Lives of the Saints
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Lives of the Saints’
By Divine providence, the shocking murder of Good King Wenceslas led to a flowering of Christian faith in Europe.
In the early 10th century, Bohemia (in today’s Czech Republic) had only just received the Christian gospel, and tribal paganism was still strong. Wenceslaus played a vital part in spreading light and reason into Europe’s superstitious dark ages — and so did his brother, who hated him and his religion alike.
The Victorian practice of hanging sugared nuts on a Christmas tree was bursting with Biblical symbolism.
Victorian Christmas celebrations included hanging nuts, typically sugared almonds, on the tree. This symbolic gesture goes back to a Christian interpretation of a passage from Numbers, which was known in England as long ago as the 10th century.
The martyr St Euphemia played a vital role in preventing the message of Christmas from being watered down.
In 314, the Roman Empiror Costantine lifted all restrictions on Christianity, but intellectuals still held the philosophy of Plato in awe. Sometimes the Greek view of the Divine – remote, impersonal, unsullied by contact with Creation – tempted Christian clergy to back-peddle on the much more characterful God of Israel, who will dare all for love.
A young monk was rewarded for taking his duties as guest-master seriously.
In about 658, Abbot Eata sent Cuthbert from Melrose Abbey away south to Ripon, to be the guest-master in a new monastery there. It was while he was at Ripon that Cuthbert had a remarkable experience which left him trembling with excitement and fear.
In 1910, Constantine Zervakos, a young monk from the Greek island of Paros, found himself charged with espionage.
Until 1912, the city and port of Thessalonica was in the hands of the Muslim Turks, and any Greek, especially a Christian, took his life in his hands passing through. In 1910, a newly-minted monk of the Longovarda monastery on Paros got himself into very hot water.
Shortly after Askold and Dir founded Kiev in 862, they launched a brazen but ill-fated assault on the capital of the Roman Empire.
In the 860s, just as the Great Army led by Vikings Ingwaer and Halfdan was swarming over England, Viking warlords Askold and Dir were establishing the great cities of Novgorod and Kiev as the foundations of Rus’. Almost at once the pagan settlers set their sights on the greatest prize of all, Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire.