Posts Tagged ‘nowdays’

Man alone Opens or Closes the Door to Heaven – Bulgarian Priest ( Elder ) Atanas Arolski passed to Christ aged 95

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015


father-Spiritual-Elder-Atanas-Arolski-true-Christian-faith-confessor-passed-away-aged-95-year-Bulgarian_Orthodox-Church
 

Father Atanas Arolski A Notable Priest and Spiritual Father Elder of Bulgarian Lands and Bulgarian Orthodox Church passed away to Christ aged 95. fr. Atanas was born in a small Bulgarian mountain village Hvoyna located in Middle Rodopis Mountain. The priest is famous because he was among the few priests of our  faithless times that walked by Rodopi Muntain villages all their life to preach the Gospel of Christ. 70 years of his earthly life was dedicated to God's word and priesty service.

Fr. Atanas Arolski is born (by God's providence) on 1st of November on the day of Bulgarian Christian enlightener saints St. St. Kiril and Methodius who preached the Holy Gospel Good news of Salvation on Bulgarian lands in the 9th century. And just like the two Thesaloniki brother saints Cyril and Methodius fr. Atanas was enlightener of the Bulgarian nation during all his life. fr. Atanas completed his church studies succesfully in the Seminary of Cherepish "St. John of Rila" in year 1939. Though a lot of the Seminary students choose to become deacons in the Church to escape the mobilization and army service in Second Wolrd War the fr. decided not to cheat and went for a military service. He was ordained priest in 1943. During the last years of his life even when 90+ years old he walked to Malevo village (3km away) from his village and Orehovo village (7km! away from Hvoyna).

otec_Atanas_Arolski_living-saint-elder-of-new-times-from-Bulgaria-who-suffered-a-lot-from-communist-authorities-atheistic-regimes

Its interesting that the father walks to the 3 village Churches where he was assigned to be serving Holy Liturgy and do his many Church duties daiy even though he has a driving license since 1961, however he alone says until this very date he failed to find money to buy a car (because of his humbleness) in order to hide the spiritual reason behind that. 
The most notable father saying is "Man alone Opens or Closes the Door to Heaven" and his life is an example on how one can open the door to heaven and open when the Lord Jesus Christ knocks on the door of our heart.

This priest was torutred severely by the Atheist authorities during the Communist rule in Bulgaria in their attempt to convert him to atheism but fr. Atanas stand firm being a true confessor of Christ as he explains in the short video below, on many times they bring him in police and he was beaten badly with the purpose to show them there is no God and convince them to decline his faith in Christ and the Church but he refused.
Many times to make him stop going to Church and serving Holy Liturgy the authorities threatened him that he will be sent as a political Prisoner to Belene and he was imprison for a time and beaten to death but with God's help he survived. 

In his standing firm for the Church and faith even in times where this was not possible fr. Atanas resembles very much the confessor and God's word preaching of (Saintly) Elder Father Georgi of Jiglarci who recently also passed away 10th of January this year.

fr. Atanas alone used to say that God left him to survive until the fall of Communism in Bulgaria in order to show those who mocked him and tortured him that their regime prooved false demising (nowdays even hated by most of Bulgarian)  but God's Church triumpths victoriously even though the severe trials and persecutions standing according to Christ's word that promised us that the Gates of Hell will not get over his Church.

Below is a nice 15 minutes video made earlier by one of our Bulgarian Televisions (BTV) about this unique confessor priest.
The Holy Scriptures says "Great are the miracles of God in his holies" and movie prooves the Bible verse another time.

One True Story of Rodopi Mountains – A movie about fr. Atanas Arolsky

Ft. Atanas Arolsky the Christian Englightener 91 continues to serve to God  
God forgive and remember fr. Atanas in his Eternal Kingdom and let the father pray the Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy on us the sinners. Amen.

