For one more year its the feast of feasts. Demons Fall, Angels sing in Heaven, People rejoice because Christ is Risen ! This is a day which God created for us to rejoice! Let nobody be sorrowful for the kingdom of Heaven is open for everyone! Let nobody cry for his sins because forgiveness has risen from the grave of the Savior ! Let nobody be afraid from Death cause Christ – Savior's death has released us from death!
"Peace be on you" – said Christ to his followers, conforting and strengthening their faith in the Resurrection. The savior appears to every Christian in the same way to hear his voice saying "Rejoice!" Let we keep in our souls the graceful joy of Easter and by the same grace and faith always triumpth over sorrowful times and hardships of earthly life.
In the spiritual fight we are not alone. Always until the end of ages the Resurrected Savior Jesus is with us according to his promise "I'm with you until the end of ages" (Mathew 28:20)
Christ is Risen Troparion in many languages (part 1)
Christ is Risen Troparion in many languages (part 2 )
"I am the resurrection and the Life whoever believes in me even he dies he will live" (John 11:25) This is the eternal life given to us all Christians let us not be ashamed and loudly great all with
In a home conversation with my wife who is Belarusian and comparison between Bulgarian and Belarusian nation, the interesting question arised – Which nation is SmarterBulgarian or Belarusian?
This little conversation pushed me to intriguing question What is the IQ World rank if compared by country? Since a moment of my life I'm trying to constantly prove to myself I'm smart enough. For years my motivation was to increase my IQ. I had periods when studied hard history, philosophy and literature then I had periods to put all my efforts in music and mysticism then there was my fascination about IT and informatics and hacking, I had periods with profound interest in Biology and neourosciences, then of course psychology and social sciences and since last 10 years as I belived in God, I'm deeply interested in world religions and more particularly in Christniaty. All this is connected with my previous IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and my desire to develop my IQ. I'm quite aware that IQ statistics can never be 100% reliable as there is deviation (standard error) and its a very general way to find out about a person psychology. But anyways it is among the few methods to compare people's intelligence… I've done an IQ test in distant 2008 and I scored about 118 out of 180 – meaning my IQ level is a little bit above average. The IQ conversation triggered my curiousity so I decided to check if my current IQ has changed over the last 6 years. Here is results from test I took March, 2013 onfree-iqtest.net
IQtest just prooved, my IQ kept almost same, still a little bit above avarage. Further on, I did investgation online to see if I can prove to my wife the thesis Bulgarians overall IQ is higher than Belarusian. I googled for IQ world rank by Country Here is what I found ;
Nations Intelligence as sorted by Country
Rank ——–
Country ———————–
% ————-
1
Singapore
108
2
South Korea
106
3
Japan
105
4
Italy
102
5
Iceland
101
5
Mongolia
101
6
Switzerland
101
7
Austria
100
7
China
100
7
Luxembourg
100
7
Netherlands
100
7
Norway
100
7
United Kingdom
100
8
Belgium
99
8
Canada
99
8
Estonia
99
8
Finland
99
8
Germany
99
8
New Zealand
99
8
Poland
99
8
Sweden
99
9
Andorra
98
9
Australia
98
9
Czech Republic
98
9
Denmark
98
9
France
98
9
Hungary
98
9
Latvia
98
9
Spain
98
9
United States
98
10
Belarus
97
10
Malta
97
10
Russia
97
10
Ukraine
97
11
Moldova
96
11
Slovakia
96
11
Slovenia
96
11
Uruguay
96
12
Israel
95
12
Portugal
95
13
Armenia
94
13
Georgia
94
13
Kazakhstan
94
13
Romania
94
13
Vietnam
94
14
Argentina
93
14
Bulgaria
93
15
Greece
92
15
Ireland
92
15
Malaysia
92
16
Brunei
91
16
Cambodia
91
16
Cyprus
91
16
FYROM
91
16
Lithuania
91
16
Sierra Leone
91
16
Thailand
91
17
Albania
90
17
Bosnia and Herzegovina
90
17
Chile
90
17
Croatia
90
17
Kyrgyzstan
90
17
Turkey
90
18
Cook Islands
89
18
Costa Rica
89
18
Laos
89
18
Mauritius
89
18
Serbia
89
18
Suriname
89
19
Ecuador
88
19
Mexico
88
19
Samoa
88
20
Azerbaijan
87
20
Bolivia
87
20
Brazil
87
20
Guyana
87
20
Indonesia
87
20
Iraq
87
20
Myanmar (Burma)
87
20
Tajikistan
87
20
Turkmenistan
87
20
Uzbekistan
87
21
Kuwait
86
21
Philippines
86
21
Seychelles
86
21
Tonga
86
22
Cuba
85
22
Eritrea
85
22
Fiji
85
22
Kiribati
85
22
Peru
85
22
Trinidad and Tobago
85
22
Yemen
85
23
Afghanistan
84
23
Bahamas, The
84
23
Belize
84
23
Colombia
84
23
Iran
84
23
Jordan
84
23
Marshall Islands
84
23
