Στην περιοχή των Ιμαλαΐων δημιουργήθηκε κατά την αρχαιότητα το Λευκό αδελφάτο, όταν εκεί εγκαταστάθηκαν φυλές από τα νησιά του Ειρηνικού ωκεανού, που η ζωή τους ήταν ταυτισμένη με την σατανολατρεία, κατορθώνοντας σταδιακά να μεταδώσουν τις συνήθειές τους σ' όλους τους Ασιατικούς λαούς, κυρίως μέσω των θρησκειών τους. Στο «άντρο» του Λευκού αδελφάτου, επινοήθηκαν με την επίκληση και τη συνεργεία των δαιμόνων, διάφοροι «τρόποι ζωής», που θα κατηύθυναν την ζωή των ανθρώπων, καθώς και τυχερά παιχνίδια, ένα εκ των οποίων ήταν και η χαρτοπαιξία, που μέσω των εμπόρων μεταδόθηκε γρήγορα και έγινε μέχρι και πάθος για πολλούς ανθρώπους σε ολόκληρη τη Δύση. Έκτοτε, η τράπουλα με τα 52 χαρτιά έγινε το «αγαπημένο» παιχνίδι που δήθεν «ψυχαγωγεί» τους ανθρώπους, οι οποίοι δεν γνωρίζουν ότι πρόκειται για ένα καθαρά δαιμονικό παιχνίδι που έχει καταστρέψει αναρίθμητους ανθρώπους και οικογένειες, έχοντας κλείσει σπίτια, προκαλώντας εξαπατήσεις, φόνους, αυτοκτονίες, ληστείες και άλλα παρόμοια!
Οι «εμπνευστές» του παιχνιδιού έχουν «εφεύρει» διάφορα σύμβολα που απεικονίζονται σε όλα τα τραπουλόχαρτα. Όπως η «κούπα» που παριστάνει τα στήθια και το γεννητικό όργανο της γυναίκας, το «μπαστούνι» που δείχνει τα γεννητικά όργανα του άνδρα, το «σπαθί» σαν μια απομίμηση σταυρού της μαύρης μαγείας, συνδυάζοντας και τα γεννητικά όργανα του άνδρα και της γυναίκας, η «ντάμα» που ο ρόμβος της είναι δύο τρίγωνα που εφάπτονται και με μια μικρή κίνηση σχηματίζουν τον αστέρα-σύμβολο των Εβραίων!
Η χαρτοπαιξία είναι ένα παιχνίδι που προκαθορίζεται αποκλειστικά από τους δαίμονες, οι οποίοι αοράτως παρίστανται γύρω από το τραπέζι, επηρεάζοντας κάθε παίχτη, που χάνει ή κερδίζει αναλόγως με τα σχέδια των δαιμόνων για το ποιον θέλουν να καταστρέψουν ή να ευνοήσουν προσωρινά ώσπου να έρθει η σειρά του, ή έστω για να επηρεάσουν την έκβαση της ζωής του. Από την χαρτοπαιξία έχει πολλά οικονομικά συμφέροντα και οφέλη το ίδιο το κράτος (καζίνα, χαρτοπαιχτικές λέσχες κ.α.), ενώ καθιερώνονται και πλανεμένα έθιμα, όπου διάφοροι άνθρωποι οι οποίοι έχουν άγνοια περί του Θεού, παίζουν χαρτιά παρασέρνοντας και άλλους αφελείς, για να πάει δήθεν καλά το νέο έτος που εισέρχεται! Επίσης, χρησιμοποιούνται τα τραπουλόχαρτα και από τους ταχυδακτυλουργούς που κάνουν διάφορα κόλπα αφήνοντας έκπληκτους τους παρακολουθούντες, που δεν αντιλαμβάνονται την απάτη, καθώς και τις χαρτορίχτρες που κοροϊδεύουν την «πελατεία» τους, έχοντας συνεργούς τους δαίμονες που βοηθούν για να πραγματοποιηθούν κάποιες από τις προβλέψεις των «μαντισσών» ώστε να πιστεύουν οι άνθρωποι στα χαρτιά και σ' αυτές!
