Posts Tagged ‘everybody’

Last day after the great Christian Orthodox feast The Dormition of the Thetokos (sending the feast away the feast)

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Uspenie Bogorodichno, The Dormtion of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary

On 15th of August we celebrated in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, as well as the other Orthodox Churches around the world, the celebration of the Great Feast commemorating the "falling asleep" e.g. physical death of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary)

We believe in the Orthodox Church that on this date the Mother of God Virgin Mary has passed away. The church tradition says that on that date it's our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ himself that come from heaven to gather her soul.
We use to say that Virgin Mary has fall asleep because her physical death happened without any pain or suffering.
God bestowed Our Lady with such a death because of her humility and sinless life she choose to left while being on Earth.

The Church tradition also teaches that her bodily resurrection occured in a close similarity to Christs by Christ himself and she resurrected in the body was taken up to heaven after her death. The two weeks before dormition of the Theotokos occurs are being preceded by a two weeks fasting period. The dormition fast is one of the strictest fasts in the Church life, it's one of the 4 major fasts periods that occur within the Church life every the year. It's an interesting fast that a little while before Virgin's Mary "fall asleep", she has prayed to her son and our God Jesus Christ to let her see the Holy Apostles once again.
The Lord heard her prayer as she is the most venerable among the ones who lived in this earth and in a miraculous way transported the St. Apostles in the house of St. apostol John where the Theotokos was living. All the apostles were transported to see Virgin Mary except st. Apostol Thomas whose transport has been delayed a bit. He is been said to have arrived three days after her death, when he asked the other apostoles to see her grave so that he could bid her good bye, when all the 12 apostles went to Mother of God's grave they found no body and a sweet fragrance was filling the tomb air. As I said earlier Christ has taken her body to reunite it with the soul he had accepted 3 days earlier. Therefore theology teaches that Virgin Mary has undergone the second resurrection already, a resurrection that is about to come for all who currently abide at this earth with the Second Coming of Christ

An spiritual elder and a brother and Christ has mentioned to me that it is the sending away of the feast which apparently which's commemoration lasts for 8 days, quite an interesting fact I decided to share herein

A good account about the Dormition of the Holy Theotokos is found here and I suggest you read it up if you have some time.

There is another reason that the feast is so venerated it's being said by many people that Virgin Mary the mother of God blesses abundantly and protects everybody who keeps the fast before the feast of her Dormition.

Another practice within the Church is that flowers are being blessed on the date of the Dormition of Virgin Mary. In some Churches even there is a special shroud depicting the Theotokos's sleeping body after her death.
I've been to an interesting Liturgy where the Shroud or (Plashtenica) as better known in the Slavonic Eastern Orthodox world is being placed and is exhibited for a veneration of the layman and Church clergy. On the third day similarly to the resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ this Plashtenica is being put away by the priest in order to show off that the body of the Mother of God was taken to heaven and has miraculously been resurrected and taken to heaven by God.

In Bulgaria the feast is known under the name Uspenie Bogorodichno – "The Dormition of the Theotokos". Uspenie derives from old slavonic and literally translated means "falling asleep".

Let the Holy Mother of God pray her son and our God Jesus Christ to have mercy on us the sinners.

Windows: Create quick screenshot and import it to Outlook Email – A great Outlook tip everybody should know

Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/make-quick-screenshot-from-your-windows-screen-with-microsoft-outlook-2010-embedded-feature

If you're into a huge company like IBM (no it doesn't stand for I Blame You butInternational Business Machines ) or Hewlett Packard – where using Microsoft Windows mailing is almost mandatory and you have to write tons of mails daily, you will certainly need to do plenty of screenshots.
Screenshotting in MS Windows is a very trivial thing, you press Prt + Scr (Print Screen Button), open Microsoft Paint and paste (CTRL+V) the file into it then Save the file as a lets say JPEG extension. However if you have to do that regularly, each time to create a screenshot you will have to loose a minute or two. Also it is quite annoying to open Paint and
Outlook version 2010 has a very useful feature Take screenshot from any existing opened Window on Windows host.
To make screenshot directly from Outlook mail client. Click the Write new mail Button

New E-mail -> Insert (tab) -> (click Screenshot)
Depending on your ribbon menu setup, this might be a tiny icon—specifically, a little camera icon with a dotted rectangle.
You will be offered to choose along all opened Windows, for the Window from which you would like to have screenshot, choose one and enjoy
If you don't see a window you want to insert, make sure the program isn't minimized to the taskbar.
Alternatively, if you want just a portion of the screen, click on the Screen Clipping button at the bottom of the Screenshot dropdown. This will bring up a crosshair cursor for you to drag around the area of the screen you want to select.
Your selection should then be inserted into your emailscreenshot ready to share with your mates.

Testament of a great saint – Testament of Saint John of Rila – Spiritual guidance for people from last ages

Thursday, August 8th, 2013

one-of-greatest-saints-of-all-times-orthodox-holy-icon-st-John-of-Rila

[1.] I, John, the humble and sinful, who has never done anything good on earth, when I came into this wilderness of Rila, I found no man over here, but only wild animals and impenetrable thickets. I settled alone in it among the wild animals, without food nor shelter, but the sky was my shelter and the earth my bed and the herbs my food. But the good Lord, for the love of whom I disregarded everything and endured hunger and thirst, frost, the heat of the sun, and corporal nakedness, did not abandon me, but like a merciful and child-loving father he lavishly satisfied all my needs. What shall I contribute to the Lord for all he has given me? Many are his benefactions to me, for he looked from his holy height at my humbleness (cf. Luke 1:48) and lent his support to me to go through everything—not I, but the might of Christ, which is in me—because every good gift and every perfect gift is from him (James 1:17).

[2.] Seeing you today gathered together in the Lord here, where, as I told you, no man has dwelled until now, but only wild animals, and foreseeing that the end of my life here is soon coming on, because of this I made up my mind, before my departure (II Tim. 4:6) from life here, to leave you the present fatherly testament of mine, just as carnal fathers leave their children an earthly inheritance of silver and gold and other property, so that when you commemorate your father in the Holy Spirit, you do not forget his testament.

