Posts Tagged ‘Heaven’

Pentecost the Birthday of the Church and the receival of the Gifts of Holy Spirit of Faith, Hope, Love for the Mankind

Saturday, June 19th, 2021

For one more year it is Pentecost 50 days after the celebrated Easter (Resurrection of Christ), we celebrate the feast that marked the birth of the Church as a Body of Christ that is binding all its members us the ordinary people who are baptized in the Name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

Pentecost is a day of mystery that turned human history, as the same Spirit who was in Christ and has been in the Father in the Holy Trinity has descended from Heaven sent as a helper to each and every believer in Christ to strenghten and guide him in his narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Eternal salvation promised by the Savior Christ.

There is many books written about Pentecost but no book or intellectual thought is capable to transpond one's experience of receiving the Holy Spirit in the Soul and Heat of man. This glorious event is experienced by every Christian during baptism and the following Mystery of Chrismation when the Priest baptizes a new member in the name of God and is experienced, by us in the mystery of repentence when crying for our bad deeds and transgressions of the law of God, we cry in sorrow to God asking for forgiveness and renewal. The descent of the Holy Spirit over us is supernatural event that put the beginning of the contemporary understanding in our contemporary civillization of supernaturality and the realm of spirits as we understand them today where the Spirit of God is over all things.

On Pentecost it is the Holy Spirit who descended towards the Holy Apostles giving them the Super natural powers to Heal The Sick, Prophecise, speak in all human tongues, chase away evil spirits and do multitude of unseen wonderworks in human history that are continuing even to this day in the Church. The Holy Spirit has gifted all Church members with the gifts of the Spirit of Faith, Hope and Love, Endurance, Manhood, and all the virtues of man that were in Christ not because of a human effort but for the Love of God for man.
The abiding of the Holy Spirit in man is a never ending Heaven and a bliss granted for man for free. Saint Seraphim of Sarov has well described in his Conversation with Motovilov what is the experience to have the God the Holy Spirit in One's self.

The_Descent-of-the_Holy_Spirit-Soshestvie-Svetago-Duha

A bit more on the facts around the Descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles is in my prior article here , though this is just a very basic attempt to transfer the meaning of the feast as definitely all the books on the earth and all the human knowledge put together is like a drop in the universe compared to Holy Spirit itself.

The Spirit of Truth which the world could not comprehend was sent by Jesus Christ first to the apostles and the desciples and then to each and every Christian member of the One Holy Eastern Orthodox Church throughout human history until the end of ages.

Pentecost_Rabula_Gospels-6th-century
One of the most ancient icons of the Pentecost Syriac Rabbula Gospels 6th century

Happy Feast to All Christians ! Happy Birthday Church !

Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм / History of Biblbe old Testament in Russian – Kids movie

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

While looking for Bulgarian Orthodox Bible to listen. I submed upon a Russian video,re-telling the story of old testament in Russian. I decided to share the movie as I liked how the story of old testament is retold. Its on very understandable language, so even kids about 5 years old can understand. It is perfect for big kids like me too. After all as the saviour Jesus Christ said all of us Christians, has to "become like Kids to see the Kingdom of Heaven". Watching such movies is  definitely a good way to strengthen faith 🙂 Enjo!


 

History of Old Testament Russian Cartoon / Истории Ветхого Завета мультфильм все серии

By the way currently Russian Orthodox Church is in big bloom and there are plenty of other Animations for kids revealing the truths of faith for the tiny one. I hope one day, if God Bless and have kids myself I will play this video to teach them the wonders of our Christian faith.

Christ is Risen! Truly he is Risen ! – Christ is Risen in many Languages Happy Easter ! :)

Monday, April 21st, 2014

Voskresenie_Hristovo_Resurrection_of_Christ

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

 

 

CHRIST IS RISEN!
 

Trip to Ruen Monastery Saint John of Rila – The birthplace of a saint, a God piece of Heaven beauty on earth

Tuesday, February 25th, 2014

ruenski_monastery-beautiful-mountain-view-near-birthplace-of-a-saint

Last Saturday me and my wife Svetlana together with a Christian friend family (Tsvetomir and Dimitrina with their < 2 years old boy – Boris) went to a small 1 day pilgrimage trip to Ruen Monastery – (Ruenski manastery). The holy cloister is situated very near Skrino village, the birth village of greatest Bulgarian saint saint John of Rila. The village is located about 90 km from Sofia and is very near to town of Boboshevo. To reach Ruen Monastery when coming from Sofia, the traveller has to move in direction of "Kulata / (The Tower)" and to pass the village of Djerman and Usoika. Then before entering the village of Skrino there is a 5 km steep car road leading to the monastery.

ruenski_manastir_near_sightview

Saint John of Rila lived in Skrino until his twenties and due to Christian tradition he accepted monkhood in the nearby monastery next to Skrino and a bit later started a hermit life dwelling himself in his first hermit cave situated near Skrino. The Cave of hermit dwelling of Saint John of Rila is now situated about 200 meters from Ruen Monastery and represents a tiny cave encraved in a rock. The rock is so small that maximum of 2 people can be in cave together. It is amazing how a man could live in such a small space.

hermit_cave_of_saint_John_of_Rila_near-his-birthplace
 

Current Ruen monastery Church is recently rebuild in 1995 and the rest of monastic buildings are completed in y. 2002, but according to history it is known a monastery was existent on same place known in medieval times under name "The Holy Father" in  XV century.

Veneration to Saint John of Rila was so high in mid centuries that obviously people recognized Saint John of Rila among the greatest saints.

The nature view near monastery is breath taking .. On the road to it there is Struma river the monastery itself is situated in Vlahina mountain from it there is a sightview of part of Rila mountain.

piece-of-heaven-on-earth-near-ruenski-monastir

Near the monastery buildings there are two paths one leading to the Cave of Hermitage of Saint John of Rila and another one leading to a place with a Cross visible from throughout the region.

the-cross-on-top-of-mountain-ruenski-monastery

The monastery though being among the newest rebuilded ones in Bulgaria has already 3 saint holy relics, one of which is Holy relics from Saint George the Victorious. We had the blessings by God's grace to also meet RuenAbbot Father Ioan (John). We asked the father how many monks are inhabiting the monastery just to get the humorous answer that half of the inhabitants are present (meaning currently in the monastery there are only 2 monks). Fatehr John was evidently very young kindhearted  person  probably in his 30s. He was quite hospitable and invited us for tea and cookies in the small monastic dining room. We had quite a few spiritual talks and spoke on hardship of being a monk in nowadays confused world.

We were send with the Father's blessings and a gift – an icon of saint John of Rila and a book with the history of the monastery from ancient times to now – the book included also the Testament of Saint John of Rila

On our way back before entering Boboshevo we stopped to see and pray near an ancient Church from the 5th century consecrated under saint Theodor (Stratilat) – a Christian martyr saint from the 4th century who lived near Black Sea.

church-saint-Theodor-stratilat-church-5th-century

The Church is an unique Cultural monument as it contains wall patings probably dating back to at least 10th century or even earlier.

sv-teodor-cyrkva-5-vek-bylgaria

Thanks God the weather was quite warm for the Winter season leaving impression Spring has come 🙂

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 :].

Passed the Statistics exam Glory be to the Creator of Heaven and Earth!

