mentioned above. Afterwards we went with Zlati and Koko to Albertheijn picked up a beer and a couple of other things. Then I and Zlati went to my place where we used my notebook to research about places of Interest, we would like to attend in Amsterdam. We went to bed around 2 o’clock at night.
At the morning we went to the train station. I suggested that we go a little earlier because I thought, well it might be better to be earlier in the city for to have more time to walk and take a look at its significant things in it. We were on the train station 8:10 and had the intention to take the first train at 8:29, however God had other plans for that.It seemed that we have to wait and buy a ticket for after 9:00, otherwise Zlati couldn’t use his train card for my discount.He was quite irritated by the fact that I suggested that we went to the train station so early since he was quite sleepy in the morning because we went to bed so late.
Anyways I got a coffee from the trainstation waiting-room coffee machine.And, eh the coffee there is expensive, be careful if you travel in the Netherlands by train.
The coffee costed 1.50 per cappuchino, huh … We catched a train in 9:29 and we were in the capital of Amsterdam in 10:40. I was so excited! Yes the trip worthed the price of 16.30 EUR (with the 40% discount). Amsterdam is a really nice city, especially considering it’s architecture. And I saw such a big shops and so many things to choose from … The whole city is full of canals and boats are traveling through it. We went to music store, wow there was so much music in it. We entered a lot of Catholic Churches in one of the Catholic Churches there was an orthodox icon of St. Nickolas! So I made the sign of the cross and prayed the Saint to pray God for me the sinner. With our arrival right after we went out of the central station I saw a bookstore,so I proposed Zlati to enter. It seemed that was a protestant Christian bookstore. Even though a protestant one the people there at least were believing in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I had a small chat with one of the guys asking if they have Orthodox Bible, It seemed they haven’t so I started telling him about the advantages of being Orthodox Christian. I explained him how I became orthodox after God gave me the faith and transformed my life. The bookstore had a free/coffee and tea.So each me and Zlati took a cappuchino. It was so nice God gave me a hot drink in the Early morning in Amsterdam. A lot of people are insane in that place, I saw a lot of pod smokers on the street.
On a lot of places the air had that typical pod stell. We saw a lot of Museums, we tried to use a citymap although in a lot of cases un-succesful. We saw so many Churches, Madam Tusad’s museum,as well as Anne Frank museum, the tulip museum. There was also sex, museums we saw on our way and even this freaks had gay museum. We saw some road building in progress where a couple of people were building a road on top of pillars, right above the water! 🙂 The city is full of old buildings most of which originating from 16th century. The Architecture is really amazing. The parks and everything and the terraces had that typical European style which I’ve seen in movies showing people from the 18thor 19th century drinking coffees on the balconies. We took a lot of pictures. Unfortunately I still haven’t taken the pictures from Zlati. We entered into a shop which was selling buddhist, hindu and indian statues and souvenirs to warm a bit as the weather outside was coldy. There we had a nice chat with the storekeeper, about religion and about my Orthodox faith in Our Lord Jesus! He mentioned that near around there is an Syrian Orthodox Church. So went to seek for it. After some rambling we found it but unfortunately it was already closed the time was quite late over 18:00, so it was quite normal to be closed.The style of the Church didn’t really much differentiated from the rest of the Catholic Churches.
Earlier we went into a Church, whether they had that modern exposition, again we went their to warm ourselves (it was such a cold day).
The Church inside was nice but the pictures,they was selling on the expo was really terrible, a lot of sado-mazo and perverted motives in the pictures …
I was saddened to see that they have de-sacrated a holy place like that. Well it’s true that the Roman catholics stepped aside from the orthodox faith some time ago but still they are believing Christians and therefore there temples are holy to some degree too … therefore such an abomination really shouldn’t happen.
The good thing was that in the Church they even had made toilets inside the church we could use 🙂 The Church wall paintings were displaying the way our Lord Jesus has walked on it’s way to final execution by the jews, carrying his cross on the way to Golgotha.
Around 18:30 we went to the street where the so famous prostites and drug addicts street was the “RED LIGHTS” – so famous all around the world ….
I couldn’t believed my eyes, prostites staying behind windows half naked waiting for a customer to hire them for sex …I have heard about that place but I really couldn’t imagine it could legally exist in the center of a metropolitan city like Amsterdam.
