Posts Tagged ‘fish’

Some of the most important Symbols for Orthodox Christians in The Eastern Orthodox Church – Symbols in the Eastern Orthodox Christian Faith (Eastern Orthodox Symbolism) and Christian Symbolism in the Roman Catholic Church (Symbolism in Western Catholicism)

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

Some-of-the-most-important-symbols-for-orthodox-christiains-in-the-eastern-orthodox-church-symbols-in-eastern-orthodox-faith.

Yesterday, while browsing randomly I came across an interesting Roman Catholic webpage.
The website is created by Catholics with the idea to better explain the Catholic religion and Symbolism.
Though as an Orthodox Christian, my interest towards Roman Catholicism is only scientific, it's really interesting to see the common symbolism surrounding Roman Catholicism and compare with the Orthodox Christian symbolism. Many of the Roman Catholic Symbols are equal symbol with the one we nowadays used in the orthodox church.
I presume this common symbolism between Orthodox and Roman Catholic church,has stayed the same from the time before Roman Catholics split from the Only Holy Apostolic Church  to become the Church of the West Roman Empire, that's how the naming Roman Catholic came forward.

To find out more about Roman Catholic symbolism please see the following links I've mirrored the information from Fisheater's website which is btw is a great website targeting Roman Catholic layman. Everything on the website is explained in a simple everyday language without too much terminology which makes it a great resource for Roman Catholic Christians and people like me who who like to take a look in Roman Catholicism.

It's really a strange and intriguing fact let's call it a "co-incidence" that the inverted cross (upside-down) cross,also called "Peter's cross" on which saint Peter was crucified is also a symbol of Papacy .
It's a popular fact that nowadays Satanist use a similar inverted cross to the one said to be symbol of papacy for their "Black Masses" (Satanic Masses). Maybe some Roman Catholic priest or Cardinal has to explain, how comes that the Roman Catholics ended with such a significant symbol used nowdays in anti-christian satanic religion to be also a symbol of their beloved Pope??

I will skip forward to the heart of this article, which is to explain the Christian Symbolism which is important for us the Eastern Orthodox Christians. Many of the symbols might have in common, also with other Christian early Churches like the Coptic Oriental Orthodox Church, the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Churches and other Chruches which somehow are closer to the One Holy and Apostolic Church – the Orthodox Church but officially are not in communion with us the Orthodox Christians.

Here I'll share only the most notable Christian Symbolism which is also used in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Many of this symbolism was always bothering me while in Churches or Monasteries and was always pushing me to more and more questions without answers, thus I finally did some research on this symbols in get a better understanding on my Orthodox Christian faith.

Since I don't have a Theologian education and many of us the ordinary layman's in the church doesn't have such education I hope this orthodox Christian symbolism shared here and it's meanings will be of interest and will help you fortify your good faith in God and our Orthodox Christian faith.

Lamb of God Christian Symbol
Lamb

Lamb: symbol of Christ as the Paschal Lamb and also a symbol for Christians (as Christ is our Shepherd and Peter was told to feed His sheep).

This symbol is also presented in Bulgaria on the little yellow book they sell in our Bulgarian Orthodox Churches.
This tiny book contains the Divine Liturgy compiled by God's inspiration by st. John Chrysostom
If you're coming from an Catholic Background and you hold interest for Orthodox Christianity, as historically East Orthodox Christianity Symbol of Faith as well as basic doctrines were kept untouched, you might consider reading online here The Divine Liturgy by St. John Chrysostom
It's really important to say that the Divine Liturgy by St. John Chrysostom is the "backbone" of the church life, since it's the main and most served Liturgy in the eastern Orthodox Churches around the world.

Dove and Russian Patriarch
Dove: symbol of the The Holy Spirit and used especially in representations of our Lord's Baptism and the Pentecost. It is also used to recall Noe's dove, a harbinger of hope.