Micronesia, Federated States of
84
23
Morocco
84
23
Nigeria
84
23
Pakistan
84
23
Panama
84
23
Paraguay
84
23
Saudi Arabia
84
23
Solomon Islands
84
23
Uganda
84
23
United Arab Emirates
84
23
Vanuatu
84
23
Venezuela
84
24
Algeria
83
24
Bahrain
83
24
Libya
83
24
Oman
83
24
Papua New Guinea
83
24
Syria
83
24
Tunisia
83
25
Bangladesh
82
25
Dominican Republic
82
25
India
82
25
Lebanon
82
25
Madagascar
82
25
Zimbabwe
82
26
Egypt
81
26
Honduras
81
26
Maldives
81
26
Nicaragua
81
27
Barbados
80
27
Bhutan
80
27
El Salvador
80
27
Kenya
80
28
Guatemala
79
28
Sri Lanka
79
28
Zambia
79
29
Congo, Democratic Republic of the
78
29
Nepal
78
29
Qatar
78
30
Comoros
77
30
South Africa
77
31
Cape Verde
76
31
Congo, Republic of the
76
31
Mauritania
76
31
Senegal
76
32
Mali
74
32
Namibia
74
33
Ghana
73
34
Tanzania
72
35
Central African Republic
71
35
Grenada
71
35
Jamaica
71
35
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
71
35
Sudan
71
36
Antigua and Barbuda
70
36
Benin
70
36
Botswana
70
36
Rwanda
70
36
Togo
70
37
Burundi
69
37
Cote d'Ivoire
69
37
Ethiopia
69
37
Malawi
69
37
Niger
69
38
Angola
68
38
Burkina Faso
68
38
Chad
68
38
Djibouti
68
38
Somalia
68
38
Swaziland
68
39
Dominica
67
39
Guinea
67
39
Guinea-Bissau
67
39
Haiti
67
39
Lesotho
67
39
Liberia
67
39
Saint Kitts and Nevis
67
39
Sao Tome and Principe
67
40
Gambia, The
66
41
Cameroon
64
41
Gabon
64
41
Mozambique
64
42
Saint Lucia
62
43
Equatorial Guinea
59
North Korea
N/A
– Countries are ranked highest to lowest national IQ score.
Above statistics are taken from a work carried out earlier this decade by Richard Lynn, a British psychologist, and Tatu Vanhanen, a Finnish political scientist. To extract statistics they analized IQ studies from 113 countries.
For my surprise it appeared Belarusian (ranking 10th in the world) have generally higher IQ than Bulgarians (ordering 14th). Anyways being 14th in world IQ Ranking is not bad at all as we still rank in the top 20 smartest nations.
IQ is a relative way to measure intelligence, so I don't believe these statistics are revelant but they give some very general idea about world IQs.
I learned there are some claims that in more developed economies people have higher IQs than less developed. If we take in consideration above statistics its obvious such claims are dubious as you can see there are countries in top 5 countries with highest IQ, and surely Mongolia is not to be ordered in countries with high economic development.
There are plenty of other interesting researches like "Does IQ relates to people Income?", Does Religious people score higher than atheists? According to research done in U.S. Atheists score 6 IQ points higher than Religious people. However most "religous" people IQ tested were from protestant origin so results are relative (I'm sure Orthodox Christian would score higher 🙂 ). The IQ nation world ranks fail in a way that, a social, economic and historical factors are not counted. According to Gallups research, the world poorest people tend to be the most religious, a fact supporting well the saying of all saints who say that for saintly life people who preferred deliberately to live as poor people.
Today on Second of May every year in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church calendar we commemorate the memory of Saint King Boris (Michael) who is a baptizer of Bulgarian nation and among the greatest saint of Bulgaria, perhaps second in saintship after St. John of Rila.
St. King Boris was the ruler of the First bulgarian Empire (852-889) the actual title as we know it from the chronicles is not king but archont which literally means ruler, but as the main chronicles who came to us are Byzantine we have to take in consideration that Byzantine Chronicles aimed to discredit the Bulgarian rulers because of feeling inferior every non-Byzantines who in Byzantine terms were considered barbarians.
He had a notable correspondence with Pope Nicolas II head of the Western Church before the Great Schism. Saint Boris I is famous with with 115 Questions (which are fully preserved). He beseech the pope to sent an apostoles of faith who will teach the new nation to faith in the same time he lead a correspondence with the Byzantine emperor and the Eastern Church.
The pope sent 2 missionaries cardinal Formiosa of Portuens and Bishop Paul of Papulon. King Boris requested for Cardinal Formiosa to become a future archibishop of Bulgaria, but the pope Nicolas II being afraid of loosing ground of a choice of future Bulgarian archibishop rejectedking Boris request it is interesting fact that the same cardinal Formiosa become the next Pope of the Roman Western Church in period (891 – 896).