[3.] I know, my beloved children in God, I know you very well, that you, being beginners, are not confirmed yet in the monk’s life, but fear not, for the Lord’s "power is made perfect in weakness" (II Cor. 12:9). Just because of this I made up my mind to write for you this rough and ignorant testament of mine, so that you will keep it always in your minds to become stronger in body and soul, in the Lord, and go forward through the virtues in fear of God. Because I believe in my God, whom I have served since my youth and to whom I submitted zealously, after my departure, this wilderness, which until now was terrible and uninhabited, will be inhabited by a multitude of desert-citizens. What was written about it will be fulfilled: "The desolate hath many more children than she which hath a husband" (Is. 54:1; Gal. 4:27).

Св. Йоан Рилски. Стенопис от XIV в. в църквата на Земенския манастир.[4.] Because of this I beg you, my children, whom I have gathered in the Lord, I beg of you, my flesh and blood, do not neglect your father’s admonition and together with the apostle I say: “I am in travail again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. 4:19). I beg you and make you swear on the dread name of God not to violate or abandon anything after my death, but everything I have written let be carried out, as it is written and as you have promised before God. Whosoever oversteps or violates something of it, let him be damned and separated from the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, to have no share with the saints, who were pleasing to God ages ago, but let his share be with those who had crucified the Lord of Glory (Acts 7:2) and with his betrayer Judas, to be erased from “the book of life” (Phil. 4:3) and not to be inscribed [in it] with the righteous.

[5.] First of all, I bequeath to you the obligation to preserve the holy faith immaculate and unaffected by any false teaching, just as we received it from the holy fathers, without "being led away with diverse and strange teachings" (Heb. 13:9). Hold fast and keep the traditions you have heard and seen from me. Do not deviate either to the right, or to the left, but walk along the royal road. Keep yourselves carefully away from worldly fascinations and always remember why you have come out of the world, and why you have despised it and worldly things.

[6.] Now again, keep yourselves away from the avaricious snake, “for the love of money is the root of all evil” (I Tim. 6:10), according to the apostle, who calls it a second idolatry. Because for the hermit wealth consists not in silver and gold,5 but in perfect poverty, in the denial of his personal will, and in lofty humbleness. I am not telling you this as my commandments, but [I am] recalling for you the commandments of Christ. For he told his holy disciples and through them everybody who had renounced the world: "Take no gold, nor silver, nor a bag, nor copper in your belts" (Matt. 10:9) and so on. For gold and silver are great enemies of the monk and bite those who have them like a snake.

holy relics of-one of greatest saints of all times Bulgarian saint John of Rila Rila mountain bulgaria

[7.] If we, however, have undoubted hope in God, he will not leave us deprived of anything, for he himself says: “A woman may forget her children, yet will I not forget thee” (Is. 49:15). Also in another place: “But seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be yours as well” (Matt. 6:33). For in the beginning, when I came to this wilderness, the sly enemy attempted to allure me, for the pious king sent to me a lot of gold.6 For the sake of God I refused to see him, for I understood that it was a perfidy of the devil. I did not accept it, but returned it to those who sent it, for I thought to myself: “If I wished to have gold and silver, and suchlike things, why came I into this terrible and impenetrable wilderness, where I found no man, but wild animals?” So I saved myself from the intrigues of the sly tempter, who endeavors to trip us up in those things, which we renounced willfully. That is why you are not to look for any of these things, “for your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” (Matt. 6:32) before your prayer [is offered].
 

[8.] Nor look to be recognized and beloved by earthly kings and princes, nor put your hope in them, leaving the heavenly King, with whom you enlisted to be soldiers and "wrestle not against flesh and blood," but "against the ruler of the darkness of this world" (Eph. 6:12). For the prophet Jeremiah also threatens us speaking so: "Cursed be the man that hopeth in man" and the rest. Enumerating the evils, he adds that "blessed is the man that hopeth in the Lord" (Jer. 17:5-8). Do not say: "What shall we eat, or drink, or in what shall we be dressed?" for the gentiles seek after these things. "Look at the birds of the air: for they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26). As soon as you have come out of the world, do not go back, neither with your body, nor with your mind, for, as it is said, "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven" (Luke 9:62).

[9.] The Apostle [Paul] too, however, teaches us to "forget what lies behind and strain froward to what lies ahead" (Phil. 3:13). What does "forgetting those things which are behind" mean, my children? Nothing else except to deliver to oblivion all those things which, coming out of the world for God’s sake, we have left and despised, and to strive towards the feat which lies before us, to which we were called by our taskmaster, our most gracious God and Lord Jesus Christ, who has enabled us to endure his gentle yoke, "For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).

[10.] As the grace of the Holy Spirit brought you together, so must you endeavor to live with one heart and one mind and one spirit, directing your eyes only towards the eternal reward, which God has prepared for those who have loved him. The communal life is in every way more useful for monks than the solitary one, for solitude is not suitable for the many, but only for a few who are perfect in all monastic virtues. The common life, on the other hand, is useful in general for everybody, about which the patristic books tell us and teach us sufficiently. The spirit-speaking prophet David glorified it saying: "See now what is so good and so pleasant as for brethren to dwell together in unity!" (Ps. 133:1). In addition to this, one spirit-moved ecclesiastical hymn writes in this way: "Because in this the Lord promised eternal life." But also our good Master Lord God Jesus Christ, does he not say to us himself, by his immaculate lips: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them"? (Matt. 18:20). Our God-bearing fathers say for the solitary life: "Woe to him that is alone when he falls; and there is not a second to lift him up" (Eccl. 4:10).

[11.] That is why, children, as the Holy Spirit through the mouth of the prophet glorifies the communal life, do you not neglect it either, but on the contrary, confirm it and be like "one body in the Lord" (Rom. 12:5), which has different members. Some of them form, however, the head which governs, others the feet which toil and bear, so that there is formed from all a single spiritual body in the Lord, created with a single mind and logical spirit, and directed by spiritual reasoning, in no wise having divisions. When such a dwelling and life in God is arranged, then he himself will be in the midst of you, governing you invisibly.