Chirchoao, Chi-Rho Sigla
"Chi-Rho" or "sigla": the letters "X" and "P," representing the first letters of the title "Christos," were eventually put together to form this symbol for Christ ("Chi" is pronounced "Kie"). It is this form of the Cross that the Emperor of Byzantia Constantine saw in his vision along with the Greek words, TOUTO NIKA, and which mean "in this sign thou shalt conquer.

Orthodox Tau Cross
"thau" or "tau": the T-shaped cross is mentioned in the Old Testament and is seen as a foreshadowing of the Cross of Christ.
Ezechiel 9:4:
"And the Lord said to him: Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and
mourn for all the abominations that are committed in the midst thereof."
I've noticed that the tau_cross is often worn by Orthodox Monks as "a badge" on their clothes somewhere in the right of their chest

Greek Orthodox Cross
The Greek Orthodox Cross This symbol is one of the earliest Christian symbols which emerged right after Christ's resurrection.
The Greek Cross has all fours members the same shape and form (crux quadrata) and usually suggests the Christian church rather than a symbol of Christ's suffering.

Jerusalem Cross
Jerusalem Cross: also called the "Crusaders' Cross," it is made up of 5 Greek Crosses which are said to symbolize a) the 5 Wounds of Christ; and/or b) the 4 Gospels and the 4 corners of the earth (the 4 smaller crosses) and Christ Himself (the large Cross). This Cross was a common symbol used during the wars against Islamic aggression. (see less stylized version at right)

Baptismal Cross
Baptismal Cross: consisting of the Greek Cross with the Greek letter "X", the first initial of the title "Christ," this Cross is a symbol of regeneration, hence, its association with Baptism. Usually the Orthodox priest dress is decorated with a sign like this.

Red Orthodox Egg
The Scarlet red Egg:
Church tradition has it that St. Mary Magdalen went to Rome and met with the Emperor Tiberius to tell him about the Resurrection of Jesus. She held out an egg to him as a symbol of this, and he scoffed, saying that a man could no more rise from the dead than that egg that she held could turn scarlet. The egg turned deep red in her hands, and this is the origin of Easter eggs, and the reason why Mary Magdalen is often portrayed holding a scarlet egg.

Ichthus an early Christian Symbol
Ichtus (Ichthys) – The Fish:
Fish: the fish — ever-watchful with its unblinking eyes — was one of the most important symbols of Christ to the early Christians. In Greek, the phrase, "Jesus Christ, Son of God Savior," is "Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter." The first letters of each of these Greek words, when put together, spell "ichthys," the Greek word for "fish" (ICQUS ). This symbol can be seen in the Sacraments Chapel of the Catacombs of St. Callistus. Because of the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the fish symbolized, too, the Eucharist (see stylized fish symbol at right). Important note to make, here is that nowdays this sign's variations is not too often to be seen in Orthodox Churches. It's highly adopted by protestant Christians, seeing this sign on somebody's car or inside his home is a sure sign that probably he adhere's to Christian teachings different from orthodoxy.

Alpha Omega orthodox symbol
The Alpha-Omega symbol
Alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet, and Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, became a symbol for Christ due to His being called "the First and the Last." The roots of symbolizing these attributes of God go back further, all the way to the Old Testament where, in Exodus 34:6, God is said to be "full of Goodness and Truth." The Hebrew spelling of the word "Truth" consists of the 3 letters "Aleph," "Mem," and "Thaw" — and because "Aleph" and "Thaw" are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the ancients saw mystical relevance in God's being referred to as "Truth." At any rate, the Greek Alpha and Omega as a symbol for Christ has been found in the Catacombs, Christian signet rings, post-Constantine coins, and the frescoes and mosaics of ancient churches.

IC XC Nika Orthodox Symbol
The "IC XC Nika":
comes from Ancient Greek and was a widespread ancient Christian Symbol which is nowadays still present in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. IC XC Nika literally translated to english means "IC XC = Jesus Christ, NIKA = Glory to". In other words translated to modern english IC XC NIKA means Glory be to Jesus Christ!