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

Aloha. Yesterday was a nice day. I was on the marketing exam, and after that I suggested to one of my collegues (Narf) to drink a coffee together. We discussed various stuff IRC(mainly), and then computer general stuff. Then he explained me about some interesting scripts that enhance the irssi irc experience. Then we I suggested him to go home to show him my FreeBSD box and geek for some time. In the path to home we saw Nomen, he just checked if I’m home and was going to his home. We stayed home for some time, watched BB, some games Diablo II with wine etc. After that he said he had to go. Later we went out with Mitko to one pub called regal we drinked a bear per man. And decied to go to his home to watch a film concerning the life of One very famous (now dead) “prophetess” called Grandma Vanga. As I thought before that and most of my friends christians from what I saw I’m almost convinced this woman did prophecised and did stuff with the help of the Evil Seducer ( The Devil ). Praise the Lord I passed the Statistics exam thanks to the Lord’s help HalleluYah to his Heavenly Throne. After that I went home and decided to take a shower to remove the EGG I put on my hair few days ago :], and after that went to bed. Today I feel really awful I probably get cold Yesterday :[. Hope I’ll be okay for a day or two. Thanks God for being merciful to me. As soon as you see and hear me I hope soon you’ll set me up on the place you’ve prepared for me Lord 😛 :]. I should start learning soon for my next exam which is in International Law, but again I’m too lazy.END—–

20th of July St. Elijah (Elias) feast in Bulgarian Orthodox Church / st. prophet Elias short Living

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Saint Prophet Elijah Bulgarian Orthodox Christian icon

It’s again 20th of July and we in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, celebrate the Holy memory of st. Prophet Elijah (Elias

St. Elijah is among the greatest Old Testamental prophets. He lived before the birth of our saviour Jesus Christ in a time when apostacy from true faith was severe.

In Elias’s time (few centuries B.C.), there used to be also a severe hunger on the land.
Elias was among the little number of Jews who did continued to honour the True God creator of Heaven and of Earth instead of turning to false religious teachings inspired by demons, like it’s the Baal’s cult which was widely spread among Jews back in the time.

Because of his faith in the true God, st. Prophet Elijah was hunted by the king’s wife Jezabel and he was forced to escape from Bersheeba and went alone in the wilderness and sat down in despondency under a juniper tree.

As he slept, an angel touched him, and said unto him, “Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.” He arose and found a cake and a cruse of water. Having partaken of the provision, he went forward on his way for forty days to Horeb, where he took residence in a cave. Here God appeared to him and said, “What dost thou here, Elijah?” In answer to Elijah’s despondent words God manifests to him his glory, and then directs him to return to Damascus and anoint Hazael king over the Arameans (Syria), Jehu king over Israel, and Elisha to be prophet in his room (1 Kings 19:13-21; compare 2 Kings 8:7-15; 9:1-10).

Some six years after this he prophecised and warned by God’s commandment Ahab and Jezebel of the violent deaths they would die (1 Kings 21:19-24; 22:38)

The reason for the great hunger at this times was the fact that no rain has fallen down to the land for two years, as Elias prayed to God that no rain will be given to the people of Israel until they turn back to their true God.

One of the most notable moments of st. Elias’s earhtly living was the great miracle he performed by God’s providence which proofed that only the God of Israel is the true God of heaven and earth.

This happened while he was still in desolation on mount Carmel, it came to pass that Elijah met Obadiah, one of king Ahab’s officers (the king at that time of Israel).
Obadiah was he sent out at this time to seek for pasturage for the cattle (as the hunger on the land was so severe that even pastures for animals was obscure).
Elias’s by God’s word bade him go and tell his master that Elijah was there. King Ahab came forth and met Elias and accused him to be the “Trouble of Israel” as, he thought that his lands troubles are because Elias did not turns to Baal as the the king himself and most of the Jews at that time.
It was then proposed by Elias, that sacrifices should be publicly offered (to determine whose God is in control of taking out the hunger – e.g. Elias’s God of Israel or Baal to whom has many falsely turned.
, for the purpose of determining whether Baal or the Israelite’s God is the one’s master of the Universe.
The competition was accepted by Ahab and many of the prophets of Baal gathered together to “beg” his God for a miracle.