Evening service and Holy Liturgy in Russian Church st. Nicolas and marriage preparations

Wednesday, February 5th, 2014

St-nicolas-russian-church-sofia-bulgaria

Last Saturday evening I and my future wife Svetlana went to get train tickets (Sofia Dobrich), cause next week me and Svetlana will be travelling to Dobrich. Afterwards we went to Russian Church in center of Sofia – St. Nicolas for the evening service and confessed. The evening service was led by Archimandrite Philip who is currently Russian Church's prior.

archimandrite-Philip-russian-church-in-Bulgaria-prior

At the end of Church service there was an oilment, as always being on a Russian Holy Liturgy is astonishing experience. On Sunday morning 2nd February we were in Russian Church again for the Russian Liturgy and we took the holy sacraments as it is proper (according to Orthodox Church tradition the marrying couple should confess and receive the sacraments before marrying in Church). After Church service we went to Church crypt to venerate holy relics of Archimandrate Seraphim Sobolev. A big thing is happening in my life nowdays as I will have marriage this week  on Friday 7-th of February:)

We prepared so far almost everything for marriage. My parents helped with finding a marriage resturant and finding musicians for post marriage restaurant celebration. We also travelled to Asenovgrad to look for Svetlana's  wedding dress and we got one  I bough a marriage suit 2 weeks back and we ordered a marriage rings. There is already agreement with a priest father Vasilij – who will merry us in Church St. Trinity this Friday. Father Vasilij serves in Church "Dormition of Virgin Mary" in Kavarna . We choose father Vasilij to make the Marriage vows for the reason he is nativily Russian speaking (like Svetlana) plus the father is a good example of a true Christian priest. Today the parents of Svetlana (mama Vera and papa Alexander) arrived in the airport in Varna for the marriage (thanks God they had safe flight). Sunday night I send Svetlana to Train Station here in Sofia to make latest preparations for marriage. I will be travelling to Dobrich on Wednesday night 1 day before marriage. The rest of things happening around are not so interesting. In y job in HP work is complicated as usual. On my job I'm learning HPSM (HP Service Manager) and how to open new Changes in system and that's mostly my life these days. When I have time I'm playing OpenTyrian and a couple of nice arcade games on my ZTE Android mobile phone and reading some saint livings on mobile.
 

 

Curious: Old ladies from Plovdiv, Bulgaria are knitting mobile and computer equipment hand made cases

Monday, November 11th, 2013

new business idea manual hand crafted knitted mobile device cases

While reading one of my daily tech news websites today I stimbled on very unusual news and a business idea, worthy to re-blog 😉 The idea of the new Innovative business is just genious and simple as that – knitted digital equipment cases. There are plenty of old ladies in Bulgaria who are used to knitting sweaters, hats and all kind of hand made winter clothes. Knitting was among the must have skills for ladies in Bulgaria until some years time even my grandmother when a bit younger used to knit in most of her free time. Thus most of grandmothers in Bulgaria still when get old and have a lot of free time, kill their time with the craft they learned as young. For the young European people who probably never heard of it knitting is unique kind of manufacture for producing winter clothes from yarn.

yarn in different colors the base material for knitting

Knitting was a top ladies craft before the boom of industrial manufacture before 19th century industrial revolution, nowadays its almost a forgotten craft. Now some genious people in Bulgaria decided to give work to this old ladies and pay them for knitting computer and mobile equipment cases (cases for Tablets, Smartphones, Notebooks etc.) Knitting of mobile equipment cases opens new work places and introduces new way for old people to earn some extra income, such extra income is absolutely necessary in Bulgaria nowdays as most old ladies receive ridiculous pension of 120 to 150 EUR per month (money insufficient to pay expensive winter heating bills and so expensive food that is nowdays in Bulgaria).

lady knitting a sweater or some kind of clothe

The company who invented this new business and introduced it for the masses is Snug Essentials and is started by enthusiastic young people who had grandmothers practicing the old craft. The innovative product is distributed via Etsy Global Platform for distributing hand crafted goods as well as in   Facebook, Twitter and Ebay. As of time of writting the companyis extremely small 6 old grandmas work on producing the knitted cases for digital equipment but the tendency is this to rise soon, as there are plenty of people who love the hand made cases.
The price of a case is also not too high, it costs only around 10$ per knitted case. Here are few nice knitted cases produced by grandmas 🙂

notebook laptop in knitted hand made case

Your girlfriend will love it if you gift her one of these 🙂

knitted notebook case original business idea

 

Fixing enter not working in Skype 6 – Skype cannot send message bug on Windows XP