Many Protestant Christians, nowdays falsely believe and claims this fish Christian symbol preceded the Crucifix as a symbol of veneration of Jesus and his Cross sufferings in the Church. This kind of belief is a falsely spread along many Protestant or "Evangelical" Christian denominations and Methodists. to be seen in many ancient Christian Church buildings is a Christian symbol. Today, some ancient Orthodox Churches still contain the "Christian fish" symbol. The reason why this symbol was used by early Christians is as a remembrance of the great miracle of Jesus to feed 5000 with 2 fishes and seven breads.

Holy Eucharist Cup, Bread and Wine

The Holy Eucharist vessels used by Orthodox Priests This is the cup of salvation as also called during the Divine Liturgy each time, the Wine and the Blood that the priest prepares in that Holy Cup is transformed by The Holy Spirit into a veracious flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Orthodox Byzantine Coat of Arms
The byzantine coat of arms
is an ancient Christian symbol used in the early Byzantine Church, nowadays it can be observed only in the Orthodox Churches.
It symbolizes the power of the Byzantian empire under the guidance of the the Holy Lord and the Gospel Truths.

Orthodox Bishop Crown
The Orthodox Bishop Crown is only worn by Bishops in the Orthodox Church. This crown indicates the Bishop's Church and spiritual (rank) and dignity.

Byzantine Orthodox Cross
Byzantine Orthodox or Russian Orthodox Cross
Is used most often by Eastern Catholics and Russian Orthodox, this Cross is the Byzantine Cross with the footrest at a diagonal. This slant is said to represent one of a few things:
– the footrest wrenched loose from the Christ's writhing in intense physical suffering; lower side representing "down," the fate of sinners, while the elevated side represents Heaven;
– the lower side represents the bad thief (known to us as Gestas through the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" ("Gospel of Nicodemus") while the elevated side to Christ's right represents the thief who would be with Him in Paradise (St. Dismas);
– the "X" shape of the slanted "footrest" against the post symbolizes the cross on which St. Andrew was crucified.

Megaloschema a dress of a schimonk
The Megaloschema is a dress worn by schimonks. This monk rank is actually the highest possible rank an orthodox Christian monk can achieve. The symbolism on the dress is a brief form of:

  • IC XC (IECOYC XPICTOC) "Jesus Christ"
  • IC XC NIKA ("IECOYC XPICTOC NIKA") meaning: "Jesus Christ is Victorious"

The letters below IC XC Nika has a meaning – The Light of Christ shines on all.

  • XX. X.X letters. – means "Christ bestows grace on Christians"
  • The 4 Thitha (called) signs are a symbol for: Vision of God Divine wonder

Then the

  • T. K. P. G – Means "The Place of the Skull becomes Paradise"
  • The text placed in the lowest translated to English is "AdamThe First Man" and also is a symbol for the Place of the Skull (Golgotha).
  • In the Orthodox Church and the Church fathers teaches us that Golgotha or the Place of the Skull is the Place where the first man (Adam) was buried, and by God's divine providence coincides with the place where our Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified.

Orthodox Bishop Dress
Orthodox Priest dress / robe
This dress is only worn by Orthodox Christian Bishops.

Bulgarian Orthodox cross with 4 lights
The Cross with four lights emitating near the center of the cross This cross is actually used in more modern times as a Christian Orthodox symbol, The four lights coming out of the cross are added,
as the gospels speak that Christ is the Sun of righteousness
I've had quite a long time trying to figure out why exactly this cross is made with this 4 lights. It was a real joy when one time a priesttold me the meaning.
It's interesting fact that most of the Roman Catholic's crosses nowdays have the four lights radiating from Christ's Crucifix or the Cross symbolizing the Crucifix.

This is all I will say for symbolism for now. I hope this Christian symbolism will shed some light on the matters of Symbolism in both the Orthodox and the Catholoic eastern Church. I'll be glad if somebody out there more literate on the subject comment on my post and correct me if I'm wrong with smething.