Και να φαντασθεί κανείς ότι πολλοί συνάνθρωποί μας έχασαν τα πάντα από την μανία του τζόγου, φέροντας αμετανόητοι την δαιμονική επιρροή που συνοδεύει την ζωή τους από την χρησιμοποίηση της τράπουλας, δημιουργώντας σωρεία προβλημάτων στην κοινωνία που ζουν, μένοντας τελικά απορημένοι για ότι τους συμβαίνει.
Στρατής Ανδριώτης
http://agiameteora.net/index.php/protoxronias/3824-xartopaiksia-ena-daimoniko-paixnidi-dithen-ethimo-gia-na-paei-kala-i-xronia.html
Sister Hatune Dogan visits a slum city in India
It is the season of “peace on Earth,” but Sister Hatune Dogan has a chill in her spirit that could only be felt in a time of war.
The Orthodox Christian nun feels it with each new atrocity committed against the Yazidi and Christian minorities of Syria and Iraq. She feels it in the church burnings across Egypt and the slaughter of innocent children in Pakistan.
For this reason she brought a word of warning to Americans in a visit last week to Minnesota, where she spoke to several church groups.
Today's political climate draws her back to 1915 and her native Turkey, when her family experienced the cruelty of the Ottoman caliphate, which slaughtered 3 million Christians and reduced others to second-class status under subjugation, or “dhimmitude.”
ISIS is nothing new, she said, just the re-emergence of Islam's dark side.
“ISIS is not fanatic. ISIS is not more terrible. ISIS is real Muslim believers who like to follow the Quran and Muhammad,” said the founder of Warburg, Germany-based Sister Hatune Foundation, a worldwide relief organization that has been honored by the German government for its dedication to human rights.
“Others say they are Muslim. They say they believe Quran, but they don't follow it,” she said.
Armenian Christians accounted for about half of the 3 million who lost their lives in Turkey, but the other half were Christians of various ethnic backgrounds – Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Protestants. All felt the boot of jihad against their heads.
Sister Hatune arrived last Thursday at the Atlanta airport for a stopover on her way back to Germany. She was dressed in traditional black garments and a habit covering her hair. She wore a simple wooden crucifix around her neck and carried with her a well-worn copy of the Quran, which has become her constant companion wherever she goes to teach about the current situation in the Middle East.
She believes Christians in the West should learn what is written in the Muslim holy book. If they did, they would realize that the Islamic State, also called ISIS, is not doing anything that hasn't been done in the past by devout Muslims who have conquered a people they see as “infidels.”
Where are all the Christians?
Sister Hatune points to the fact that 96 percent of the people who populated the Middle East at the turn of the eighth century were Christian. Now, that Christian population has dwindled to 6 percent. Turkey was once almost all Christian, but now it is 0.03 percent Christian. Iraq had 1 million Christians under Saddam Hussein, but now only a few thousand remain, and the churches of Baghdad will be mostly empty this Christmas.
“Where are these Christians? Where are these people? Just ask yourself,” said the fearless nun, whose native tongue is Aramaic.
Her family initially lived in Turkey as Jews, but later her entire village converted to Christianity.
Born in 1970 the middle daughter of 10 children, Sister Hatune learned to speak 13 languages, but none make her more proud than Aramaic.
“This is the language of Jesus,” she told WND.
The Sister Hatune Foundation works in 35 countries with Matthew 25:34-40 as its mission statement – feeding, clothing, sheltering and providing medical care to the poor and persecuted of the world. She has been making regular trips to the Middle East since 2005, and ISIS presents a new challenge: trying to rescue orphaned children from its clutches.