Sunday, March 10th, 2013

Skype how to fix enter not sending messages in Skype6 downgrade to Skype5 windows XP
Yesterday, I had to fix another Windows XP computer infested with Spyware and Viruses. Thanksfully I cleaned it up as usual using standard combination of Malware Bytes + Little Registry Cleaner and Avira. The PC haven't been updated recently and running still Windows XP SP2, thus to make Avira running I had to install SP3 as Avira nowdays depends on Win SP3. After clean up it worked much better, though it is not 100% sure if some kind of malicious software is still not on PC.
After all seemed fine on this Russian Windows XP, there was one thing still problematic – Skype. For some weird reason whenever user from Skype contact list is messaged, it was impossible to send the message with Enter key. I tried checking if all seems fine in Keyboard Settings and Regional Settings in Windows Control Center, cause XP version was with Russian Language Pack and I suspected the Language Pack might mess up something in how Keyboard keys are mapped but all seemed fine there. One important note to make here is PC is running on old hardware and had an old standard PS/2 Keyboard detected as PS/2 – 101 – 102 keys standard keyboard. I tried re-installing the keyboard driver, trying to auto-detect however driver detected for this keyboard seemed to be latest issued for PS/2 Keyboards from Microsoft so after update Skype can't send message bug was still present and respectively the only way to communicate with people from contact list was to Call the person and speak. I researched online on the problem and found a multitude of users complaining to face the same Skype messaging – Enter key not working, unfortunately noone online seemed to have found a solution. I've seen some suggestions to use Skype settings to re-map Enter key but on this Skype 6.2.0.106 the option to remap how Enter key reacts wasn't present. Thus I decided to try to downgrade Skype 6 to Skype 5 here is a mirror of Skype 5 -and try if this helps. After Uninstalling Skype 6 and installing Skype 5 – enter key started working again so mission accomplished 🙂 If you happen to have the annoying Enter key not working in skype bug just downgrade to any below version to 6 and all will be fine. Drop me a comment if you experience the same bug with Win and Skype version.
Finally, be sure not to upgrade further Skype to avoid problems. Last but not least, there is even some advantages in older skype releases, the interface is simpler – making work with skype easier.

Learn Basic Serbian language in Video lessons (Serbian English Lessons)

Monday, November 5th, 2012

learn-serbian-language-in-video-lessons-serbian-cyrillic-alphabet

I'm trying to learn some basic Serbian. It is rather ridiculous, we are not being tought even basic Serbian in Bulgarian primary and high schools. Serbia is just one border away and besides that we Bulgarian and Serbs share same Orthodox Christian faith and similar existence. Over the last 10 centuries, we Bulgarians and Serbians was both under Turkish Yoke. Even nowdays most of the problem of Serbians and Bulgarians are very similar. Both of us are trying to survive and earn basic money for their daily living. Culturally our two nations are very similar too, thus I decided today to take little time and learn some basic Serbian. Learning Serbian for Bulgarians seems to be a generally easy, I listened from friends who speak Serbian a Bulgarian can learn talking some Serbian in just few weeks time, this is logical as both our languages share the same etymological roots from Cyrillic ( Glogolic / Glagolica ).
The reason I want to learn some Serbian is Serbia in the time is I now in Holland and go to Serbian Orthodox Church in Nijmegen

Besides that I really liked Serbians as people and since in future hopefully public relations between Serbian and Bulgaria might come it might be "strategically" wise to speak a bit of Serbian 🙂
One other reason is I'm very interested nowdays in Antrophology and from anthropological perspective, speaking or at least in basic understanding Serbia as closest nation Language helps understand more about Slavonic language and early language structure and gives more knowledge on language history.
For my quest to learn some basic Serbian I've as usual checked in Youtube and found a bunch of Serbian -> English teach yourself guides. It is rather ridiculous I have to learn Serbian (A Slavonic Language), translating myself from (English – Latin) to Serbian and then to Bulgarian. So far my experience with Serbian culture shows Serbian and Serbs can understand each other in many of the cases without even having a clue on Serbian or Bulgarian. Actually about probably 50% of words in Serbian are Ancient Church Slavonic (Ancient Bulgarian). Thus for older Bulgarian people who have heard or speak using more older words communicating with Serb will be much easier. I have noticed younger Serbians, just like younger Bulgarian know little about Serbian (Slavonic) language origin as well as speak very little old Slavonic words, thus younger serbs understood less when I try speaking with them using some kind of Bulgarian, however with most older people, most of the time they understand whether I speak in pure Bulgarian language 🙂

It is worthy to mention that as I heard from my Serbian friend Andrea, Serbians nowdays are mostly writting in Latin and rarely use Cyrillic (Church Slavonic). However in the Church and among people who try to live a true Christian life, use of Cyrillic is more widespread.