[12.] Do not seek the first place and authority, but remember those who have said: "If one would be first, he must be last of all, and servant of all" (Mark 9:35). Elect for yourselves preceptors and appoint superiors, whom God will show you, that is, men "of good report" (Acts 10:22) among everybody in spiritual matters and surpassing everybody in intelligence and spiritual discernment, and able to pasture well and comfortably the flock entrusted to them down the meadows of piety and of the life-giving commands of Christ. For these men it is proper to seek confirmation more from God than from our opinion.

      7. According to Goshev, "Zavetât," pp. 449–61, this author’s Parainesis had been available in a Slavonic translation since the reign of Symeon (893–927).
 

[13.] If, as our great father and monastic preceptor, the reverend Ephraem Syrus says,7 all of you begin to desire authority and presidencies, and all of you to be abbots, and all of you preceptors, and interpreters, and teachers, and among you spring up rivalries, quarrels, disputes, zealousness, calumnies, haughtinesses, envy and other passions indecorous for monks, then certainly be aware that Christ is not among you, for Christ is not the teacher of discord and dissent, but of peace and unity. For he prays to God the father for his holy disciples to be united, that is, of one mind—they themselves and everybody who believes in him through them, and says as follows: "Holy Father, keep them in thy name that they may be one, as we are" (John 17:11). In another place: "I do not pray for them only but also for those who believe in me through their word that all may be one" (John 17:20–21). If you will be one, be at peace one with another. For he said to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you." (John 14: 27) For such is this peace of Christ, children, that again he speaks, saying, "Not as the world gives, do I give to you" (John 14:27). But this peace of Christ surpasses every mind. This is the peace, about which the prophet talks: "And his peace has no bounds." But also the apostle teaches us saying: "Strive for peace with all men and for the holiness, without which no man shall see God" (Heb. 12:14). May you have such a peace, now, among you, and let you arrange everything for God with great unity of mind and heart, so as not to enrage your own God and master.

[14.] If somebody is found among you who sows weeds, discords and other temptations, you have to eliminate at once such a man from your assembly, so that this will not be transfigured into a devouring canker, according to the apostle, and not to spread the evil among the good ones, and “lest any root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble by it, and the many be defiled” (Heb. 12:5); and the wicked wolf not trouble the peaceful flock of Christ, because this sort [of men] will appear. For of them Christ prophesies saying: "For it is necessary that temptations come; but woe to the world for temptations to sin!" (Matt. 16:7). For this and you, children, keep away from these things and do not allow them to live among you, but divert them away from yourselves as the shepherd chases away the scabby sheep from the pure flock.

[15.] Living together for the Lord’s sake and bearing the burdens of one another, do not neglect those who live in solitude and "wandering over deserts and in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy" (Heb. 11:38), but supply them as much as you can, in order to hold them as your petitioners before God, for the prayer of the pious may achieve much.

      8. For the translation of some of the late antique classics of ascetic literature into Slavonic, see Dujcev, "Réforme," p. 262.
 

[16.] Instruct yourselves in the Lord’s law day and night (Ps. 1:2). Read often the patristic books and try to be imitators of our holy fathers Antony, Theodosios and the others, who shone like lamps in the world with their good deeds.8 Hold firmly to the church rule, leaving or neglecting nothing of this, which is established by the holy fathers.

[17.] Manual labor must not be neglected by you, however, but work must be in your hands, and the prayer “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” must be permanently on your lips, as well as the memory of death in your mind. This was the practice of the ancient desert fathers. They did not eat their bread in vain, and they not only lived themselves by labor of their own hands, but they gave to the needy too, and so they were not disappointed in their hope. “For,” says the apostle [Paul], "it is well that the heart be strengthened by grace; not with foods which have not benefited their adherents" (Heb. 13:9). He says too: "Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares" (Heb. 13:1–2).

[18.] Establish the newly enlightened from your own race in the faith and instruct them to abandon the indecent pagan rites and the evil customs which they keep even after the acceptance of the holy faith. But they do this because of ignorance, and thus they need to be brought to their senses.

[19.] I had much more to say to you, my beloved children in the Lord, but it is impossible to write everything. I deliver you to him who is the source of all wisdom and reason, and the true Comforter— to the Holy and life-giving Spirit, in order that he himself gives you wisdom, to bring you to your senses, to enlighten you, to teach and instruct you in every good deed.

[20.] Now I leave you our beloved brother Gregory for instructor and superior in place of me, about whom all of you testify that he is able to govern you well and according to God, and you elect him by consensus as superior, even though he does not want it, but because of obedience and humility he acquiesces to your request. After him, [choose] whomever God will show you. As for myself, I wish henceforth to live in quiet and silence, to repent my sins and to beg mercy of God. Have mercy on me, your sinful father, always in your prayers that I may receive mercy on judgment day, for I have done nothing good on earth and fear that judgment and torment prepared for sinners like me. So may the blessing of God be with you all, guarding and protecting you from all evils. Amen.

I have written this in the year from the creation of the world 6449 ( = A.D. 941) on the twenty-fifth day of the month of March.

I, the humble and most sinful John, first inhabitant of the wilderness of Rila, sign with my own hand and confirm the above-written [testament].

© 2000 Dumbarton Oaks
Trustees for Harvard University
Washington, D.C.
Printed in the United States of America

Rila: Testament of John of Rila

Date: 941 Translator: Ilija Iliev

Here is also some more information of Rila Monastery for those who want to learn more what is consequence of a living of a great saint.

The monk John laid the foundations for what was to become the greatest monastery of medieval Bulgaria circa 930–31 in the mountains to the east of the Struma river valley in western Bulgaria.2 Born around 876–880, not much more than a dozen years after Boris-Michael (852–889), ruler of the Bulgars, had accepted Christianity in 865, John began his monastic career at the monastery of St. Dimiter near his birthplace, then lived for many years as a hermit. His final settlement was a site north of the Rila river, to the east of the present Rila monastery. Remains of the foundations of the first buildings are to be seen in the meadows south of the hermitage dedicated to St. Luke.3 Jealous of his independence, John refused to welcome the Bulgarian ruler Peter (927–969), who came to pay him homage. John’s Testament, translated below, was issued March 25, 941 to regulate the cenobitic community and is his only literary work. John then retired to his accustomed solitary life, and died on August 18, 946. He was a popular subject among hagiographers; seven lives in Bulgarian and two in Greek were composed between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries.