We walked in that “wicked” part of the city for around hour. There were all kind of junkies people who looked really criminal, the prostitutes on the windows. Sex shops, sex video rooms, you name it .. all the disgusting stuff you could imagine. After this walk we went to the train station around 8:00 and took the train back to Arnhem. The whole day went quite flawless,God has heard our prayer to keep us from evil and give us safe journey.The whole trip was really relaxing for me! Praise the Lord for his great mercy towards me the sinner for giving my eyes to see all this things!
Default XFce picture viewer on Slackware Linux is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Though GIMP is great for picture editting, it is rather strange why Patrick Volkerding compiled XFCE to use GIMP as a default picture viewer? The downsides of GIMP being default picture viewing program for Slackware's XFCE are the same like Xubuntu's XFCE risterroro, you can't switch easily pictures back and forward with some keyboard keys (left, right arrow keys, backspace or space etc.). Besides that another disadvantage of using GIMP are; a) picture opening time in GIMP loading is significantly higher if compared to a simple picture viewer program like Gnome's default, eye of the gnome – eog.
b) GIMP is more CPU intensive and puts high load on each picture opening
A default Slackware install comes with two good picture viewing programs substitute for GIMP:
Gwenview
Geeqie
Both of the programs support picture changing, so if you open a picture you can switch to the other ones in the same directory as the first opened one. I personally liked more Gwenview because it has more intutive picture switching controls. With it you can switch with keyboard keys space and backspace
To change GIMP's default PNG, JPEG opening I had with mouse right button over a pic and in properties change, Open With: program.
If you're curious about the picture on on all screenshots, this is Church – Saint George (situated in the city center of Dobrich, Bulgaria). St. Georgi / St. George Church is built in 1842 and is the oldest Orthodox Church in Dobrich. In the Crimean War (1853-1856) the church was burned down and was restored to its present form in 1864.
gpicview is another cool picture viewing program, I like. Unfortunately on Slackware, there is no prebuild package and the only option is either to convert it with alien from deb package or to download source and compile as usual with ./configure && make && make install . Downloading and compiling from source went just fine on Slackware Linux 13.37gpicview has more modern looking interface, than gwenview and geeqie. and is great for people who want to be in pace with desktop fashion 🙂
There is not much to say, Recently I’m experiencing mix of spiritual and emotional fluctuations ups and downs.I feel so alone quite often. There are not many valuable people (considering my interests).Day by day I’m asking myself the question “Hey man , why are you studying HRQM this stupid secreatary stuff.”I’m confused quite a lot and in a state of a denial, or better to say I feel a kind of lost because I’m out of my confortzone .. The teachers here in the HRQM stream claim that when a man is frightened and out of his confort zone,then he is learning a lot. They might be true about that, I don’t know. At Friday we had that Business Ethics test.Before the test we watched the movie “The Wizard of Oz” a movie from the distant year 1939. Right after the class wasover I went home and laundered my clothes. Then we had a dinner. Today I woke up around 11:00, had my breakfastat around 13:00 and near 13:30 I went out for a walk. I went to the city center and walked around the river Netherlands Rijn.A little later I walked through the city center around the open market which was located right before The St. Eusibeus Chapel.I went through a waggon which sells bibles in different languages and tried to draw people back close to God andspoke for a while with one nice old man who said used to be a Christian for 40 years already.Then I went for shopping to the grocy stores Aldi and Albertheijn and went back “home” to Honigkamp… That’s mostlyhow my day passed … I should thank to God for still caring for me and providing me with all necessary for my daily living.Thanks Lord! END—–
It was a pretty hot day. In the morning we discussed a lot about the idea to move one of the colocated servers from Netinfo to Evolink. Also I have moved www.bcc.bg from one machine to another did various other Job, plamenko come home and we uploaded some of his other videos, Damqncho called and was my guest for some time ( This guy is going to become a good man in Faith I’m sure). In 6:00 we had to go to the ex-calculation center and to sign for the Cisco Academy with Mitko but it happened that he had urgent work in Balchik so I have to go alone. I used Plamenko’s bike to go to the calculation center which was located at the end of the city (Riding bike is great !). I signed for Cisco and signed also Niki (Mitko’s brother) and Niki. So we are going to share the same Cisco class! :]. After that I went to Mitko’s home to explain to his brother about the cisco way of studying. Also I forgot to mention that Doncho, has given us all the material for the semestar on a cd, we are going to have 4 semesters for the first degree, each of the semestars is going to be something like 2 months or so, the practice is going to be in Saturday. Later I have met Alex and we