Baal’s false manu prophets gathered around the sacrifice place and started Begging Baal to send fire and burn the sacrificial altar.
Nomatter how hard they screamed, nothing happened so eventually they started cutting their bodies pouring blood in a hope to catch baal’s attention and make him have mercy on them.

As long time passed on and no miracle happened Elias told baal’s worshippers to step back from the sacrificial calf on the built altar and ordered some of the king’s servants to spill water over the calf (three times).
The water brought was so much that the whole altar trench was over-filled with water.

Then saint Elias begged to God: “Oh Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, please hear me! Let oh God this people recognize that You Lord is God and please oh Lord turn the people’s hearts towards you.”, he was still praying when fire came down from heaven and burnt the stones, the water in and the trench itself.

When all the gathered people around saw this great miracle of God, they bowed down and confessed the One and only God.
By Elias’s order the Baal’s false priests has been killed.
After this great miracle, Elias said to Ahab to came back home, before the rain has followed him.
The saint prophet climbed to the mountain top and prayed for a very long time.

After the holy man of God completed his prayers a powerful wind started blowing and the sky has filled with big clouds and a pouring rain come down to the overdried earth.
The king’s wife Jezabel, still kept her stubborness and continued severely hunting for st. Elias and even gave a vow to kill him because all her prophets were killed.

But God again was with st. Elias and saved him by warning him to run away in the wilderness.

Elias was in a big sorrow, here because many of the people still continued to honour the false god baal even though all the great heavenly signs.

God however by a great miracles, has once again shown the prophet he should be of a good spirit always and always to trust in God as he even send his Angel to give Elijah food in the desert.

Elias was among the only 7000 of Israelish man who does rejected to venerate the false god Baal.

By God’s providence st. Elias had a pupil prophet called Elijah.
The time now drew near when he was to be taken up into heaven (2 Kings 2:1-12). He went down to Gilgal, where there was a school of prophets, and where his successor Elisha, whom he had anointed some years before, resided.
Elisha was distraught by the thought of his master’s leaving him, and refused to be parted from him. The two went on and came to Bethel and Jericho, and crossed the Jordan, the waters of which were “divided hither and thither” when smitten with Elijah’s mantle.
Upon arriving at the borders of Gilead, which Elijah had left many years before, it “came to pass as they still went on and talked” they were suddenly separated by a chariot and horses of fire; and “Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven,” Elisha receiving his mantle, which fell from Elijah as he ascended.
Elijah’s chosen successor was the prophet Elisha; Elijah designated Elisha as such by leaving his mantle with him (2 Kings 2:13-15), so that his wish for “a double portion” of the older prophet’s spirit (2:9)

Later on in New Testamential time it was again st. prophet Elias, who appearance in glory on Mount Tabor and talked with our Saviour Christ at the Son of God’s Glorious Transfiguration.
An interesting fact is that Elias and Enoch are the only two people who according to the Holy writtings were taken by God straight to heaven. No other mortal man has been taken that way in flesh.

According to Orthodox Church’s tradition, Elias and Enoch will be brought back to earth again by God in the last days of the anti-christ, when they will again testify about our Lord Jesus Christ’s being the truth God and will also expose the anti-christ who will falsely pretend as being the true god of Israel and a true saviour of mankind.

Again according to this church history this two prophets at this last days, will be given an enormous power from God, even a power to stop the rain to come down to earth and the power to command the rivers to stop.

Oh Holy Prophet Elias, let God have mercy on us the sinners by your Holy prayers and save us, give us grace and always show us His great mercies.
Amen!

The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ feast in Bulgarian Orthodox Church

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Ascension of Christ Orthodox Icon, Voznesenie Hristovo ikona, Vyznesenie Hristovo icona

On 2 of June this year 2011, our Bulgarian Orthodox Church has marked one more bright feast (one of the 12 chief (God’s) feasts).