Sister Hatune returned to her home convent in Germany for only a few days before she will make another trip to the Middle East to celebrate Christmas with persecuted Christians. She was with them in November when she visited refugee camps in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. She also sneaked into Syria to meet with Christians there.
“They need your support. Without your support they can't continue,” she says in avideo showing her with a group of Yazidi refugees. “They live like animals. Starving. No food. Unsanitary. No one should have to live like this.”
It's a plight she is all too familiar with. Her question “What happened to all the Christians?” is purely rhetorical and completely personal. Her family lived through the genocide of 1915 in Turkey, the country from which her parents fled in 1985.
Her great-aunt Sarah lived through the persecution in Zaz, a small village in southeastern Turkey, in 1915.
“She was 18 years old, very beautiful. One of the Muslim men saw her and said, ‘She is beautiful. She belongs to me,'” Sister Hatune said.
Sarah had four brothers, a mother and father, several cousins, aunts and uncles living in the village.
“Twelve in all, in October 1915, they killed in front of her eyes,” Sister Hatune said, motioning with her hands and speaking in a thick accent. “Shot them in front of her eyes.”
The operation was carried out by Islamic jihadists, both Turks and Kurds, with the blessing of the Turkish army.
“It was planned,” she said.
In all, 365 members of her family's church, St. Demetrios, were murdered, representing about half of the village's population.
“First they shot them. More than half were still alive so they burned them alive in the church in 1915 in my village,” she said.
Her great-grandmother had two children and was forced in 1921 to beg her Muslim masters to let her keep one of them and raise him as a Christian.
It is the same experience playing out today under ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
“The most beautiful ones they take for their wives and say ‘now you have to be Muslim,'” said Sister Hatune.
The others are forced to convert or die. Many have been slaughtered in front of their parents. She has one video smuggled out of Iraq that shows three young boys, around 5 or 6 years old, being psychologically tormented by their eventual killer.
“Tell me which one should I cut first,” the man asks them in Arabic.
A long butcher knife sits on a table beside him.
“Come put your head here,” he says, as the boys scream in terror.
They take a step back, but the confines of the small room leave nowhere to run.
When neither boy steps forward to volunteer his neck, the man yells: “Come all of you. Come all of you!”
He grabs one of the boys. The one in the white shirt. The boy screams and the other two cry.
“Are you ISIS?” the man yells over the screaming boy. “Are you ISIS?”
“No!” the boy answers through his tears.
All three were beheaded. The nun said she received the video from a relative of the three boys.
In another video, shot in 2013, three Christian priests are shown being led out into a field with their hands bound. A Muslim man wrestles one priest to the ground and slices his head off while several hundred Muslims yell: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!”
‘I Believe in Action'
Sister Hatune holds a malnourished boy in India, one of the dozens of countries in which her foundation works.Drawing on her own family background, Sister Hatune has recently finished work on her 13th book, “I Believe in Action,” written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Christian genocide in Turkey. In this book she compares the life of Jesus to that of Muhammad, Islam's main prophet.
“I not write from my head. All facts,” she said. “Muhammad came and he brought killing, beheading, pedophilia. He slept with a 9-year-old girl, he married when she was 6 years old. We know because she says it herself in the Hadith. In Yemen today, where Shariah is the law, they have to marry the girl before her first menstruation, maximum of age 13, because it is written.”
Sister Hatune thumbs through her Quran and finds another verse that she says leads Muslims to murder Christians in the Middle East.
“Twenty-five times in Quran it says to kill Christians because we are involved in polytheism,” she said, explaining that Muslims do not understand the concept of the Holy Trinity. “Also it says to not make friends with Christians.”
Europe is on its way to becoming the next battleground for Islam, especially Belgium and France, where Muslims make up 6 to 10 percent of the population. Sister Hatune's adopted country of Germany is at least 4 percent Muslim and has more than 4,000 mosques.
“A mosque is not just for prayer,” the nun said. “It is to prepare to kill the unbeliever and control the world.”