Taking in consideration the papal's desire to dominate over him and the more freedoms given by the Byzantine Church along with the fact that Saint Cyril and Methodius's pupils came to him with a ready Church Slavonic Glagolic version of the Holy Bible and a new Church language (and considering the fact that the seven pupils of St. Cyril and Methodius were being chased away from Great Moravia (Saint Clement of Ohrid (Kliment Ohridski) and Naum Ohrdiski with Sava, Angelarius and Gorazd) and seeing the fallacy of the filioque addition to the Creed of Faith finally King Boris received baptism by the hands of Patriarch Photius.
He received holy baptismal in year 864, receiving the Christian name Michael (Mihail) receiving his Christian name from his godfather, Emperor Michael III.
According to Church tradition the reason to Baptize in Christian faith was his amazement of an icon of the Judgement Day he saw in one of his visits to Constantinople.
The Church tradition also says saint Boris I's sister have lived for a long time in Constantinople, where she received baptism and once returning to the Bulgaria she bring the light of faith here too.
During his holy reign he has established mass Christianization of Bulgaria, where the traditional ancient pagan traditions and belief in fake gods like Tangra were abolished completely.
St. Tsar Boris has secured the Bulgarian Church an autocephalousy, he also received the saints Cyril and Methodius, when they were banished from Great Moravia.
Our saint king has secured a refuge for st. Cyril and Methodius and provided them with assistance to develop the Slavonic alphabet and literature.
After he abdicated in 889, his eldest son and successor tried to restore the old pagan religion but was deposed by Boris I. During the Council of Preslav which followed that event, the Byzantine clergy was replaced with Bulgarian and the Greek language was replaced with Old Bulgarian as an official language of the Church and the state.
In 889 Boris abdicated the throne and became a monk. His son and successor Vladimir attempted a pagan reaction (to return the Bulgarians to the old belief in Tanra), which brought Boris out of his monastic life in 893 out of zeal for Christ and a fatherhood for the future of Bulgarian nation.
Vladimir was defeated and blinded by a miracle of God as Boris had less soldiers than his pagan son but in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ he showed victorious.
Once defeating his unbelieving son, Boris gathered the Council of Preslav in which the Old Greek language in Church was replaced with Church Slavonic and most imporantly on the council King Boris on the Church assembly placed his third son, Simeon I of Bulgaria on the throne, threatening him with the same fate if he too apostatized.
Simeon I was reluctant to become a secular ruler as according to some of the written sources he was preparing to become a great spiritual leader a monk and perhaps a next archibishop or even patriarch in the newly established autocephalous Bulgarian Church but following the monk rule of humility he decided and accepted the throne but throughout his life he kept his great zeal for monasticism and enlightenment. His ruling become a golden age for the Church Slavonic he financed seriously and worked hardly to prepare educated monks and to translate a major works of the Holy Fathers such as Shestodnev (The Six Days of Creation), Simeonov Sbornik (Simeon's Collection) and many of the key works of saint Athanasius the Great, Saint Basyl the Great, Saint John of Damascus etc.
Boris returned to his monastery, emerging once again in c. 895 to help Simeon fight the Magyars, who had invaded Bulgaria in alliance with the Byzantines. After the passing of this crisis, Boris resumed monastic life and led a holy life until he pass out in year 907.
Here is the daily troparion assigned by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church sang at the churches today (the text is translation from Bulgarian):
St. Boris-Michael, prince of Bulgaria, Troparion
Full of the fear of God, and enlightened by holy baptism, thou becamest a habitation of the Holy Spirit,
O right-believing King Boris; and having established the Orthodox Faith in the land of Bulgaria,
and set aside the scepter of kingship,
thou madest thine abode in the wil derness,
didst flourish in ascetic struggles, and found grace before the Lord.
And now, standing before the throne of the Most High, pray thou, that He grant unto us who entreat thee salva tion for our souls.
Yesterday I was on a birthday of a one girl Krisi she is 18 already. It was a standard teen party. Awful place, I drunk 3 beers and smoked a lot of cigaretes in general we discussed with some ppl Does the Lord exist things. Is evolution real is it possible at all things like this. There was one boy who was keen on Free Software GPL etc. I realized I’m a real psycho after I started to convince him Windows and M$ products are much better than free software :]. After 3 hours speaking like a 15 years m$ user. When walking back for home. I asked my self what the heck? What I did I’m real psycho ;]. Zuio and I broke 1 flowerpot when doing POGO on a Hipodil song. I eat some strange salad with hands ( I pretended to be a Bangla person ) :]. Nomen drunk a lot and got angry at a guy and proposed to start a fight:]. In 5:30 a.m. we were already at home. Our mood got fucked up a little when going back to home. In the morning Papi wake me up and suggested to go to a coffee, I aggreed as usual but I did misunderstood about the place where we decided to see, and waited on other place after that I realized I did a mistake and he meant we have to see each other in the Winter Theather not the Summer One (silly me). After that normal day I eat. I did some server descriptions, played mame in Nomen (I went his home). I was able to start gxmame to work in fullscreen in the end (my integrated video card is doing alot of problems about the games) but I found out the xmame -ef 1 option. That one rules.END—–