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 1 – Serbian Alphabet
 

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 2 – Words Pronounciation

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 3 – Basic Phrases

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 4 – Christmas Special

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 5 – Numbers

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 6 – Animals

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 7 – Colours

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 8 – Places

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 9 – Rooms

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 10 – Cyrilic Alphabet

Learn Serbian – English Lesson 11 – Verb "to be"

Learn Serbian – Egnlish Lesson 12 – Vocabulary (1)

Learning Serbian / Croation language lesson one (Study Serbian English part 1
 

Learning Serbian / Croatian language lesson two (Study Serbian English part 2

 

Learning Serbian / Croatian Language lesson three (Study Serbian English part 3 (Travel Words)

Learning Serbian / Croatian Language lesson four (Study Serbian English part 4

 

Learn Serbian – English Colours and Clothes

Serbian Phrases – Greetings, part 1

 

Serbian for children – Learn Serbian Quickly

 

Learn Serbian 101 – How Old Are You ?

There are plenty of others Videos in youtube. Just browse through https://www.youtube.com/user/Learnserbian/videos?view=0  After you complete all the videos you should be ready to understand and speak Basic serbian 🙂

History of Belarus in 5 minutes – Learn a lot for Belarus in short time

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

I've been recently interested in Belarusian History. I found few very interesting videos in youtube, so decided with people who want to learn more about Slavonic Culture. Belarus is a Slavonic culture and old Belarusian language dates back to Ancient Bulgarian traditions. Also Belarusian Ancient language includes a lot of Slavonic Ancient Bulgarian words. As a Bulgarian it is very interesting to me too the severe impact that our Great Bulgarian nation had on Slavonic Nations and Russians. Belarusians both lingually and culturely are very close to us Bulgarian. Orthodox Christian faith which later spread in Belarusian lands, has also been transferred from Bulgarian and Serbian lands to Belarus. After the pupils of Saint Cyril and Methodius, spread Slavonic alphabet in nowdays Romanian lands, Moldova and Belarus.
The first below video Belarus History in 5 minutes has a genuine video and musical arrangment. It was quite interesting to me, find out Belarussian people had a long known tradition in Musical Instruments and Folklore Music. Nowdays they produce also a great Gothic Music, just like most of celtic nations 🙂

History of Bulgarus in 5 minutes – Aristic short presentation lesson on Belarussian history


0:02
At first, there was nothing

 

0:03
now there’s a lot of everything

 

0:04
we have to thank God for that

 

0:06
He created our world in the freestyle genre

 

0:09
He said, "Budzma" (“So be it!”)

 

0:10
and Our Land appeared.

 

0:11
Ichthyosauri and other dragons…

 

0:13
in the beginning, we lived in the ocean

 

0:15
but then we left the bosom of the sea

 

0:17
and started to be called the Neuri.

 

0:19
From the earliest times

 

0:21
the Neuri could turn into wolves

 

0:23
that was a customary thing for them…

 

0:26
Žycien, Piarun, Dažboh, and Svaroh

 

0:28
our ancestors believed in heathen gods

 

0:30
but Christianity already knocked on the door.

 

0:34
Let’s know our roots! The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

0:38
In the year 862 of our era

 

0:41
the city of Polacak was mentioned for the first time

 

0:43
There, St. Safija Cathedral was build

 

0:45
(there’re only three such churches in the world)

 

0:47
Local Prince Usiaslau Caradziej

 

0:49
was a cool personage; Listen what I say!