In the Quran there are 97 verses against the unbeliever.
“And there are verses against the Christians who say God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or that Jesus is the Son of God. They have to be beheaded, the head cut off from the neck; no other interpretation. This is what the Muslims are doing. Normal Muslims, who are really Muslims, have to follow this rule,” she said. “There will never be peace on Earth if these verses of the Quran are not stopped. It is in the Quran, Hadith and sunna 36,800 times, the words ‘cut,' ‘kill' or ‘attack.' How can there be peace on Earth?”
The Quran also gives Muslim men permission to rape girls and women who are held captive as slaves (Sura 23:5-6).
In conquered cities, ISIS has marked the homes of Christians with a red symbol of the Nazarene. They are then visited by ISIS militants who bring unspeakable horrors upon the families.
Sister Hatune says it is justified under Sura 5:33 in the Quran, which states:
“Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land.”
Muslim apologists in the West say the verse is taken out of context by “Islamophobes,” but Sister Hatune believes otherwise.
“Those of us Christians from Middle East. We know them. We know their rules,” she said.
Today there are 57 Islamic countries living under Islamic law.
“Education is not allowed for the girls. The women are created for the sex for the gents,” she said. “If she becomes raped she has to bring four men with her as witness. Of course it is impossible, so she will be stoned. There are so many women and girls who die from stoning.”
Sister Hatune recalls going to school in Turkey as a young girl. Even though everyone in her village was Christian, no Christians were allowed to hold positions of authority under Islamic law, so all her teachers were Muslim. If the Christian children were caught going to church the teacher would beat them, usually by striking their hands with a metal rod.
She said the Turkish government confiscated all the guns from Christians before launching a violent jihad against them.
“Village by village they came and said, ‘If you don't give your guns we will put you in prison for seven years,'” she said.
At the age of 14 Sister Hatune left Turkey with her parents in 1985, finding refuge in Germany. She joined a monastery there called the Sisters Serving Christ when she was 16.
“We were a rich family. They threatened my father to cut him here,” she said with a tug on the lower portion of her ear. “He run away. He said this is enough. We must leave everything and go.”
Watch video below of Sister Hatune relating her life story growing up under the “hard persecution” of the Turkish regime, which she said “pretends to be liberal” but is one of the world's most fanatical Muslim countries.
Theodore Shoebat, son of former Palestinian terrorist-turned Christian Walid Shoebat, described Sister Hatune in a Dec. 30, 2013 article as a modern-day Mother Theresa.
“Hatune's willingness to help the persecuted is so immense that it surpasses what anyone is doing today in the Middle East,” Shoebat wrote. “She has visited 38 countries and worked in the Ministry of Charitable and Social Service in Zimbabwe, Turkey and in India. Her righteous deeds of course receive the vociferous wrath of the jihadists, in the words of Dogan, ‘I get 18 death threats in seven languages.'”
A message for America
Sister Hatune came to America last week to seek donations for her ministry to the persecuted minorities of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and India. Most of these minorities are Christian but many in Iraq and Syria are of the ancient Yazidi sect. In one video Sister Hatune appears in a Yazidi refugee camp surrounded by families who have nothing but the clothes on their backs.
She came to America with a plea for help. But she also came with a message for Americans.
“America is inviting its own slaughterers to its door,” she said, referring to the U.S. policy of taking in Muslim refugees through the United Nations refugee program.
WND reported Dec. 11 that the U.N. has assigned 9,000 mostly Muslim refugees from Syria for resettlement in U.S. cities and towns and the U.S. has accepted nearly 2 million from Muslim countries since 1992.
“You have already a parallel society in America,” Sister Hatune said. “In 50 years they will kill your grandchildren before your eyes. The Middle East is already here. It is here. It is not far from here. It is at your door.”
That's a message many churches in Minnesota were not ready to hear, said Debra Anderson, who heads a local chapter of ACT! For America and sponsored Sister Hatune's recent visit.