drink beer together. Later I saw Lily for a while and we had a walk I met Galio ( A homeless boy :[), and bought him some food, later I realised that I have lost my wallet with some money I walked again the walk where I walked after I bought him food but I didn’t found it I get a little distressed but at the same time I was feeling very calm (unusual for such a situations ). I have put my hope God would give it back. First I suspected that Galio has stolen the wallet from me but I was wrong this boy respects me. I found Galio and asked him did he stole the money, he denied to be guilty and I trusted him because he was honest. He was very kind to me he came with me looking again over all the way where I have walked at last I suggested to look in the central park where we have drinked beer together with Alex, under the bench where we have seated Me and Galio found the Wallet. And we got really happy about this. I checked my wallet there was 22 lv in there. When we was still searching the wallet I promised to God that If we found the wallet I will give 10 lv. to for his kindness and concern about my problem. After I have found the wallet I have completed my promise. Galio walked with me up to my home. The End. The only think that I can say after all this is PRAISE THE LORD, BLESS HIS HOLY NAME OH HEAVENS AND EARTH AND ALL LIVING, AND OH MY SOUL BLESS THE LORD GOD! BLESSED BE OH LORD!!!! :] END—–
Christmas has just passed away. As a Christian I was curious what is the reason in so many Christian countries, we decorate Pine trees and I did a quick research on the topic. In this small article, I'll present my findings.
Observing the Christmas Pine Tree tradition has been quite ancient and probably according to many sources dates back to the XIIth century. The first written records of a Christmas tree are of an anonymous Frenchman who visited Strasbourg, Germany in 1601. His description of the decoratd pine tree says like "wafers and golden sugar-twists (Barley sugar), roses cut out of many-colored paper, apples, gold foil and sweets."
Later in the 1800s, the local German Christmas pine tree tradition was spread across America by German emmigrants. In UK the Pine tree decorating tradition appeard in 1841, where a royalty (Prince Albert) decorated his castle (Winston Castle).
A little later after the Queen Victoria adopted the pine tree, United Kingdom citizens started to decorate pine trees for themselves, folliwng the highly regarded Queen. Usually the pine tree has historically been decorated with gifts as well as an Bright star is put atop.
One of the Christian interpretations for the Christmas tree is that it represents the same Cross (tree) on which Christ was crucifixed. Then after Christ's resurrection because of (or through that) tree, the humanity received the Lord big spiritual blessings. These blessings are represented by the gifts decorated on the Fir tree. The pine tree itself is in Christianity a reference for the symbol of Salvation that we received came from the Holy Cross, where our saviour was crucified.
The Fir is decorated with lights to represent the joy and the lights of Christmas (that burns in our hearts), the star atop the tree is a reminder of the Star that rised in the East during the night of Christ's birth as we read in the gospels.
Decorating Pine trees is commonly observed mostly in Roman Catholic Church and often followed by some protestant denominations and less used in Orthodox Church (though this is changing nowdays).
In Eastern Europe, the Christmas tree appeared quite late and the whole concept was unknown in the Orthodox Christian countries, just until the end of the 19th century.
With the recent severe globalization the pine tree was silenty adopted in almost all parts of the world, including even communist countries and even sometimes in muslim ones.
Unfortunately, the relation between the Fir tree and our Christian faith is little known today and with the years to come it will be less and less associated with Christianity.
Here are few interesting legends which I found explaining, some of the possible roots of the Christmas tree decoration:
1. Legend of the Pine Tree Saving the Holy Family
When the Holy family was pursued by Herod's soldiers, many plants offered to provide them with shelter. One such plant was the Pine tree. With Mary too weary to travel any longer, the family stopped at the edge of a forest to rest. A gnarled old Pine which had grown hollow with the years invited them to rest within its trunk. Then, it closed its branches down upon them, keeping the family safe until the soldiers had passed. Upon leaving, the Christ Child blessed the Pine and the imprint of his tiny hand was left forever in the tree's fruit… the Pine cone. If a cone is cut lengthwise, the hand may still be seen.
2. Pine tree and Easter Legend
There is a legend that pine trees "know" when it's Easter. The pine trees start their new growth in the weeks before Easter. If you look at the tops of the pine trees two weeks before Easter you'll see the yellow shoots. As the days get closer to Easter Sunday, the tallest shoot will branch off and form a cross. By the time Easter Sunday comes around, you will see that most of the pine trees will have small yellow crosses on all of the tallest shoots. This really happens we live where there are lots of pines, and each year this actually happens, it is amazing to watch, and the process of the new growth appears as crosses on the ends of each branch.