Saint George’s day in an Elder – Spiritual father Georgi (91 years old Priest) in Jeglarci’s Village Bulgaria

Friday, May 9th, 2014

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/otec-father-Georgi-Jeglarci-village-spiritual-elder-in-Bulgaria

This year on 6th of May – saint George's day Church feast and army celebration in Bulgaria I had the blessing to be in a small village with 868 citizens – Jiglarci (Jeglarci).
Jeglarci is situated about 40 km from Dobrich. Father Georgi from Jiglarci is a well known priest in Dobrich region. He is spiritual father of many priests, monks and nuns here in Bulgaria. This is the 3rd time I'm visiting Jiglarci one time I was on Great and Holy Friday – the day on which the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified and one time I was a few months ago with some brothers and sisters from Holy Trinity Church in Dobrich. This time I had the blessing to go fr. Georgi with my wife Svetlana with Russian family from moscow Mihail and Mariana, and Denica (a sister from Church in Dobrich).

Jiglarci-Cyrkva-Church-building-where-father-Georgi-from-Jiglarci-serves

The Church saint George in Jeglarci village

Each time I visit father Georgi I have the blessing to see and hear a living proof of God's existence. Father's Georgi from Jeglarci is famous all around Bulgaria for being one of the spiritual elders of Bulgaria. He is now 91 years old but even though his age  continues his service for God (serves Holy Liturgy every day during great Lent!), continue to preach and accept dozens of people almost daily looking for spiritual advice, spiritual help, confession, or questions on how to deal with life hardship situations.
Father Georgi is known in the world under the secular name Georgi Stoyanov Peev his life is full of miracles, interesting events and wondrous facts. In communism times of atheism and Orthodox Christian faith persecutions, father Georgi was one of the many priests who underwent tortures and persecutions for his faith in Christ. Because of his firm faith of zealous priest, the Lord endowed the fr. with great spiritual gifts. In short I will mention some facts about fr. Georgi From Jeglarci life as the father is an example of a living saint, very much like another Bulgarian Church Elder (Dijado) Dobri from Baylovo.

Father Georgi has been nurtured with Christian virtues since his childhood – his aunt (sister of his father) was a nun. By his own words, "Since a child, the joy of my life was in faith". Since his youth years his faith was strong and because of that God has helped him in numerous times. Fr. Georgi had 6 children 3 sons and 3 daughters. All of his sons choose the way of priesthood and are now priests in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. His nephew fr. Stoyan is also a priest in Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Dobrich. The father become priest while being 43 years old, by studying in seminary after feeing the call of God and need for firm believers and mass disbelieve in atheistic communist times. In seminary father Georgi studied together with his son. To be able to support himself and his family financially, he worked all kind of hard labour  (sand mining near his village). His all life was labor and prayer in all his free time during studing he learned the church services, readhing the living of saints and holy bible.

Thanks to the house whom he turned into a small chapel almost 20 people become priests later in Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In his priesthood fr. Georgi was among the minority which opposed the ungodly communistic regime, he rejected to comply with communist desires to close the Church in Jeglarci and as a responce to their closure opened as a Church his own house. He was questioned and asked for reports being increminated from local Communist authorities, threatened with death and called in police stations many times because of his refusal to stop his service in Church and preaching the Gospel.

Here is a story of fr. Georgi's youth:

"Our Lord as a Good Father, not only listens our prayers but also reads in the hearts. In 1953 my brother Atanas was a soldier. We received a letter, that soldiers will be dismissed in January next year, this was a very long time. It was st. Dimiter's feast and I wanted my brother to be home for Christmas. At night I prayed the Lord, simple and by all my heart: "Lord for you nothing is hard or impossible. I beg you – in one way or another make it possible, that my brother Atanas to come home earlier.