“She wanted to do something active. She felt faith without works was dead,” Anderson said. “But it was rough trying to get her invited to speak at the churches in Minnesota. Some of it was her message. She is very critical of the Muslim governments.”
One church group that invited her to speak gave her a reception that Anderson described as “cool.”
They visited an order of Catholic nuns and “five or six of them walked out near the end of her presentation,” she said.
“Some of the photos of human suffering she showed in her presentation; I think they were really shaken,” Anderson said. “I don't know that they had ever been challenged in their way of thinking like that. But it was all facts. We told them to check out other experts.
“But I had this one nun just interrupt me and say, ‘I am not going to listen to her anymore,'” Anderson said. “I had a hard time getting her into the churches. I really did.”
Anderson said she put out a request for speaking venues to some 800 people on her email list representing various Christian denominations.
Only a few responded with invitations.
One of the nuns from the convent in Minnesota interrupted Sister Hatune's presentation with a specific concern.
“Sister, that's enough,” she said, voicing her concern about a potential backlash against Muslims in the community if Sister Hatune's documentation were to ever get widely disseminated.
But while some were repelled by the stories of thousands of girls being raped and the images of Christians being crucified by ISIS or Muslims playing soccer with the heads of their victims, others responded by coming up afterward and asking how they could get more information and possibly get involved in helping these persecuted Christians.
“My mission is to help the suffering people where they are,” Sister Hatune said. “They cannot come to me, so I go to them. One hundred percent of donations go to the suffering people. We are all volunteer. We are total independent. We have no big donor now. I wish. We have two fish and five loaves, and God is multiplying.”
The work is carried out by 5,000 volunteers with no paid staff, Sister Hatune said.
An elderly German man left the Orthodox nun a small stipend to live on when he died. She pays out of her own pocket for travel, or has a sponsor pay for her flight, as was the case with her trip to Minnesota.
Now she is making plans to return to the Middle East for Christmas, hoping to bring some gifts for children.
One of those who heard her message asked her if she was afraid.
“Everyone has fear,” Sister Hatune said. “But I am called to show solidarity. You do that, not with talk, but with action, with duty. Jesus is my body guard.”
The nun says Islamic culture is basically “like a dog,” in that it must be confronted. If there is a void or a weakness in the Christian culture, the Muslims will sense that weakness and continue to march through and intimidate the native culture.
“You cannot be afraid of Islam culture,” she said. “If you run, they will come after you like dog culture. You must stand your ground. I don't say fight. I say resist. I say to them, ‘Stop. I don't want you. I have my own God.' They come here thinking to conquer the country. If they don't accept the American way of life, go back to your home. The government has to understand this.”
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/76204.htm
The Holy Martyr Sebastian was born in Italy and brought up in the city of Milan. He was destined in his youth to be a soldier, and, as an educated, handsome and courageous man, commended himself to the Emperor Diocletian, who made him captain of the imperial guard. He secretly confessed the Christian faith, and prayed to the living God. An honorable, upright and merciful man, Sebastian was greatly loved by his soldiers. Whenever possible, he saved Christians from torture and death and, when this was not possible, gave them courage to die for Christ the living God without turning back. Two brothers, Marcus and Marcellinus, who were in prison for Christ and already on the verge of denying Him and worshipping idols, were confirmed in their faith and strengthened in their martyrdom by Sebastian. As he spoke with them, exhorting them not to fear death for Christ, his face was illumined like that of an angel of God. Sebastian supported his words by marvels: he healed Zoë, the wife of Nicostratus the jailer, who had been dumb for six years, and brought Nicostratus and his whole household to baptism; he healed the two sick sons of Claudius the commander, and brought him and his whole household also to baptism; he healed Tranquillianus, the father of Marcus and Marcellinus, of gout and pains in his legs which had troubled him for eleven years, and brought him to baptism together with his whole household; he healed the Roman Eparch, Chromatius, of the same infirmity and brought him and his son Tiburtius to baptism.