 

B. Subsequent History of the Monastery in Medieval Times

Little is known about the Rila monastery during the Byzantine dominion over Bulgaria (1018– 1185). The earliest Slavonic life of John of Rila, the so-called "Popular Life," was composed in Bulgarian towards the end of this period, as was the first life in Greek, authored by George Skylitzes, an official on the staff of the Byzantine governor at Srédetz (modern Sofia) during the reign of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos (1143–1180), that now survives only in a Slavonic translation.5 The monastery’s fortunes revived considerably later during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1186–1396). Rila and several other monasteries, richly endowed by the Bulgarian rulers with new lands and villages, seem to have enjoyed considerable prosperity in the fourteenth century.6 There is also a charter of 1378 preserved in the monastery of the last Bulgarian king, Ivan Shishman (1371– 1393), that confirms the tax exemptions of the monastery’s existing properties and awards new lands as well; it refers to similar charters now lost that earlier Bulgarian monarchs had awarded to the monastery dating back to the middle of the thirteenth century.

Earlier in the fourteenth century, Rila had benefited also from a local patron, the protosebast Hreljo, a local lord and sometime vassal of the Serbian tsar Stephen Dusan (1331–1355), who erected a new monastery on the site of the existing Rila monastery, to the west of John’s original foundation, which continued in operation as the "Old Hermitage." Hreljo built a 75-foot protective tower, still preserved, in 1335. It included living quarters for Hreljo and his family as well as a chapel on the top floor dedicated to the Transfiguration.7 A brick inscription records Hreljo’s erection of this structure. In 1343 he also built a stone church, which survived until 1834. There were similar towers built at this time for the monasteries on Mount Athos (see (51) Koutloumousi [A4]), and there is one still existing at the Hilandar monastery. Forced to become a monk at the order of Dusan, who distrusted his loyalty, Hreljo was strangled to death by hired assassins in his tower in 1343, probably also at Dusan’s instigation. Hreljo’s gravestone, broken into many pieces, is preserved in the monastery’s museum and speaks of his entry into the monastery and unnatural death.8

In 1385, Dometian, the monastery’s superior, had John’s Testament recopied while hiding away the original along with the foundation’s other valuables for fear of the Turks, who had taken Srédetz in 1382. At about this time too Evtimij, the last Bulgarian patriarch of Turnovo, wrote his widely popular version of the Life of John of Rila.

 

C. Rila under Ottoman Rule

The Turkish sultans Beyazid I (1389–1402) and Mehmet I (1413–1421) issued firmans confirming the privileges Rila had received earlier from Bulgarian monarchs, but this did not save the monastery from later depredations, with the result that it was abandoned by the middle of the fifteenth century.9 There was a revival, however, in the second half of the century. Around 1460, the three brothers David, Joasaf and Teofan, sons of a certain Jakov, bishop of Krupnik, worked to strengthen and repair the damaged buildings. Shortly thereafter, a pact was reached in 1466 with the Russian monastery of St. Panteleemon on Mount Athos obliging Rila and the former institution to assist one another as needed in the future. Permission was obtained from the Turkish authorities in 1469 to transport the relics of John of Rila from Turnovo, the old capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, where they had been since 1195. The translation considerably increased the Rila monastery’s prestige. A dependency (metoh) dedicated to Sts. Peter and Paul was built to the southwest of the main monastery in 1478.

Firmans issued by sultans Beyazid II (1481–1512) in 1498, Selim I (1512–1520) in 1519, and Murad III (1574–1595) confirmed the monastery in the possession of its properties, but like the earlier series of firmans, these did not succeed in protecting the foundation from the depredations of various brigands.10 Beginning in 1558–59, the monks succeeded in establishing direct relations with Russia, whose rulers they hoped would be sympathetic to their complaints of oppression at the hands of their Ottoman masters.

Despite extremely difficult conditions, which continued well into the second half of the eighteenth century, including attacks by robbers in 1766 and 1779, the monastery not only managed to survive but served as a kind of center of Bulgarian culture. Additional churches were built as dependencies towards the end of the eighteenth century and in the early years of the nineteenth century, then a complete reconstruction of the main monastery was begun in 1816.11 A fire in 1833, however, destroyed all the buildings there except for Hreljo’s tower and his fourteenthcentury stone church. The monastery was rebuilt once again in 1834 while the church was torn down to make room for a larger structure; both the monastery and the nineteenth-century church still stand today, along with Hreljo’s tower, the only medieval structure preserved on the site. Analysis Experts have endorsed the essential authenticity of the document.12 It is an example of the testamentary genre of monastic foundation documents, whose author seems to have made some use of (3) Theodore Studites and even (4) Stoudios.13 There are indeed some resemblances to the former document, such as the statement of purpose [3], the prohibition of changes [4], and the admonition to preserve the faith [5]. The use of the wilderness topos in the brief foundation history [1] also has a close parallel in (29) Kosmosoteira [1], a twelfth-century document. On the whole, however, this is a distinct document with its own concerns for the ordering of monastic life at Rila.

 

A. Lives of the Monks

Like his Stoudite predecessors, John of Rila endorses [10] the cenobitic lifestyle, but also urges his monks to establish [15] relations with and support neighboring solitaries. This coexistence of cenobitic and eremitic lifestyles, prefigured in John’s own career, would be one of the notable characteristics of Byzantine monasticism. The author demonstrates an acquaintance with the ascetic tradition of late antiquity, quoting [13] Ephraem Syrus and recommending [16] the study of patristic literature, in particular the Lives of St. Antony, founder of anchoritic monasticism, Theodosios the Koinobiarch, “and others” as well as respecting canon law. John also invokes [17] patristic authority for the practice of manual labor.