I've not personally observed that, but according to people who live in pine tree forest areas this is a fact.
3. Legend about M. Luther and the Pine tree
Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant religion, was taking a stroll through the woods late one night. The sky was clear and many stars were shining through the branches of the trees, giving the impression of twinkling lights. Luther was so captivated and inspired by the beautiful brilliance of the sight that he cut down a small evergreen and brought it home. He recreated the stars by placing candles upon the tree's branches to imitate their radiance and presented it to his children.
This story explains why, the pine tree become so wide spread initially in the "western world", as it gives some connection between the Pine tree and Protestant Christianity.
4. The Children Legend of the Fir Tree (Kids Story)
On the night of the Christ Child's birth, all living creatures, both flora and fauna, traveled to Bethlehem bearing gifts. The Olive tree, for example, brought its fruit and the Palm tree its dates. But the little Fir tree had no gift and was so tired that it was unable to resist when the larger trees pushed it into the background and hid it from view. But then, a nearby Angel took pity and commanded a cluster of stars to descend and rest upon its delicate boughs. When the Baby Jesus beheld this lovely lighted tree, he smiled and blessed it, declaring henceforth that Fir trees should always be filled with lights at Christmastime to please little children. When Christianity first came to Northern Europe, three personages representing virtues were dispatched from Heaven to place lights on the original Christmas tree. These personages were Faith, Hope and Charity. Their search was long, since they were required to find a tree as high as hope, as great as love and as sweet as charity. In addition, the tree had to bear the sign of the cross on every bough. Their search finally ended in the forests of the North where they found the Fir. Lit by the radiance of the stars, it became the first Christmas tree. The triangular design of the Fir has also been usedto describe the Holy Trinity of God the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. Eventually, converts began to revere the Fir as God's Tree…as they had once revered the Oak. By the Twelfth Century it was being hung, upside-down, from ceilings at Christmastime in Central Europe, as a symbol of Christianity.
5. The Paradise Tree Legend
A very old and delightful European custom centers around decorating a Fir tree with apples and small white wafers which represents the Holy Eucharist. These wafers were later replaced by small pieces of pastry cut into the shapes of stars, angels, hearts, flowers and bells. Eventually additional pastries were introduced bearing the shapes of men, birds, roosters and other animals.
During the middle Ages, around the Eleventh century, religious theater was born. One of the most popular plays … The German mystery play concerned Adam and Eve and their fall and expulsion from the Garden of Eden, represented by a Fir tree hung with apples. This tree was symbolic of both the Tree of Life and the Tree of Discernment of Good and Evil, which stood in the center of Paradise. The play ended with the prophecy of a coming Saviour. For this reason, it was often enacted during Advent.
The one piece of scenery, the "Paradeisbaum" or "Paradise Tree" become a popular object and was often set up in churches. Eventually it also found its way in private homes and became symbol of the Saviour. Since the tree was representative not only to Paradise and the fall of man, but also the premise of salvation. It was hung not merely with apples, but with bread of wafers (Holy Eucharist) and often sweet to represent the sweetness of redemption. In some areas of Bavaria, fir branches and little trees decorated with lights, apples and tinsel are still called "Paradeis".
According to some other Christian legends, it was a Fir tree that grew as the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. When Eve plucked its fruit, the foliage and flowers shrank to nothing but needles. Only on the night of Nativity would the Fir tree bloom again a moment marked perhaps by the Christmas tree we Christians use.
Of course these are just legends and as with every legend there is plenty of romantism included. Nevertheless I consider most legends similar to proverbs contain deep truth and contain truthful facts. Moreover knowing the legends of our forefathers connect us to who and what we are and from antropological point of view is precious knowledge, we should try to sustain and spread to our children.
As a Child I've been baptized in the Orthodox Church and since then I've been a complete atheist until the age of 21. What is the reason to get my faith in God in 21? This is a short post to shed some light on the great efforts of communism to erradicate faith in God in Communistic countries and change faith in God with faith in man and how this kind of approach devastates societies. During the communism it's a well known fact that communists, all the members in the Bulgarian Communist's Party (BCP),has led an anti Bulgarian Orthodox Church government politics. The fact that Communistic Governments are fighting Churches and faith in God is less known among youngesters and hardly known by people part of western democratic societies.