Of these, Zoë was the first to suffer, being seized while at prayer beside the tomb of the Apostle Peter. After torture, she was thrown into the river Tiber. Then Tiburtius was seized, and the judge placed live coals before him, challenging him to choose life or death: to cast incense on the coals and cense the idols, or to stand himself barefoot on the coals. St. Tibertius made the sign of the Cross and stood barefoot on the coals, and remained unharmed. He was then beheaded with the sword. Nicostratus was killed with a stake, Tranquillianus was drowned and Marcus and MarceiIinus were run through by spears. Then Sebastian was taken before the Emperor Diocletian. The Emperor rebuked him for his betrayal, but he said: 'I always pray to my Christ for your health, and for the peace of the Roman Empire.' The Emperor ordered that he be stripped and shot at with arrows. The soldiers then shot at him, until the martyr's whole body was so covered with arrows that it was invisible beneath them. When they thought that he was dead, he showed himself alive and healed of all his wounds. Then the pagans beat him to death with staves. He suffered gloriously for Christ his Lord and entered into the heavenly Kingdom in 287, when Gaius was Bishop of Rome.
Troparion, Tone 1
O Sebastian, thou didst spurn the gatherings of the wicked/ and bring together the illustrious martyrs who with thee cast down the enemy./ Deemed worthy of the Divine Presence,/ thou dost gladden those who cry to thee:/ Glory to Him Who has strengthened thee; glory to Him Who has crowned thee;/ glory to Him Who through thee works healings for all.
Kontakion, Tone 4
Thou didst excel in godly zeal/ and gather a band of martyrs from which thou didst shine as a star./ The arrows that wounded thy body, O Sebastian,/ pierced the hearts of the enemy./ Hence Christ has glorified thee.
«Για να καταλάβεις πόσο σπουδαίο αγαθό είναι η ταπείνωση, φτιάξε με την φαντασία σου δύο αμάξια και ζεύξε στο ένα την αρετή με την υπερηφάνεια και στο άλλο την αμαρτωλότητα με την ταπεινοφροσύνη.
Και θα δεις ότι το ζεύγος της αμαρτωλότητας θα ξεπεράσει την αρετή. Και αυτό, όχι φυσικά από την δική του ικανότητα, αλλά από την δύναμη της ταπεινοφροσύνης, που πάει μαζί της.
Το άλλο ζευγάρι πάλι θα καθυστερήσει όχι από την αδυναμία της αρετής, αλλά από το υπέρογκο βάρος της υπερηφάνειας. Διότι όπως η ταπεινοφροσύνη, με το μεγάλο πνευματικό ύψος νικά την βαρύτητα της αμαρτίας και κατορθώνει να ανέβει στον ουρανό, έτσι και η υπερηφάνεια, με το υπέρογκο βάρος της, κατορθώνει να υπερνικήσει την ανάλαφρη αρετή και να την τραβήξει προς τα κάτω με ευκολία».
http://proskynitis.blogspot.ca/
Do not wish for everything to be done according to your determination, but wish that it is how it should be, and in this way, you will attain peace with everyone. And believe that everything that happens to us, even the most insignificant, occurs through God’s Providence. Then you will be able to endure everything that comes upon you without any agitation.
Abba Dorotheus
Inquirer: What is glossologia or “speaking in tongues”?
Elder Cleopa: Glossologia, or “speaking in tongues,” as a gift of the Holy Spirit, is the ability to speak a foreign language without having to be taught it or knowing it beforehand. This is clear from the Holy Scriptures in which the events of Pentecost are described, and at which time this divine gift first appeared. The text is unabbreviated and unambiguous and recounts for us an actual event. Consequently, the text itself cannot be explained with some particular mystical or spiritual meaning alone, omitting the literal meaning.