 

B. Constitutional Matters

While there is genuine disciplinary content in this document, its chief purpose, as in most testaments, was to designate [20] a successor, here the monk Gregory. John then announces his intent to retire into seclusion as part of an arrangement for assuring an orderly succession to the superiorship that is similar to that proposed in the eleventh century in (22) Evergetis [13]. C. Financial Matters

Aside from the commitment to self-sufficiency that seems implicit in his endorsement of manual labor, there are no indications of how John expected the foundation to support itself financially. He proudly asserts [7] that he refused a royal donation, perhaps an annuity like the solemnia attested in Byzantium in the tenth century, and he advises [8] his community not to seek favors from “earthly kings and princes” [8]. This deliberate shunning of material support is unusual. Many later founders did not fear for the independence of their foundations when accepting imperial largess or tax exemptions (e.g., (13) Ath. Typikon [36] or (19) Attaleiates [22]), nor did Rila itself long after John’s death. As Dujcev ("Réforme," p. 263) surmised, John probably was concerned about Bulgarian monasticism being too submissive to secular authority, understandably given the prior history of Bulgarian monasticism under royal patronage.

 

Here I’m :)

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

Haven’t blogged for some time so I’m going to write down few lines. Today I passed succesfully the Cisco CCNA2 Final Exam and the CCNA2 Voucher exam thanks to God :). The Voucher exam grants everybody who passed succesfully a discount of the price of the CCNA Certification exam, whi ch is pretty cool. To be honest I cheated at the 2 tests otherwise I won’t have passed but I’m really busy this days and I’m a bit of tired so this was the only option. I also made my CCNA2 (9,10,11) tests for which I used the cisco answers page :). CCNA2 The Final Exam and the Voucher wasn’t included in the blogspot cisco answers so I googled around but thanksfully I found the answers on a website in the net. This days I had a lot of fun and saw a lot of old friends (some of them studying others working in Sofia). It’s the summers holiday period in which tons of friends who are in other cities are back in Dobrich so I was able to spend nice time with a lot of them. This are ppl like: hellpain, nomen, mariana (one of my ex-girlfriend). At Wednesday I and Nomen went to the beach at Balchik, we had great fun there. We met together in front of the place we call “The Young House” at 7:30, at 8:30 we were already travelling to Balchik and in 9:35 we were on the beach. We stayed there until 12:30. Vlado and Mitko tried to learn me to be able to relax on my on back while in the water I almost did it but still I need some more tries until I’m able to make it the right way. At 13:00 we were back in Dobrich and we went to an open restaurant “Seasons”. I ate vegetarenian pizza and Vlado ate a meal called “English Breakfast”. “English Breakfast”. Right after that at 14:00 I went to the regional Red Cross building, because I had to get a course on “First Aid”, it’s required to have that course passed until you’re able to apply for a driving license after you complete both the theoretical exam and the practice exam. My driving practice exam would be at Wednesday at 9:00 to be honest I’m not still driving well and my driving course is almost over. My only hope for passing it in the Lord, only if he support me and guide me during the exam I’ll be able to pass. The same night I went out with Shanar and we later met hellpain and Alex. We had nice discussions in the city park until somewhere around 11:30. When we were going back home I met Mariana and I proposed her to have a walk together she accepted and we negotiated to meet around 30 minutes later. We spend 4 hours with her talking about stuff and drinking beer. I should say she is one of the only girls I’m able to speak for hours and still feel good and confortable. The center of our talks were mainly God the Bible and in particular my belief in Christ Jesus as Lord and Saviour. At Friday morning I had driving courses early at the morning from 8:00 o’clock, later I went to Varna with my father because I had to pick up one bag I forgot the last time when I was in Varna, Thanks God we didn’t crashed. On our way to Varna there was a very dangerous situation in which the chances to crash was pretty big but thanksfully to God’s protection and kindness we didn’t. Later when we came back in Dobrich I went to the police office to check if international passport is ready. Thanksfully it was and now I have the “red passport” home and ready :). I called to Mariana to great her because it was the great christian feast, we at the Orthodox Church believe that at that day the Eartly Mother of our Lord Jesus has resurrected in the 3rd day and ascended to heaven just like our Lord! We call that celebrity “The Maryam’s day”. Everybody who is named after Mary’s name is also celebrating this great feast. We decided to meet at night time at 11:30 and have walk. Like I said earlier I really enjoy Mariana’s company. Unfortunately an hour later we met Bino so we wasn’t able to talk much about stuff with Mariana. Bino is pretty cool guy but sometimes his company is pretty annoying :). Later I went home and after a minute of prayer I went to bed. On August 22 I’m traveling to the Netherlands to continue my studies at the HRQM stream, sometimes I feel a sort of preliminary homesickness but I believe this decision is right and it’s God’s souvereign plan for my life. Well as Bugs Bunny (my favour cartoon character) says that’s all folks!END—–

What happened during the last week

Tuesday, November 21st, 2006

I’ve decided to use my blog in the end. The Last week we were with Habib for some time. He is a nice company we speaked about his Grand Father who did some miracles through the power of 2 Gins.

A lot of people with various diseases were cured with the help of 2 Jins he has power over. P.S. In the Quran Jins are spirits created from fire after God created the Angels due to the quran Jins are spirits which are with free will just like us humans and they could go for good or bad,

From Christian perspective so far as I’m Christian the Christians think Jins for Demons but are they Demons or not only God knows, because his Grand Father did a lot of nice things for the people was praying and fasting a lot and was trying to love everybody, well he was a muslim but I guess God can save everybody through Christ Jesus in his own way.

Then We talked about what the bible the life. Habib explained something very interesting of what the muslim myth says about why people do cough. Myth says that when God created in the beginning everything he put (soul/spirit) when breading to the body of soil, before that the soul was happily living with God in Heaven and the soul is not being conforted by living in a dying body because you know it can hurt, you feel cold stuff like that, so often when a born to human being is being given an Angel from God comes and puts the soul in the body through the nose then locks the entrance to be sure the soul won’t try to go out, and because the soul tries to get out we cough :]].

In Friday night or the Saturdays I can’t exactly we went to mino with Mitko we saw Gosho/Geni there he was drunk this time he did not repeat “on my head” like a parrot, this time the saying was “baba yaga”;]. I’m thinking again about stopping the cigars but we’ll see.