I did not lived this time myself, but I heard many stories about the stupidities of communism. Many older people say, when communism came to rule the Communist Government did immediately destroy some Orthodox Christian temples, some priests were convinced in crimes they were not responsible for etc… Other priests were send in the Concentration camps and many of them never returned in the society. "Access" to the Churches was limited and sometimes prohibited to the orthodox layman and often to clergy. During these terrible communism era, it was prohibited to everybody who is a member of BPC to attend Orthodox Church services or identify himself as christian in public. I've heard from my grandma an interesting story she witnessed, while she was working as a cleaner in the militia (police). Here is the story: One day my grandma wanted to go to the Church St. George located on the city centre of Dobrich city Bulgaria. A policeman stopped her when she was entering the temple and since he knew her as an employee in the police called her by name and told her that she is not allowed to enter the church building, because she is working in the police. My grandma asked the militiaman to let her enter the temple to pray for just few minutes and light up a candle (just for this time) without reporting for that in the police. The policeman agreed to let us in and keep silent that she entered the Church this time,but warned her that if he sees her another time entering the church he is going to report to the respective authorities. Another part of the Government active politics against the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was by placing an ex-criminals who were sentenced for thefts, rapings, agression or other crimes as a priests in the Church. By this move the supreme counsel of the bulgarian communist party wanted to break the people confidence in the Church as the true holy apostolic Church. The most fierce communists during these days did their best to present the church of God as a corrupted and void institution who only steals from people and exists only to deceive society. Yet many years after the fall of communism this people distrust in the church that communists sow through the years.
What is pity is even after the communism is gone for a long, time the churches are only full on biggest feasts and no more than 5% of the citizens are regularly going for Church service or have even the basic knowledge on the Church truths and mysteries. Following the fall of communism the democratic governments who come to power, elected in a citizen democratic elections did not do much to help the church either, some of them does lead politics openly hostile to our Bulgarian Church. The last government selected, seems to be less hostile to our Church, but people have once been cut away from the Church and now its really hard for our nation to get back to faith. The severe crisis (a word that means judgement in greek) and the hardships many people experience started to make some people rethink about what is the meaning of life and made them occasionally go back to faith of our fathers orthodoxy. What will happen further nobody knows, we need to pray and hope God will have mercy and people will repent for their sins and come back to faith again.
Yesteday with Baky (my dear Orthodox Coptic Christian friend) and Kliment (a good friend from the old rock’n’roll years), we went to the Dobrich Cinema (sadly just one cinema for the city is available). The cinema in Dobrich is called Cinema Club Icarus (Ikar). For all foreigners who wants to enjoy some movie, the Dobrich Cinema does offer a plenty of English speaking movies (with Bulgarian subtitles).
Pitily the Dobrich Cinema website http://www.kinoikar.com/bg/info/2 is not existing in English, though anyone wanting to check the current projected movies in the cinema can use the movie trailers and the movie pictures to get the necessery info.
Anyways I haven’t been to a cinema for some almost two months, so going for a movie was really relaxing enjoyable experience. Besides that, we were lucky to see a movie which fitted quite well to my movie genre preferences –
Midnight in Paris
. Midnight in Paris is a Romantic Comedy for intellectuals and people who have a glipmse on art. Its a Bohemian movie so to say and I believe it wouldn’t hold a big interest for the avarage man who doesn’t keep interest in Arts, History or Philosophy.
The movie plot revives around a young engaged American couple who went to Paris for a business trip, just to find out there whole life is gonna be changed by this. The main actor Gil a just grown man is writting a Novel book, trying to make a shift of his profession from being a movie directory to a novel publicist. Gil (Owen Wilson) is an odd Bohemian kind of man, who quickly fells in love with Paris rich culture architecture and old fame. Next to that Gil is a dreamer who (just like me dreams about the old glorious times), when people were more respectable better moral and more idealistic than in the current age. After one night of heavy wine drinking, Gil’s fiancee wents for some dancing and leaves him on his own. Gil makes a round in Paris and losts himself and decides to stay for a while in front of sold old Roman Catholic Cathedral, a mysterious very old car crosses by the street and suddenly some “party” gang asks Gil to join. He has no idea where he is going and suddeny finds himself in the epoch of the world famous 1920 of great book publicists like the Fidgeralds family. Night by night Gil is being transferred to a different epoch back in time to meet a world famous artists and authors, people like Ernest Hemingway, Picaso, Salvador Dali etc. etc. 😉
The movie shows many personages of odd world famous people with some of their strangeties known by the current age. It appears all of them are dreaming for all and the same thing, to live in a earlier age to live in the Golden Age of Arts and Poetry 😉
The movie is real fun in Gil’s personage I’ve seen a lot of “me”, also I’ve seen a lot of me in many of the other famous people as of course presented in the movie. I hardly recommend this movie to anyone who wants to take a break, have a good mindful laugh time. Here is Midnight in Paris movie trailer as well to get an idea what to expect:
Today by God’s gracy I was blessed to go to Varna’s Cathedral Church (“Dorminion of the Theotokos”) on a small pilgrimage trip to venerate the Holy Relics of Saint Maximus the Confessor.