 

0:51
St. Jefrasinnia lived in Polacak

 

0:53
the memory of her is cherished down the ages

 

0:56
The famous cross was made for her

 

0:58
(it wasn’t just super, it was marvelous)

 

1:00
but during WWII, it was lost

 

1:02
and now it’s our own grail

 

1:04
Let’s continue, let’s march ahead

 

1:07
The time of Grand Prince Mindouh came

 

1:09
and here we must remember that

 

1:11
Belarus was called Litva then

 

1:13
or rather – the Grand Principality of Litva

 

1:15
its coat of arms was Pahonia (pursuit)

 

1:16
it had a formidable army

 

1:17
Our capital Vilnia was founded by

 

1:19
Grand Prince Hiedymin

 

1:21
the legend says he had a dream about an iron wolf…

 

1:24
Wikipedia describes this event

 

1:26
Let’s know our roots!

 

1:28
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

1:31
The year 1362

 

1:34
The sword is drawn; flags flutter in the wind…

 

1:36
In the Battle of Blue Waters

 

1:38
our army defeated three Khans of the Golden Horde

 

1:41
and the Grand Principality of Litva suddenly

 

1:43
became the largest country in Europe

 

1:45
Let’s continue, let’s march ahead.

 

1:47
Vitaut reigns in the Grand Principality

 

1:49
The Teutonic Order threatens us.

 

1:51
The Battle of Grunwald shows who’s right

 

1:53
Vitaut and Jahajla, King of Poland

 

1:55
junked the Crusaders like scrap metal

 

2:00
Francysk Skaryna was a tough guy

 

2:02
he went to study abroad

 

2:04
He was the first who printed the Bible

 

2:06
in the Old Belarusian language in Prague

 

2:08
Our warriors were tough men, too

 

2:11
they defeated the Moscow Army near Vorsa

 

2:13
in the year 1514

 

2:17
In the meantime, the Grand Principality of Litva

 

2:19
accepted its constitution – the Statute of the GPL 1588

 

2:21
In the Battle of Kircholm, we defeated the Swedish army

 

2:24
Apparently, you didn’t know this fact before.

 

2:26
Let’s know our roots!

 

2:28
In the city of Mahilou

 

2:30
7,000 invaders were killed in the fight

 

2:32
Who were these invaders? Well, these … from the East

 

2:34
representatives of the "brotherly" Russian nation

 

2:37
They were called Muscovites then.

 

2:38
And there’s already a new state

 

2:40
the Polish–Litvian Commonwealth

 

2:43
For some reason, it irritated all the neighbors

 

2:45
The three partitions of this Commonwealth

 

2:47
and we were divided between three states

 

2:49
The biggest part was occupied by Russia

 

2:51
It engendered discontent among the nobility

 

2:53
and Tadevus Kasciuska appears on the scene

 

2:56
It’s necessary to remember this name because

 

2:58
he was a great revolutionary

 

3:00
for liberty, equality and fraternity

 

3:02
he struggled even in the United States

 

3:04
but the Russian Tsar cast him into prison

 

3:06
Let’s know our roots!

 

3:10
During Napoleon’s war

 

3:13
the Belarusians fought with the Belarusians

 

3:15
and in 1863 there was a new rebellion

 

3:20
Kastus Kalinouski, a patriot of Belarus

 

3:24
and his peasant soldiers – "kasiniery"

 

3:25
struggled for independence

 

3:26
but he was caught and hanged in Vilnia

 

3:30
The world enters the 20th century

 

3:32
It’s necessary to revive our culture!

 

3:34
Bahusevic, Bahdanovic, Kupala and Kolas

 

3:36
Lastouski, Luckievic… Many people!

 

3:39
Dozens and dozens of outstanding names…

 

3:41
but the Red Revolution is approaching fast

 

3:45
Well, in the terror of the Revolution

 

3:47
a new state with a beautiful name was born

 

3:49
the Belarusian People’s Republic

 

3:51
We still celebrate the day it was proclaimed

 

3:54
But suddenly, out of the blue

 

3:56
another Republic was installed here

 

3:58
its name wasn’t romantic at all

 

4:00
Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic.

 

4:02
The 1920s. We remember that time

 

4:04
Belarusianization is everywhere

 

4:06
Writers publish their excellent works

 

4:09
Viciebsk artists create their chefs-d’oeuvre…

 

4:11
This process was stopped

 

4:12
in the year 1937

 

4:14
the blood purge began.

 

4:15
After that, one more hell – WWII

 

4:20
There were invaders, there were partisans

 

4:21
the country was torn apart again…

 

4:24
The Belarusians fought with the Belarusians again

 

4:26
shedding each other’s blood

 

4:30
The war is over! No need to fight!