Yesterday I was in Mitko and we was able to run WarCraft 3 under GNU/Linux Fedora Core 6. His brother was extraordinary happy he will be able to play WC3 :]. During the day there was tons of work for me. There were problems with one of our mail servers mail.design.bg.

One of the ValueWeb’s Caching DNSes was down the other was resolving hosts awfully slow. So I read some about djbdns as a caching DNS and installed it on two of the servers on (backup-serv1.design.bg and backup-server2.design.bg). then switched all the NSes our servers in USA use to my new djb caching dnses, I was amazed djbdns is really a nice bit of soft it’s really a fast caching NS. I use it for first time and I really like it from the beginning. I experienced some problems before starting daemontools properly on two of the machines because of the errorno-patch that redhats and fedoras should apply to compile successfully daemontools. I thought our problems with the mail server was mainly because of the slow DNS resolves, but after setting up the new djbdns and configured all the servers to use them still the response of the mail server when there are connects to port 25 was very slow. I was able to isolate the problem in the evening I spoke with a guy (greycat) in irc.freenode.net in #qmail. About my problem and he pointed me to the RBLs I use at my qmail-smtpd run. So using the method of exclusion. Removing all the RBLs and started putting them one by one I discovered one of the RBL Hosts I used was lagging dnsbl.antispam.or.id (maybe due to slow DNS resolves). If you’re using it my advice is not to. When Removed it from my run file all started working perfectly. The last days I’m doing a lot of stuff around the qmail. I loaded some custom spam rules from SARE (SA Rules Emposium) to reduce spam and wrote some my own custom rules due to the spam I receive in my Mailbox.

More and more I realize how hard is to be a good mail server administrator. Oh yes I almost forgot I ran my own qmailmrtg two days ago it graphs nicely lot of very precious info about the mail server’s load, queue, pop3 concurrency etc. etc. and I also ran qsstats nice qmail-scanner statistics grapher program. Because of all the work I missed shool yesterday. I need to read now about this business plan and know more about it I can’t even imagine how I’ll graduate ever :].

Back on the Road Again

Saturday, February 17th, 2007

Yesterday I’ve went through a depression. The depression is trying to hunt me periodically. Right now I feel soso.So Praise the Lord. Yesterday I found out I passed the Accounting exam this was a great deal (thanks LORD).Today since it’s Saturday I hoped I will be able to sleep until 2, 3 o’clock unfortunately Tisho came andwake me up. Tisho is a friend I borrowed some money a week and a half ago. I can’t communicate normally with thisguy I don’t know why … We went to Mitko to take him for a coffee. e was playing Mugen ( A StreetFighter likecool fighting game). We stayed their for 30 minutes probably and then went to the fountain for a coffee.It was boring as a whole we smoked some cigaretes then everybody went to his home. When I cameback I upgraded the PHP modules on two of the boxes of DBG and right now I upgraded the clamav release.Meanwhile My boss make some interviews for a new server admin in the firm. One friend Joro went on the Interviewand the Boss approved him for the Job. What I am wandering and feeling about is, will this be me substitutionin the firm or this will be just another local administrator for the office. Actually I hope this thing wouldhappen that God has thought about me. I wait for the Lord to direct my way to somewhere since I’m in theocean as and no Land can be seen, just like I dreamed in one of my dreams before few months.In 5 o’clock I’ll meet Joro to speak about him how his interview in DBG went and possibly what will behis exam. ( I’ll be the examiner :]). Static come home yesterday and told me the dream he had the previousnight. He dreamed the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the dream.Our saviour was standing on a platform of a sort of cloudsand a lot of people were around him. He was all in light and everything around was light,there were 4 pillars ending in a sort of a sky. Jesus was all in white (white more whiter than any light in the world we can observe), he was with long White beard and Long white hair.Then my friend who dreamed this dream just thought in his mind “Oh Lord that’s you.”Then the Lord Jesus Christ pointed at him and he started ascending into the skies, full of very deep joy.After that he just woke up and prayed. Well Praise the Lord for giving to one of my brothers such a wonderfuldream. I hope his mercy will guard us all. Let Christ’s peace be in our hearts. AmenEND—–

Tiulenovo’s Stones

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007

I spend the Friday night and The Saturday on a place near The Tiulenovo’sVillage. It’s beautiful there. There was a lot of waves. I spend a great time,and get a little wanting to live again and inspired. It was sad that mostof the people was there to drink and smoke as much as I can. I tried to learnto catch fish. There was a lot of wind the whole night and day. There wasnot enough woods for the fire, it was coldy experience when the firewood ended in 5:20 in the morning luckily the sun has risen 20 or 30 minutes later. In the morning we have a wonderful talk with Toto :]. In the morning Toto, Nomen and Zuio went to Shabla to find some woods for the next night. After a lot of searching at last we found some used wood with nails on it, we also collected some from a small wood belt, we take some food from one of the local shops, we drinked a coffee at the morning, later we left Mitko on the Bus Station, cause he had to be home until dinner. After that I had a bath in a place near rocks which everybody was calling “Djakuzi”, I really enjoyed the bath I haven’t taken a Sea bath for Seven years, also I haven’t exposed to a direct sun light my body for so much a hours from 7 years, so I got a sun burns without realising later I slept 2 hours at the Tent cause I was completely exhaused I haven’t slept for almost 2 days. When I wake up 2 hours later at the tent I was red like a tomato :], and it was hurting. In almost 22 o’clock I and Dido (The Head), have hit the road back to Dobrich. Unfortunately cops have catched him to drive with 70 km in a village where there was a speed limit of 50 and they would give him a sanction (At least they haven’t tested him for alcohol if they Did then it was sure that he was going to lost his driver license cause he have drinked a lot during the day). Happily this didn’t Happen Praise the Lord! :]. If I expel all the non-sense talking and swearings and all the alcohol that was drunk then it was a great experience. I used to thing that a man can feel God’s presence in such a wild and desolate places much stronger, also the inspiration gives you hope to continue no matter how bad things are. On the other side the last days I have lost faith and hope and even a sort of blaspehemed a little claiming to be an atheist, but the truth is I can’t after I’ve experienced the Eternal one’s love. And I’m trying to come back in repentance being sorry for all this. Today I woke up in 9:35 in the morning (a call from the office). There was a new employee and I have to setup him account to the Samba server and make him a mail account. *Luckily* :] My internet connectivity was missing, so I went to the college to use internet and see Ertan (The College’s Admin). After I have setupped the account and mail and did some usual system maintaince on the servers I hepled ertan to setup a laptop of a new English teacher who was previously in Australia and now is back to Bulgaria. We have setupped Debian Etch + Beryl +mplayer+ audacious + xmms … wine, gimp, office, etc, etc. In the evening we have drink a coffee with Mitko and later we went to his home Plamen (The Guitarist) has come and we went my home while Nomen and Sami went out to see each other, I had a great time with Plamenko (this guy’s a really interesting!), it’s a real blessing to know him :] END—–