The saint relics which are there for veneration today 30/Jun and 01 of July are the saint’s right hand which was slaughtered in the 7th century. Today 14 centuries later, the saint right hand holy relic is still intact (the skin of the hand is dried but it’s intact!). This is a great miracle of God who does clearly show the truthfulness of Orthodox Christian faith. The saint’s holy relics are temporary moved from Holy Mount Athos monastery St. Apostol Paul, where kept. As one can read in saint Maximus biography, st. Maximus is one of the biggest Orthodox Christian martyr from the time before the great Church Schizm.
St. Maximus the Confessor was a Christian monk and a great Church scholar. He became a monk choosing willingly to abandon his great richness and political life because of Christ.
The Saint’s title The Confessor is given because of his great suffering for Christian faith.
Because of the saint’s firm staying in faith during an icon fighting heresy emperor Hiraclious (Iraklii) slandered the saint and he was send to a trial where he was immediately vilified as a state traitor. A severe beating was ordered to be done on the saint and the whole ground was sprinkled with his blood, the saint’s torturers also cut his tongue and his right hand was chopped off. The heretical torturers were ordered to slay down his right hand and his tongue in order to prevent the saint to confess/preach and write down about the Orthodox Christian faith.
The descpile of the saint Anasthasius has also faced the same faith. After the butchery the two saints were walked around the city streets to mock them publicly behind the shocked crowds eyes.
Even though the sadistic torments by God’s providence saint Maximus the Confessor did not died immediately but was sent to exile in today’s Dobrudja (Dobrich) region in Bulgaria.
Saint Maximus has died in his old age, aged 82 in August 680 A.D. Even though being a disabled because of the martyrdom, during his exile the saint was able to write a lot of treatise books against heresies and especially against Monotheistic Christian heresy, and a lot of other writting concerning the proper spiritual christian life. The saint’s major works are titled, Ambigua An exploration of difficult passages in the work of Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory of Nazianzus, focusing on Christological issues and Mystagogy – A commentary and reasoning on the Eucharistic liturgy.
According to Church tradition after the saint’s tongue was cut in order to prevent him to preach the Christian faith correctly, God did a miracle where even without a tongue he preached the Gospel to the masses and he heretical emperor who ordered his suffering and the saint tormentors were publicly disgraced.
Saint Maximus the Confessor is considered a saint also in the Roman Catholic Church.
The saint was canonized officially about 22 years after his death on the oecumenical Church saints assembly in year 682. After Saint Maximus’s death on his tomb many healing miracles occured. On the place where he was buried three bright lights looking like candlesticks could be seen burning (a clear miracle atteting of the Holy Trinity) as the thrurthful one God. God’s great omen on his tomb is also a clear sign that Maximus the Confessor has been accepted in the eternal paradise with God with all the rightous.
Let God always strenthen us and help us, to all us who does venerate the saint. Let God by his Holy prayers deliver us from all heresies and grant us grace to stay firm in the true Orthodox Christian faith now and forever. Amen!
On Tuesday Zlati (A friend of mine introduced to me by Father Veliko), came to Arnhem. The plan was that he came on Tuesday here and afterwards in Wednesday morning the Trip to Amsterdam was going to happen. First we had settled that he will be in Arnhem in 12:00 o’clock. So Around 10:50 I walked down the way to the trainstation. I was on my way when Zlati ringed and told that he still, haven’t catched the train and he is not going to make it for 12:00, though he will be on Arnhem Central Station in 04:35 in the afternoon. I came back to home and on my way bought some apples as well as a oily sweet thing from the Turkish shop “Sultan” 🙂
late and the whole concept was unknown in the Orthodox Christian countries, just until the end of the 19th century.