Let’s allow the passage from the Acts of the Apostles itself to explain what the text means and what comprises the speaking of foreign tongues by the Grace of the Holy Spirit:
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:1-13).
From an examination of these thirteen verses that contain the key to the solution of the problem, we can educe the following conclusions:
- The speaking of foreign tongues or languages, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, manifested itself, as a miracle, for the first time in history. For this reason the reader is provided with an extensive description, that he may be able to learn what this miracle is and in what it consists.
- With this powerful gift of the Holy Spirit the Apostles began to preach in other languages, even 15 different local languages of other tribes and nations that had converged there for the feast of Pentecost.
- The Jews of other nations, who had as their mother tongue the language of the nation in which they lived, marvelled when they heard the Apostles preach in their own language, for the Apostles were simple men of Galilee and it was impossible for them to know another language except the Aramaic they had learned at home.
- The Jews of other nations understood everything from the divine preaching of the Apostles. They spoke to them with precision in their own language concerning the greatness of God, without needing a translator, and it is in exactly this that the miracle rests. The visitors to Jerusalem were unable to explain what they witnessed and were full of wonder.
- Among the listeners of the preaching there were also some that did not understand anything that the Apostles said and subsequently mocked the Apostles, thinking that they were drunk. This group can be none other than the residents of Jerusalem, and perhaps those of nearby Palestine, who didn’t know other languages except their mother tongue, Aramaic. For these men the preaching of the Apostles was completely unintelligible and they considered it simply sputtering.
Thus, the residents didn’t understand anything from the preaching, unless someone translated it for them. For just as there is the gift of speaking in tongues or foreign languages, there also exists the gift of translation. This was given, as is apparent below, when those listening were only locals ignorant of other languages, as was, for example, the case in Corinth (1 Cor. 14). In Jerusalem, however, during this period there was not felt this deficiency. The gift of translation was itself also miraculous, just as was that of glossologia, on which it was directly dependent. Not having this gift the residents who were listening judged the work of the Apostles according to their personal determination and perception alone.
Glossologia was a sign of the power of God and, as a decisive means of proselytism, was manifested among men who ignored the Faith (1 Cor. 14:21-25). For, apart from this, what meaning does it have for someone to speak about Christ in a foreign language if he was taught, believed and lived his faith in Christ from his childhood years?
If there are those who speak foreign languages and they are not understood by anyone, how do they build up the Church or benefit it? For the purpose ofglossologia was for the Apostles to be able to spread, via the transmission of thekerygma (preaching) in foreign languages, the Faith of Christians to all people and to make the Gospel known throughout the world, as it is written:
“Their sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world” (Ps. 18:4).
If someone had this gift, we must not think that it was the greatest among the gifts of God. The Apostle Paul says that there are other, greater gifts of the Holy Spirit than that ofglossologia.
“I would that ye all spake with tongues but rather that ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edification” (1 Cor. 14:5).
And elsewhere he also says,
“If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?” (1 Cor. 14:23).
Consequently, the gifts of prophecy, of preaching and of interpretation of Scripture are much higher than the gift of glossologia, for with these the Church of Christ is built up and benefited much more than with the gift of linguistics or speaking different languages (1 Cor. 14: 2-4). More sublime and higher than all the gifts is love, about which listen to what the Apostle Paul has to say:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).
Inq.: It is claimed by certain people that when the grace of the Holy Spirit comes to them and they begin to speak in tongues, they find themselves in a state of ecstasy. It is only at this time that they are able to speak certain inarticulate and incomprehensible human sounds, to have certain internal impulses or exclamations of joy, or to voice a certain remorse for their sins, as well as other movements of the body which are made by the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Saul had a similar spiritual manifestation when following David and going to Ramah. He was overcome by the prophetic spirit and with a flurry he prophesied, ripped his clothes off and went naked all day and all night (1 Sam. 19:22-24).