 

4:32
There’re cosmonauts flying in the sky

 

4:34
Maserau, it’s time for you to speak!

 

4:36
Piesniary, it’s time for you to sing!

 

4:39
Barys Kit, make your discoveries for NASA

 

4:41
and we keep living in our country

 

4:43
which name now is the Republic of Belarus

 

4:45
We’ve got our ensign and national emblem

 

4:47
we sing our songs and read our poems…

 

4:50
the year 1991…

 

4:51
Let’s know our roots!

 

4:54
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

4:56
We stop here, but now it’s your time

 

4:58
All of you can write your own continuation…

 

5:00
Let’s know our roots!

 

5:02
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

5:04
Let’s know our roots!

 

5:06
The Belarusians, the daring people!

 

5:09
Budzma viedac svoj rod!

 

5:11
Salony narod, Bielaruski narod!

 

History of Belarus Гісторыя Беларусі Historia Białorusi _ – 8 minutes video explaining in short Belarusian etymological roots

Ancient Musical Instruments of Belarus

Most importantly, nowdays Belarus still hold the light of Orthodox Christian faith, just like us Bulgarians. Spiritually Bulgaria and Belarus is united in our Orthodox Christian faith. This summer, I had the blessing many Belarusians in Pomorie Monastery (An Orthodox monastery located in the Black Sea sea coast (near Burgas) in Bulgaria). I've been amazed by the faith and spirituality Belarusians still hold even in this "dark times" of Christian faith decay and increased ungodliness.

History of Belarus (A 10 minutes short History of

Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Reveals Name of Messiah to be “Yehoshua”, “Yeshua” (in Hebrew) – JESUS

Wednesday, July 25th, 2012

It was always interesting to me to hear for Jewish, who turned to become Christian. Hence it was quite curious to find that one of the Jewish most famous Rabbis is claimed to have tought that Yehshua (Jesus Christ) is the name of the Messiah (The Jewish are still waiting to come even to this day). Onwards in youtube, I've seen the interesting testimony of nowdays orthodox monk Father Nathanael, who was raised as a Jewish was attending regularly Jewish synagogues and has miraculously turned to Orthodox Christian faith (The Orthodox Church of America).

Orthodox Rabbi Reveals Name of Messiah "JESUS","Yehoshua" or "Yeshua"(Hebrew)

 

Orthodox Christian Monk who turned from Judaism to Christianity – Why I Left Judaism

Richard stallman (father of free software) interview – Stallman: Google+ and Facebook mistreat their users

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

father-and-Founder-of-Free-Software-Foundation

The father of free software, mr. Richard Stallman is notorious for his critical mind and software freedom activism quite well.

While checking some of his speaches and interviews, I came across another interesting, one here RMS critices and exposes the bad and evilness of fb and Google+.

Interview with Richard Stallman – Stallman: Facebook and Google+ Mistreat Their Users

 

People unaware of computer networks, programming, Unix and the deep computing so to say definitely didn't understand the profoundness of upcoming problems of so called "social networks". The Facebook and Google+ Mistreat Their Users video is also to be found in youtube under name Richard Stallman: Facebook IS Mass Surveillance .

Its a pity Stallman is mostly popular only among specific users like me which are already 'dubbed' into free software and have a belief that computer software should be free. Hopefully as time passes more and more people will be awakened to listen to his speeches and realize the severeness of problems, we face nowdays by simply accepting almost anything new without much privacy concerns …
If you're a free software enthusiast like me, please take the time to share the video and whistle-blow about the problem to as many non-tech pc users as possible 🙂

Why saint George is depicted on icons killing a Dragon (an ancient story of saint George killing the last dragon) – A Collection of 7 icons of Saint Martyr George

Friday, July 6th, 2012

saint_Georgios-killing-the-dragon-in-cave
Saint George is one of the most venerated Orthodox Christian saints in the Eastern Orthodox Church. My interest in saint George is cause of the reason, I myself bear the name Georgi (the Bulgarian equivalent of George). Saint George is mostly venerated in the Slavonic Christian-dome.In almost all Church icons depicting st. George in Orthodox and Roman Catholic christiandome saint George is piercing killing a dragon.
One of the reasons, st. George is depicted piercing the dragon is a reference of st. George victory over satan, through his martyrdom.