Management Games and Theathre Sports with Joop Vinke

Friday, April 11th, 2008

Yesterday and today we had Management Games and Theathre Games with Joop Vinke.At the management game we play a sort of Human Resources Management game. All the students are devided into groups and we play a simulator game. We had to manage a company. First we setup our 2 year goals and then we play the game on quarters (6 quarters). Every quarter we have to made some managerial decisions (invest money into different stuff, hire personnel, promote ppl etc.).

Basicly the company consists of 660 employees, there are 5 levels in the company starting from 1 where there is unqualified specialists and 5 which are the top management.

When we make our choices then all this data is inputed into a computer which gives us some feedback which helps us in taking the decisions for the next quarter. At the meantime Vinke organizes fun games to entertain us and make us feel comfortable with him and through this games he tries to show us basic concepts in business. The last two days I really enjoyed.

Today the game that impressed me the most was called

“The Werewolves from Wackedan”. Basicly it’s a strategic game with roles. In it you’ve got a bunch of ppl who play different roles, 3 of them are werewolves, others are citizens others are ppl who have special abilities to foresee who are the werewolves.

We had cards in front of us turned back to prevent others except us to see the cards. Some of the cards are citizens and ppl who belong to the citizens other 3 are werewolves.

Every night the werewolf kills a person (by selecting somebody from the crowd, when they sleep), because the werewolves are out at night when everybody sleeps. At the morning citizens awake and one of their friends is dead so they try to revenge by pointing someone to be killed (it may be a citizen again it may be a werewolf).

At the end only werewolves or citizens should servive 🙂 It was a big fun today to play this simple game. At the end of the day at 18:00 we had a session of the so called Theathre/Games. Theathre Games include different entertaining games which are designed to improve our communication skills and teach us to act like an actors plus they are pretty entertaining 🙂 That’s all thanks to God everything seems to run smoothly around my life. Except my health I’m still having some health issues although I can say I have an improvement I am not still healed and I still drink herbs.

At 20:00 I was out with Narf and we went to the fountain a little later Kimmo and Yavor joined us and we spend some time their. Well that’s most of the day at night I went to my grandma just to see how she is doing and now I write this post tomorrow the Management Game continues at 09:00. So probably after few minutes I’ll go for the night prayers and then I’ll go to sleep. END—–

BSD (Berkley Software Distribituion) use by distribution type (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DrangflyBSD) use percantage charts

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

I've hit an interesting article in Wikipedia called Comparison of BSD operating systems
The article explains basic difference between different BSD (Berkley Software Distributions) and what is the primary accent of each of the BSD (free software OS) distributions. It also reveals basic details about the history and how each of the BSD's came to existence. I recommend to anyone interested in free software as it is just a great reading for everybody interested in FOSS.

The most interesting part of the wiki thread is a bar chart, provided by BSD Certification Group research conducted in September 2005.

FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Dragonflybsd usage statistics

The above diagram is showing the proportion of users of each BSD variant from the BSD usage survey prior conducted

The research is already 6 years old, and unfortunately as of time of writting seems to be the only publicly available. Though being outdated, I believe generally the bar charts distributions along different BSD variants would be mostly true. The only big difference will be probably in PC-BSD which is not even on the diagram should have outbeaten DragonflyBSD's use. Since there is no public data available for 2012 and the years 2005 – 2012 for the use percantage of each of the BSD distributions, I've thought about a pseudo way to get some general statistics on each of the BSD distributions popularity. The methodology to gather the required statistics comes to simply, type in Google each of the BSD variant "code names" (e.g. freebsd, netbsd, openbsd etc.) and look at the number of results returned. It seems logical the more results distribution keyword searched returns, the bigger the probability of more users to be involved in developing or using the respective BSD variant.

Below you see the results, I've gathered in my quick "google research":

FreeBSD NetBSD OpenBSD BSD variant (users) use diagram based on Google searches of keywords 2012

As you can see in the above data FreeBSD is still probably leading the BSD use, the public interest to OpenBSD – BSD focused on security has significantly grow since the last 6 years. Next it is seen the PC-BSD users base has probably tremendously increased and according to the Google results returned it is probably on a 3rd place by users interest (use?) followed by NetBSD with only 1.47% of all the BSD users. Lastly with only 0.99%, orders Dragonfly BSD which no longer is so popular as a Desktop BSD based OS as it used to be back in 2005.
Again the presented diagram results are based on only on the factor of Google BSD variant popularity and hence shouldn't be consired too trustworthy, still I'm sure it gives a general idea on how used is each of the BSD variants as of Jan 2012.

How to fix a broken QMAIL queue with queue-repair and qmhandle

Friday, May 27th, 2011

How qmail works, qmail queue picture :)

The aim of this small post is to give just a brief idea of how I fix my qmail server after breaking it or in case it is broken after mail bomb attacks, etc.

Most common cases when I break my qmail queue myself, are after I’m implementing some new patches and reinstall parts of the qmail server with a patched version of default qmail binaries.
On other occasions, I simply used the qmailctl to start or stop the server as a part of some routine tasks necessery for the administration of the qmail server.

Everybody who has already experience with qmail should have experienced, that qmail is very fragile and could break even with a simple changes, though if it works once it’s rock solid piece of mail servant.