The Spiritual Joy is great as our Saviour has Ascended to Heaven 40 days after his Glorious Resurrection in front of the amazed desciples, and crowd of people who were with them.

An Angel has also told the people testifing our Lord’s ascension that the Second Coming of our saviour will take place in the same manner as his Ascension.

Here is some passages from the Gospel of Luke 24:50-53

50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.
51 hile he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.
52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.

It’s a tradition in some Orthodox Churches that the Paschal Greeting (Christ is Risen / Hristos Voskrese / Hristos Anesti etc.) is substituted with the greeting:
Christ has ascended by the person greeting, while the respondant confirms answering with Truly he has ascended

This Ascension greeting is not that deeply routed among Christians as the Pashcal greeting, though it’s very truthful and beautiful, to use it instead of the standard daily Hi greeting 😉

The whole following week after Ascension’s feast has been arranged by the Church to be a feast week commemorating our Lord Christ’s glorious Ascension (in his glorified body) to Heaven and sit in the right hand of God.

There is a local village hear in Bulgaria near a village called Spasovo – Saviour’s which has a Church called The Ascension of Christ

In this small village there is a spring which does start flowing only on the date of the Ascension (celebrated on a different date every single year)!!!
That’s amazing God miracle given to strengthen our faith as a confirmation that the Ascension of God’s Son and our saviour Christ is a real event that happened!

There is a false belief seriously accepted in many non-devoted Orthodox Christians who does not know well the Orthodox Christian faith, that on the date of The Ascension the so called Spasov Den (in Bulgarian) – Day of the Saviour , the dead who are in heaven and hell are allowed to get out of Heaven or Hell (for a temporary break) and be a bit closer to the living.
Many people who believe this insanity instead of visiting a Church and being joyful for the Ascension of Our saviour do go to the city graves and spends few hours, crying or remembering the dead …
This kind of believe is firmly non-orthodox and is taken from ancient paganism beliefs.

With all this said I find it important to say few words on why the Lord Jesus Christ has ascended?

The answer to this question gives Christ himself, as he says in the Gospel of John – Chapter 16

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth;
It is expedient for you that I go away:
for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you;
but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

Here is a part of the Troparion for Ascension that is being sing in the Church:

When You fulfilled the dispensation for our sake,
and united earth to heaven:
You have Ascended in Glory, oh Christ our God
not being parted from those who love You,
but remaining with them and crying:
I am with you, and no one will be against you!

Christ has Ascended to all Orthodox Christians!

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen! Happy Easter! / The Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem

Sunday, April 24th, 2011

Christ is Risen Icon

“Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and on those in the tombs bestowing
life!”

Happy Easter to all my beloved readers. In relation to the Greatest feast of all times I wish to all my readers a lot of good health, a lot of success in all good, and a lot of love. Rejoice for the Lord and Saviour of mankind has been risen!

In Jerusalem the Holy Fire has descended from Heaven. For all Unorthodox Christians, it’s important to note that the Holy Fire is the miracle confirming that the Christian Orthodox faith is the true ancient Christian faith in fulness!

Each year the Holy Fire descends from heaven and lights up the candle of the Patriarch of the Jerusalem Church. This only happens on the Orthodox Easter! This is without question a great miracle and a very graceful act by which God shows us he has not left us behind.

Here is a video you can watch, where you can see the miracle happening as well as a discussion, is really the miracle real:

Miracle of the Holy Fire in the Holy Sepulchre (Jesus’s Tomb) in Jerusalem – Easter 2011

Holy Light (Holy Fire) in Jerusalem: Proofs & Testimonies

During the three days in which, we the Christians celebrate the glorious Resurrection of our Lord and Saviour. It’s accepted that the ordinary “Hi” or “Hello” greeting we use daily, is ex-changed for “Christ is Risen!” 🙂

The word “Easter” used for the Resurrection 3 day feasts is also interesting as it comes from “Eastern” – (e.g. Eastern Orthodox Church) 🙂