I had a strong faith in God. My faith in God was so strong that I was feeling like being able to fly. In 3 days later only, when I saw my brother Atanas on the front door, my legs started shaking and I sat down, started crying and in my thoughts started giving thanks to the Lord, "Lord, Lord I'm a big sinner and what you've done for me the sinner …
In a short while, my brother told me how in a human way everything ordered in a way that he was able to come home, 3 days after my prayer. When I received the letter on St. Dimiter's day I've prayed, the prayer was heard and God moved. The human mind is a spiritual substance connected with God. God orders things and we in a human way receive them. On the next day after st. Dimiter's feast the coy was gathered and the commander said, "Atanas Stoyanov Peichev, make 5 steps forward and start Marching!". Together with another man commander sent them in hospital, where a doctor had to inspect their health. The two soldiers took their luggate, foreseeing that they might be kept in hospital. The health check prooved they're healthy. There were 4 months until service completion but in hospital the doctor told them – "Come on go home. Your service is over". – Do you see how in a human way the things ordered. Disbelievers would say it was a coincidence but believers knows the Lord hears our prayers, when they're prayed by our whole being and with pure heart."

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Saint George Church in Jeglarci – Altar and Dveri

Another of his stories is connected with fasting:

"The fasting of the body is a big power. It does clean up the body and draws us near God. The fasting gives a big power. I was hindered in many ways, disbelieving authorities in the village has done me many attempts to do me evil but the Lord has saved me. Didn't allowed them nothing bad to happen to me. He grant me powers, spirit to speak the truth and to not resign from righteousness. But I leave fasting …

Fasting and Prayer are lights leading to God. I was warned 3 times by our Lord about fasting significance. When we were living in North Dobrudja, following thing happened to me: " I was 15 years old. Near our village Karamankyoij a river rich of fish was flowing. One day my bigger brother cought a lot of fish from the white one. My father and all of us was tempted, we wanted eating and it was during the Great Lent. My father said, "Okay prepare the fish and let us eat, God will forgive us?" Notice he said that in faith! apostol Paul writes, 'who eat eats for the Lord and who doesn't eat- also doesn't eat for the Lord'". We have done so as well, we were big family 7-8 children,  grandma, grandpa, my father, mother. Some eat others doesn't. I was in the group of those who ate. We ate and we went to bed. A sudden pain in stomach came … hard to explain. Nothing helps, a thought came to my mind: "Lord forgive me, I will no longer eat fish during fasting". The pain immediately disappeared I immediately got well.

But unfortunately I was weak. On the other day my brother prepared fish again and invited me.

– Genyo, come lets eat.
– I suffered yesterday – I don't want.
– Don't worry your pains was from something else not from the fish, come eat I beg you.

I was tempted and ate. We played until night time and all was well with me. In night, I fall asleep, but suddenly the pain come again, 3 times more painful. I thought I am dying, I was all sweating. My mother and grandma tried to heal me but nothing helped. Then I turned with a prayer to the Lord: "Please Lord forgive me this time also." And out of a sudden I hear a noise like from many waters coming like from heaven. Something went through me and took away the pain. There was a flash in front of my eyes. Do you see how merciful is the Lord!"

Among the many spiritual gifts of fr. Georgi is the gift of "foreseeing" (thoughts and deeds, and future). Many people who visited him later narrated the father told them things which helped them improve their spiritual life. During my first visit of the father I had the possibility to raise few questions on my spiritual life, his answers was a proove for myself that the fr. has truly the gift of sagacity.
Father Georgi had many dreams during his life and many of his dreams were prophetic about future events to come. By his own words often God spoke to him in "dreams and visions". A very notable gift he has is the gift of humility and pure Godly love. He speaks in his stories about everyone including of many who tried to do him evil with profound love and forgiveness.

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By prayers of father Georgi many miracles has happened, he openly speaks of this miracles, believing that through this the weak in faith are strengthened. The father says "Even if the whole earth is convincing me to deny what I saw and experienced with my spiritual eyes I will not forsake.

His humility is sincere, he says about himself: "I am just negligible mot and the miracle is not in human deed but in God's. God uses a lot simple people and through them creates miracle to edify "the smart", those which is of God is being remembered like it happened today.  Wondrous are God's deeds!"

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"The Spiritual deed is very hard. I have worked many kind of works, when you get tired you take a rest, and for the spirit there is no rest.
What to say, how to behave, how to determine the spiritual in you, to be vigilant for your food and for body pureness for pureness of your thoughts and your heart … And of course the Prayer! This is a hard labour. The devil is trying to hit us exactly there, because in all those is the direct relationship with God. Your thought is careless, you remember "important" things, you get tired to be concentrated … And it is most harder to collect your mind and feelings and enter the heart with pure infinite faith that the Lord is with you and he hears you and then pray from all your heart and soul … So is this all easy?! And there is no end and there is no station. But once you live like this there is delight and you can't live no longer in another way …"

 

 

I work for money if you want loyalty hire a dog – thinking that can solve your internal workplace (dilemmas) issues :)

Wednesday, February 12th, 2014

I-work-for-money-if-you-want-loyalty-hire-a-dog

I WORK FOR MONEY IF YOU WANT LOYALTY – HIRE A DOG!

I was told about those picture few months ago by a friend (Ivan Pushkaroff – Pushi) while we were drinking beer together in  (Delfincheto – a pub more known among people under the name "Ribkata (The Fish)" – A Metal Music pub in Studentski Grad (Sofia's Student City). By the way if you're in Sofia and near "Studentski Grad" be sure to drop by there – they serve great and always fresh fish also for ex-metal heads for me it is always nice to get some memories about  "the good old metal years"

when I tried to complain how difficult it is for me on my job place. I'm a quite sensitive person and a perfectionist and always try to do a great job. Often however there are many obstacles to do your job in right way (as you depend on so many bureaucracy and external people that even if you do your best someone else can mix it up and screw all your effort by not doing his part of the job. The failure of project or Task due to inadeaquacy of someone else involved to do his job right can leave you with a feeling that you have failed even though it is completely not your fault. As these days I'm quite stressed on my job and I have to work on a lot of badly designed projects (and improperly) assigned tasks – yes in big companies it is like these "the right hand doesn't know what the left one is doing". I remembered my dear friend advice to not take it seriously or personally and decided to put these funny picture in hope that these will help me and others to deal with situation of hardships in job in a humorous way After all I'm just a mercenary and I'm doing my best right now in my job at HP … I work for money if they expect higher degree of loyalty let them hire a dog 🙂

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—–

On a beach again

Monday, July 14th, 2008

Yesterday I was to the beach again. We went first to a place called “The robinson” which was a terrible place. A small “beach” with oldnon functional quay. There were some of the planks missing so I had to walk very carefully at some places there were nails.At first I almost fall down from the quay there were a broken plank and I lost equilibrium thanks God I was able to balance myself and not fall.If I had fallen down I would probably seriously hurt or even die, cause down there the sea was shallow, the possible scenarious was to seriously hurt myself or even die .. Just a minute later a friend of mine who was walking in front of me warned me to be careful with the nails on some of the planks and even though I was carefully watching my steps I step over a nail. The nail pierced my sport shoes. At this moment I felt just a little hurt so I thoght I didn’t hurt seriously. Anyway I decided to take off the shoe and sock and blood started sprinkling. It took me some time to come back to the beach because I had to walk back through all that broken planks on the quay. Thanks to God I moved back to the beach where I put my leg in the salty water. Nomen and Javor were going to Kavarna at this moment so Toto (the guy who was with me) did call to Nomen and told him to get some medical alcohol (spirits) from the drug-store. After they came we used the alcolol to wash the wound in order disinfect it. Later while I was sitting on the beach Toto and Nomen went to the sea to catch some mussels. Toto was diving and searching for musselsfor some time and he quit at a point because he wasn’t able to collect enough. They came with only two mussels. At this time Javor tried to catch some fish from the quay, again unsuccesfully. Later we decided to move to another beach because I proposed so, I hated this place really plus it location was too near to the sea shore. We tried to move to another nice beach but since it was proprietary we wasn’t allowed to establish the tent and make the camp fire. So at the end we decided to move to Topola’s beach. The night there was a nerdy one, Toto and Javor were trying to make fun of me and I got really angry .. They made a fire and we baked some meat balls and had a nice dinner. The sky was full of stars, really beautiful ! I spend maybe an hour watching at the sky adoring the mighty work of God’s hands. I slept that Night at Nomen’s car (Audio A4 :)). At the morning Nomen and Toto and after that Mitko came one after another and woked me up for a few times at the end when I realized i won’t be able to sleep anymore and stand up and dressed my bathing trunks and went to the beach. I entered 3 times at the sea and had a really nice baths, we played volley ball in the water and had great time. At midday we had to set off to home because Nomen was going to travel back to Sofia in the afternoon. There was a problem one of the car’s tyre was passing the air out so Toto and Nomen used there 3l337 skillz to exchange the broken tyre. At somewhere around 14:30 we were back in Dobrich. I haven’t been to my grandma for a day so I went to her apartment (she lives 6 stages above my parent’s apartment. After that I went to the Church where I lighted few candles and prayed to God to have mercy over me the sinner and my family. On my way back home I met Papi (Paco). Papi is very guy a christian who for some time was like a Spiritual Father to me. We had a walk at the city park and spoke a bit about our life and the christianity’s face in general and how poor the condition of the christianity and faith in general is. Later at home my mother helped me to exercise the driving lessons tests. Another thing I did the recent 2 or 3 days was to configure a FreeBSD server who was going to host a website it was required the server to have Apache, PHP, MySQL and Qmail.Configuring Apache, PHP, MySQL on was pretty straight forward. The real problem occured when I tried to install Qmail from ports. I followed a freebsd qmail tutorial and at the end I was not happy with the qmail installation. After that I tried using the FreeBSD qmail toaster. But again I should say that FreeBSD qmail toaster is a total mess. Then I decided to go in another direction and tried to install qmail following the qmailrocks method I’m not really sure if I did everything the way I had to because I was really in a hurry to start a working SMTP server to send and receive mails. At the end I used a lot of custom configuration files and daemontools+qmail-spamcontrol+vpopmail ports in a ways I use on few of the other Qmails I administrate. Thanks God everything worked just fine and now I’m happy to have another functional qmail server on FreeBSD.END—–

How to add multi-lingual (multi language) support in Joomla 1.5

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Joomfish MultiLanguage Support enable plugin

If you are facing the task to build a multi-language enabled Joomla website like me then I think my experience on building a multi-language website with Joomla CMS might be beneficial to you.

In order to build a multi-language website in Joomla you will have to use Joom!Fish multilanguage Joomla support plugin.

The plugin is a bit buggy, but in overall it will allow you to build a multi language website and consequently add the page different languate translations.

To install the plugin on your 1.5 Joomla based install;

1. Download the JoomFish plugin

Install it the usual joomla way joomla plugins are installed, via;

Extensions -> Install/Uninstall

2. Enable the Joom!Fish plugin

To do so navigate to;

Extensions -> Module Manager

Enable the module by ticking under the Enabled column on the line where you read Language Selection

3. Install Language packs for all languages which should be supported by JoomFish

Now as the JoomFish Language selection module is enabled, one needs to install the necessery Joomla Language Packs for all the languages which the Joomla based website is planned to support.

In my case I neede a three lingual website, which will support only the Languages:
 

  • Bulgarian
  • Russian
  • and

  • English

Thus I went on Joomla! Extensions Directory – extensions.joomla.org and downloaded the the three language packs I needed (English, Russian and Bulgarian).

Again the Installation of the language packs is trivial and is done through the Joomla’s:

Extensions -> Install/Uninstall

After installation to find out all the languages your Joomla installation will support you can navigate inside Joomla admin to:

Extensions -> Install/Uninstall -> Languages

Screenshot of my installed list of Joomla Language packs Screenshot of my installed list of Joomla Language Packs (Multi-Language setup)

Another way to check the list of enabled installed languages supported in your Joomla is via the menu:

Site -> Control Panel -> Language Manager

Something important here is to a default language is set in the Language Manager

4. Create translations from default installed language to the rest of the installed ones

Go to the JoomFish component through the menus:

Components -> Joom!Fish -> Control Panel

If all your language packs are correctly installed and enabled so far you should notice them listed while clicking on Content Languages

If all the Joomla Languages which your website is supposed to support are not there, this means something is generally wrong with installed lanaguage packs and you need to go back few steps and check what might be wrong, hopefully that’s not the case 😉

To immediately start translating your Joomla website to another from one language to another one, use the control menus:

Components -> Joom!Fish -> Translation

Here is screenshot on how this menu would look like:

Joomla JoomFish Plugin Translate Menu Screenshot

Notice in the above screenshot the Languages: and Content Elements dropdown menus, this ones are actually the two menus used for all language translations.

One needs to select under Languages: menu the Language to which will be translated to, while in Content Elements: has to be choseen the exact site elements which are about to be translated.

The Content Elements: necessery to be translated in most of the cases would be just Menus and Contents

Translating that will have your website user frontend be completely translated info the foreign language choosen in the Languages: dialog.

After finalizing the translations of all Articles available in Menus and Contents make sure the translation is Published, by selecting the Published tick, below I show you an example language translation edit of an article, on the left side you see the Published tick which need to be enabled, for translation to appear officially in Joomla.

Joomla Joomfish published tick enabled screenshot

After completing all the translations of elements offered by the translation window, save the translation by pressing the Apply buttonFurther on you can check the website in a new tab, if everything is okay with translations, on the down left corner of the website footer you should notice the flags of enabled languages to appear.
Clicking on each of the languages should show you the website in the language choosen (if you have previously done the translation to the respective menus).

5. Solving a minor bug in JoomlaFish which prevents translated language text to display on webpages

During translation of my website from Bulgarian to English, I have noticed a bug of JoomFish, even though I did the translation of all my Menus and website Content elements and saved the translations, refreshing the website in a new tab and choosing the desired translation was constantly displaying the error message:

“There are no translations available”

I was not able to find a good explanation on the Internet on why exactly and how this bug occurs, but by some experiments I come up with a workaround.

If you get the “There are no translations available” after properly configuring Joom!Fish Multilang support, in order to solve the error you will have to select temporary a different default website language from the one currently specified by your website.

(E.g.) go to jooma admin panel location:

Site -> Control Panel -> Language Manager

and trigger the default language configured to some of the other available ones. After reverting back in a couple of seconds this setting to your desired default language the annoying: “There are no translations available” message will disappear and your translated content will appear on the website.

6. Changing the location of language flags (language links) in Joomla’s JoomFish

I have seen plenty of people online looking for a solution on how they can change the default image flags location, which by default is placed a place which is not that intuitive and visible by the user.

Maybe I did not searched enough but from my quick research it appears there is no information available on how the placement of language flags switching menu can be changed.

Even though I couldn’t find a solution to change the langage flags in JoomFish , after a bunch of experiments I find a way to do it! 🙂

The placement of Language selector buttons can be easily adjusted through following the Joomla Admin menu:

Extensions -> Module Mamager -> Language Selection

After opening the Language Selection , you will notice the Position: dropdown menu setting. The setting has a bunch of optionsand allows you to choose the best preferred placement of the language selector flag buttons, just take few minutes to experiment which settingfits you best and choose the one most suitable to you and you’re done! 😉

Honestly I never imagined that building a multi-lingual website with Joomla will be such a piece of cake.

The only drawback with JoomFish, is the way language translation is implemented as it is not enough user friendly, anyways having the option to build multi language website for free using open source CMS solution is great. Ain’t it? 🙂