Dear Friends,
Some people in our congregation have kindly expressed
interest in my trip to the Balkans and Italy this past month. This trip, my
first to Europe, came about because my friend, Stephanie Georgieff, is currently
working with the Peace Corps in Albania. You may be a little familiar with her
research and subsequent publication of a book on the Black Madonna. When she
completes her stint with the Peace Corps, she is planning a walk along the
Camino de Santiago, focusing on the Black Madonna. Below is her youtube
channel, and blog for the Camino trip.
youtube channel for Heart of the Black Madonna
blog for Camino trip
She is also taking advantage of her time in Albania to
research and delve into the history, and particularly the development, of
religion in the Balkans. Below you will find some excerpts from the lectures
she has prepared so far, which one day she hopes to publish in a book, as well.
It was a whirlwind trip, with only two full days in each
country of Italy (Ravenna), Greece (Thessaloniki), Albania (Berat) and
Macedonia (Ohrid). As such, I can only give my impressions as a tourist, and it
was a very wonderful thing to have my own “private tour guide.” One Sunday, I
will bring some maps to talk about our journey.
One of the first things I did upon my return was to attend
the last lecture by Rev. Bastiaan Baan, on the redemption of evil. It was a
very wonderful lecture, and resonated particularly with me, having just
returned from our exploration of Byzantine art, culture and religion. I hope
perhaps someone might consider posting some notes on our blog of this
enlightened weekend workshop, which is particularly apropos for our time.
My trip was almost two years in the planning, once I knew
Stephanie was going to be in Europe, as we had always hoped to do a trip
together. I’m pretty sure that my mom, who blessedly passed in February, came
along, too, and helped smooth our travels. It’s interesting, too, that some of
the things I talked about in my last blog a year ago, came up again on this
trip, in Stephanie’s lectures, and also in Rev. Baan’s.
Here are the excerpts from Stephanie’s lectures:
The first evangelization and Christian communities outside
of Palestine were in the Balkans in Albania, Macedonia, Greece and Turkey.
When we combine all that we know about Paul, his birth, his
conversion, his becoming a new human, as he proclaimed the message and impulse
of the Christ, that we are all to become anew, we are to transubstantiate
ourselves and the earth, to marry faith and knowledge into a new form of
thinking that will enable us to strive towards wholeness, it is fitting that he
was born and worked in the Balkans. Paul helped weave both east and west into
his evangelization and example, it is appropriate that he was from the Balkans
and evangelized in the Balkans as the geographic location of the “bridge.” His
ministry is truly the bridge leading up to the 6h Epoch, where the Christ
Impulse will be fully taken up by Humanity.
The famed Saints Cyril and Methodius are claimed by the
entire Balkan region. For our purposes, we will say they are Macedonians since
they are said to have been born in Thessaloniki, a Macedonian city that was
never conquered by any other nation state during the time of their births. They
were born to a Byzantine official and a Macedonian Mother, and were fluent in
Greek and Macedonian. Upon the death of their father, they were sent to be
educated in Constantinople, and later were sent in 860 by the Byzantine Emperor
Michael III and Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople to be missionaries in the
ancient Kingdom of the Khazars. Cyril and Metodi came out of the Dionysian
tradition. It was also commissioned for the brothers to develop an alphabet for
the Slavs, scholars put the probable date at 863. Scholars also argue that St
Clement of Ohrid developed the Cyrillic Alphabet in the 890’s. The alphabet in
question had its first iteration as the Glagolitic Script, which is the
original alphabet constructed by Cyril and Metodi, the modern Cyrillic alphabet
derives from this 9th century alphabet
Can it be that this expression of the mystery of humanity is
for the new age? The Sophianic Age of Philadelphia? Is this the new fully
conscious free approach to conveying the mysteries of the Cosmos for a new era?
In many ways, the Slavs seemed to skip the materialism that developed in the
West. While the nations of the former USSR and other communist countries are
hurtling towards materialism in a frenetic pace, the peoples are questioning
the consequences of such practices. Through the trials and oppression of the
Ottomans, the Mongols, and through communism and state imposed atheism, the
Eastern Church maintained its ancient mystery roots, while the Western
Latinized Church developed intellectually and materialistically. While the
current mass embrace of materialism has deeply wounded the Slavs since the fall
of Communism, there is much that is still there in terms of the soul of the
peoples. I am contemplating that the Slavic Cyrillic Alphabet may have been
instituted in time so that there could be this mystic, but conscious union
between Humanity and the Divine through the word, the Christian Logos, word,
alphabet of the future.
Byzantine art is a mutual experience. In Byzantium, people
viewed, touched and kissed Icons and in turn the images spoke to them. In
Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic traditions, the sacrament of confession is done
in front of an Icon, as the Icon is seen as the conduit between the earthly and
the spiritual. People prayed THROUGH the Icon, not TO the Icon. Icons were seen
as active forces in Byzantine society, seen as protectors and healers brought
out and paraded about during festivals and also during times of crisis. The
belief in the active power of image is what lies at the heart of Byzantine art
and what makes it so different from art produced anywhere else in the world
during the first Christian millennium.
A hallmark of Byzantine Churches is the circular dome placed
on a square. The dome is symbolic of the chalice of the Last Supper overturned
to pour grace on the congregants. The dome is considered a circle of Divinity,
uniting with the Earth as symbolized by the square (four elements that make up
the Earthly existence, and the Cube is the geometric basis of the globe.) By
uniting the circular dome with the square cube, it signifies the cosmic unity
with the earth, the meeting of Divinity and Earthly Humanity
Hagia Sophia means Holy Wisdom, it is significant that a
Christ mosaic was in the top of the dome of the cathedral, his rays pouring
downward to the community of Christians below. The Lyre of Apollo is related to
the human brain. As the Lyra constellation is the celestial correspondent of the
Cathedral, it is as if the cosmos through Christ was raining wisdom directly
into the human brain and heart in this sacred architecture. The dome, as stated
above is also symbolic of the chalice, the grail, where the transformation of
matter through the sacrament of the Eucharist occurs. The Dome is the
overturned Chalice that pours the grace of transformation, transubstantiation,
the facilitating of the deification of Humanity. By this construction, the
deification of the congregants, of matter was being witnessed.
I apologize for this quite lengthy blog, but hope it will give you some pleasure in reading.
Love, Sparky
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