Below I explain few ways I used through my days as a qmail sys admin to deal with broken or messed queues.

1. Fixing a broken qmail queue using automatic tools There are few handy tools which in most cases are able to solve issues with the queue, one very popular one isqueue-repair – check http://pyropus.ca/software/queue-repair/.
Installation of qmail-repair is dead easy, but it needs to be installed from source as no official debian package is available:

linux:/usr/local/src# wget http://pyropus.ca/software/queue-repair/queue-repair-0.9.0.tar.gz
linux:/usr/local/src# tar -xzvvf queue-repair-0.9.0.tar.gzdrwxr-xr-x charlesc/qcc 0 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/
-rw-r--r-- charlesc/qcc 268 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/TODO
-rw-r--r-- charlesc/qcc 1700 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/CHANGELOG
-rw-r--r-- charlesc/qcc 18007 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/COPYING
-rw-r--r-- charlesc/qcc 1098 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/BLURB
-rwxr-xr-x charlesc/qcc 26286 2003-10-22 16:54 queue-repair-0.9.0/queue_repair.py

To check if there are issues fixable within the qmail queue it’s as easy as:

linux:/usr/local/src# cd queue-repair-0.9.0
linux:/usr/local/src/queue-repair-0.9.0# ./queue-repair -t
...
checking files...
checking queue/mess files...
checking split locations...

The tool will walk through the mail sub-directories containing mail queued files in /var/qmail/queue and will list any issues found.
It’s recommended that the qmail server is stopped before any queue modify operations are issued on the server:

linux:/usr/local/src# qmailctl stop
...

Further on in order to solve any found issues with the queue, there is the “-r”/repair option:

linux:/usr/local/src/queue-repair-0.9.0# ./queue-repair -r
...

Another tool which comes handy whether a repair of a messed qmail queue is needed is qmhandlehttp://sourceforge.net/projects/qmhandle/

The use of qmhandle is also pretty easy, all one has to do is to follow the usual classical steps of a download the source & compile:

linux:/usr/local/src# wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/qmhandle-1.3.2.tar.gz
linux:/usr/local/src# tar -zxvvf qmhandle-1.3.2
...
linux:/usr/local/src# cd qmhandle-1.3.2

Once again it’s necessery that the qmail server is stopped via its init script before qmHandle tool is used, e.g.:

linux:~# qmailctl stop
...

There is a difference between qmail queue repair tool and qmail handle , while qmail queue-repair tool is used to fix improper permissions of queued files with the qmail queue, qmhandle ‘s application is to completely delete the stored mail contents of a broken queue.

Deleting all the qmail queue content is in some cases the only option to fix the queue.
Often such a drastic measure is required after a heavy mail server overload, let’s say a result of spammers or caused by virus infected mail users which send a massive amounts of spam mails.

Thus at many cases when queue-repair was unable to solve a queue mess, I use qmhandble and sacrifice all the queued emails by completely wiping them out like so:

linux:/usr/local/src/qmhandle-1.3.2# ./qmhandle -D
...

Above command would eradicate all queued emails. Hopefully after the qmail server gets launched again with qmailctl start all the mail server operations should be back to normal.

Note that the use of qmhandle’s queue delete capabilities is pretty dangerous, if you forgot to stop the qmail server before issuing the above command!

Note that in order to use both qmHandle and queue-repair tools you will need to install python interpreter as both of the tools are written in python.

To check what is currently in the queue in Qmail, there are also native tools available, as you should probably know if you have dealt with qmail, e.g.:

debian:~# qmail-qstat
debian:~# qmail-qstat
messages in queue: 2
messages in queue but not yet preprocessed: 0

Often when there are problems with Qmail and more specificly with qmail server queue the qmail-qstat command does show messages in queue, however when an attempt to check what kind of messages are in the queue with qmail-qread no messages are shown, for instance below you see an example of that, even though qmail-qstat claims 2 messages are in the queue, qmail-qread is unable to list the messages:

debian:~# qmail-qread
debian:~#

If all is fine with qmail queue above’s qmail-qread command should have returned something similar to:

debian:~# qmail-qread
26 May 2011 07:46:47 GMT #659982 3517 <hipo@www.pc-freak.net>
remote somemail@gmail.nl
26 May 2011 07:46:47 GMT #659983 3517 <hipo@www.pc-freak.net>

2. Fixing qmail queue manually This is very dangerous initiative, so before you try anything, make sure that you know what you’re doing, the possibility that you make the situation worst if you attempt to tamper manually the qmail queue is quite high 🙂

However if you’re still convinced to try fixing it manually, take a look at /var/qmail/queue it’s very likely that there are permission issues with some of the queued files, in order to fix the situation it’s necessery that the following directories:

/var/qmail/queue/mess/
/var/qmail/queue/remote/
/var/qmail/queue/bounce
/var/qmail/queue/info

gets explored with midnight commander / mc or some kind of convenient file explorer.

If there are queued files owned by users different from qmailq and user group qmail , for instance if owned by the root user, a simple chown qmailq:qmail to the wrong permissions file, should be able to resolve the issues.

Apart from all I explain above, there are many other ways suggested online on howto clean a qmail queue, one very popular one is using James’s qfixq shell script.

This script as of this very date is not working on Debian based systems, the script is dedicated initially to run on Fedora and Redhat based Linuces

Moreover myy experience with qfixq was never successful.

One very important note which is often a cause of many problems, is always make sure you stop and start the qmail server with an interval of at least of 10 seconds.

I’ve managed many servers which after an immediate (undelayed) qmailctl stop and qmailctl start was unable to run the whole engine of the qmail server (and either email sending or email receiving was not properly working) afterwards.

In that cases many weird behaviours are common, consider this seriously if you deal with the qmail-queue, it might happen that even if you have fixed your qmail queue, after a restart the qmail might breaks up.
I’ve experienced this kind of oddities numerous times, thus when I do changes to qmail I always make sure I restart the server a couple of times (at least 5 times 😉 ) always with a good delay between the HUPs.

And as always with qmail prayer is always needed, this server is complex, you never know what will happen next 🙂