The Beast (Dragon) on the iconi is a straight reference to the Holy Bible; Chapter Revelation also known under the name Apocalypse.

In revelation, we read humanity and our saviour Jesus Christ will finally once and for all will kill the "ancient beast" = (satan)

In same logic, as Saint Martyr George has been victorious over Satan by his unshakable confession of faith in Jesus Christ in early 5th century A.D. , we believe in the Orthodox Church he is given the crown of (eternal) life as a prize for bearing un-human tortures in the name of the of Christ.

To illustrate visually the victory of saint George over Satan through his immesurable faith confession with which he become, there is a an early tradition in iconography in the Church to depict st. George killing a dragon.

The other reason why saint George is depicted to kill a Dragon is due to a Lebanon / Palestinian ancient story saying; There was a huge Dragon living somewhere in nowdays Lebanon / Palestinian lands.
The beast created a huge havoc killing many people and systematically torturing people in the area.

As the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition continues …. the Dragon is said to have inhabited one of the caves near some village.
Interesting, the story tells these very same dragon was the last Dragon crawling the earth before the final disappearance of dragons.

Many brave local people tried to kill the beast but many died as the beast was unbeatable.
Being unable to beat-up the dragon with a physical (human) force the local population turnted to God for help – saying continously prayers to Saint George to help them defeat their dragon mischief.

Soon after, Saint George appeared on a white horse and pierced the "old dragon / snake". The dragon liberation miracle is said to be evidenced by local people and according to Orthodox monk books is one of the many great miracles occuring in past times.
The report of the miracle has quickly spread around all Lebanon / Palestinian lands and soon, being confirmed as real spread along all Russia as well as the rest of the Slavonic and Orthodox Christian world (Bulgaria, Serbia), Greece, Egypt (Alexandria) etc..
To illustrate saint George's appearance miracle, monastic iconographers started depicting saint George as we see him until this very day – Riding a horse and slaughtering a monstrous beast.

Below are seven 12-th century early icons of saint Saint Great-Martyr George killing the dragon;;
I've collected the icons from various website online. Hope this collection will be blessing for all Christ brother and sisters and generally anyone reading this post:

12-th century mosaic icon of st. George the Great Martyr Xenophontos Monastery

12-th century mosaic icon of st. George the Great Martyr Xenophontos Monastery

Orthodox Christian icon saint George dated to 1130 - 1150 A.D.

Orthodox Christian icon saint George dated to 1130 – 1150 A.D.

Saint Georgius the Dragon Slayer icon XII century orth icon

Saint Georgius the Dragon Slayer icon XII century orth icon

St. George Enamel icon Georgia 12th century

St. George Enamel icon Georgia 12th century

saint George Christian icon Yuriev Monastery Novgorod 12th century

saint George Christian icon Yuriev Monastery Novgorod 12th century

st. George Staraya Ladoga Orthodox Christian icon

st. George Staraya Ladoga Orthodox Christian icon

sv. Georgius 12th century Aios

sv. Georgius 12th century Aios

Nowdays saint George Holy Relics particles are kept for veneration in many Orthodox Christian countries monasteries. Here in Bulgaria saint George Holy Relics are kept in a Monastery nearby the seacoast in Pomorie. Any Christian visiting Bulgaria have the opportunity to venerate the Holy in (Pomorie's Monastery – St. Great Martyr Georgi.
 

Three Ways to Reduce Addiction to Mobile Phone ( GSM ) use

Wednesday, June 27th, 2012

Mobile Phone Caricature Reduce Mobile Addiction / 3 ways to reduce mobile phone addiction / Use your Mobile less

1.: Don't use a ring tone or use a short landline phone ringtone on incoming calls

In the past, we all had a local stand line phones, most of the landline phones rung using a very specific ring sound which was almost identical on all phones around the world. This ringing tone used was following some telephone standards. The result was everyone could distinguish a ringing phone in a room or closed space and tell for sure, this sound is generated by a phone. Nowdays with the boom of cellular phone ringtones, there is almost noone who uses a standard old-fashioned telephone ringtone as a ring melody.

The consequence of this is in our minds we start loosing the boundary between whether communicating on the phone or communicating without it.
In younger people this boundary between phone line and a physical communication is more evident than in adults (as youngsters has grown in society where mobile was used everywhere). The implication of this is more and more people are starting to perceive mobile communication as so natural as the person to person communication. Spending big part of the day talking over the phone mostly senseless things, not being consciously aware that this is done due to a heavy phone addiction and repeating behaviour trait stored sub-consciously.

Today everyone chooses a custom mobile phone ringtone melody (popular or impopular) song and sets it up to be a standard incoming call signal. As you can guess there are consequences on the mind, as the ringtone set is heard ten times or more a day during each and every phone call. The result is just like with alcoholics or drug addicts, the more you take from a certain "good" the more attached you become to it. Hence the more we listen to a certain song chunk daily on incoming calls, the sub-conscious becomes dependent on hearing this sound at least a number of times daily. If a day passes without no-one calling us and we don't hear the ringtone indicating a call the sub-conscious stored dependency starts popping up and we could start feeling lonely and we feel like calling someone (and we often do). Obviously this is dependency and even if someone might argue me this is a severe addiction which as every other addiction could be very dangerous and hard to fight.

As I prior said due to the fact that the phone use dependency is built in our minds starting with the phone ring melody, we can reduce this dependency by switching off the phone ringtone completely or at least changing it to a unique beep which is not likely to be heard or seen somewhere in your surrounding environment.

By setting the ringtone to some popular song we see on (TV, Radio or Internet on daily basis) this might become a trigger for us to associate hearing this sound with talking on the phone and hence make you increase the time you spend on the phone ,,, so be careful ,,,,

2.:: Stop Mobile Beeps and sounds on menu navigation

All new mobiles sold on the market are configured to have buzzling sounds on events and various beeps on keypad lock / unlock and menu navigation.
This sounds are there mostly to make you more alert and concentrated on using your mobile and often as a consequence whether one uses his mobile his awareness is comletely taken by the phone screen (you're totally "absorbed" by the phone use).
Besides designed to alert you the Managers and CEO's who decided to have a heavy beep sounds on mobiles made it having probably something else on mind? The beeps on keypad navigation makes the user emotionally and sub-consciously attached to the Cell Phone. The idea here is like in popular music streamed on radios and TVs and mostly everywhere …. The more you listen to a song, the higher the mind trait it leaves in you, so later when one hears a music pattern or a whole song, which he / she listened already thousands of times this brings back "good" old memories. It is very simple actually our minds are constructed in a way that the mor certain "information" is heard / saw / smell the bigger the mind influence this leaves on us. Back to the mobile sounds, the more you use the mobile phone with turned on sounds, the more addicted and mind stucked the beep and melodies during use of the cell phone becomes in the mind. For example many people take a look at their mobile automatically (without being consciously aware) and do the activity of (unlock) and (lock) the phone screen not knowing they do it automatic. More or less we all do such an auto-mated learned behaviour because of the subconscious dependency that is built in our minds. Whether we lock and unlock the mobile phone almost robotically, we do it because our sub-conscious mind plays a trick on us and "force" us to do a previous learned activity (association in our mind with the unlock / lock beep sound).

3.::: Use your mobile in different ways

Any modern mobile is quite advanced in functionality and there is more than one way to initiate a phone call. E.g. the mobile has a shortcut buttons assigned to do quick phone calls, quickly evoke SMS menu etc.
Learn them and occasionally use the shortcut buttons instead of the menu navigation. Our minds like changing patterns and doing things different.

Even if you have no chance to do a things via a certain menu, you can always change the position of the phone screen to different distance to eyesight 🙂 You can for example type on the keypad following the menu steps by watching from left or right eye periphery or you can use the menus with your phone screen turned backwards 🙂 If you're used to type on the keypad or touch screen with right hand try doing it with the left hand 🙂

This will take time but the fun worths it. Plus the most valuable thing in using the mobile in different ways each time is there is no specific inflicting pattern associated in your mind and hence the depepdency set in your sub-conscious mind on phone use is lesser.
Actually there are too many various "hacks" one could come up with on how to use mobile as differently as possible. It is up to your imagination. Though using the mobile "each-time-different" can be sometimes more time-consuming it surely makes your phone use amusing.