EC: It is incomprehensible for a healthy, clear and well-balanced intellect to reveal the great mysteries of God with inarticulate exclamations. Such a thing is not at all the same, as we know from that which was revealed through glossologia as a divine gift (1 Cor. 14: 2-4).
The Greek idol-worshipers of antiquity had similar exhibitions when they prayed to their gods Dionysus, Zeus and the others. When they were found before a diabolic idol they would fall into ecstasy or a trance, shaking and making rhythmic movements with their body, and tumble on the ground, with a few even foaming at the mouth like the demon-possessed of olden times. Next they would get up and sing rhapsodic melodies and make exclamations with demonic delight. The same happened with the Montanists, heretics of the first and second centuries after Christ, the Gnostics, and later the Methodists, the Quakers, the Pentecostals and others. These groups took to making uncanny and strange turns and movements of the body, had hallucinations and were in delusion, and thought that all of this came from God, when in actuality it comes from theologians of darkness who are familiar with Holy Scripture and who lead into delusion the unsuspecting, cheating them with words taken even from Holy Scripture.
Inq.: These people also say that with the charisma of glossologia that they possess, they maintain unbroken the work of the Holy Spirit among men and within the Church of Christ as it existed in the beginning of Christianity. For, they claim, today, as also in the beginning, with this perceptible sign of the gift of grace, the Holy Spirit stirs wonder and amazement in those who as yet are not Christians. Furthermore, with this visible sign of the gift of speaking in tongues, it becomes known to the faithful that there still exists a work of the Holy Spirit in the Church as in the first period of Christians in Jerusalem.
EC: The gift of speaking in foreign tongues or glossologia was not given by God for all time, until the end of the world. It was a sign given to the Church only for a time, with the aim of making it easier for those of other religions to convert to Christianity. We see, in this respect, that the Jews of Jerusalem, who did not understand the preaching of the Apostles – kerygma given by divine grace – did not, in fact, believe but rather said that the Apostles were drunk. The Prophet Isaiah prophesied concerning their disbelief before this great gift of grace, saying,
“For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear” (Isa. 28: 11-12).
Indeed, in Jerusalem they spoke to them with lips of strangers, for the foreign Jews, or Jews of the Diaspora, heard about the wondrous works of God in their own languages and believed (Acts 2:11). And thus it is that the Apostle Paul prophesied that the gift of speaking in foreign tongues would cease (1 Cor. 13:8 ,1 Cor. 14:22-28).
The people of that time were spiritually in the age of infancy, for only just before had they left the worship of idols and their intellects were blurred, confused and insensible. They were still captives to the enjoyment of the fleshly pleasures and did not have knowledge of the divine gifts that one enjoys only on account of faith. It is for this reason that signs and wonders were then showered upon them.
Some spiritual gifts are invisible and become accessible to man via faith. Others, however, are visible on account of the unbelief of men. Here is an example: The forgiveness of sins is an invisible spiritual work. We do not see with our sensible eyes how we are purified of our sins. Why? Because neither is the soul that is purified visible to the eyes of our body. Speaking in different tongues or languages is also a work of the Holy Spirit, but it is a visible sign and more easily persuades those of other religions. Hence, the reason Saint Paul says the following:
“Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe” (1 Cor. 14:22).
He who believes doesn’t have need of guarantees and signs. The first Christians would not have believed if they had not received signs.
Inq.: From those who I spoke to I learned that besides the gift of speaking in tongues, they have also the gift of the baptism of
“the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk. 3:16)
which is totally different from baptism with water. This baptism showers upon them various miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially that of glossologia and the interpretation of Scripture, as happened also at Pentecost with the Apostles.
EC: Is it possible that there are two Christian baptisms? Doesn’t it say in Holy Scripture that there is one and only one? St. Paul tells us there is but
“one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all . . .” (Eph. 4:5; See also:1 Cor. 12:13).
The baptism of
“the Holy Spirit and fire” (Lk. 3:16)
of Pentecost is none other than the Christian baptism which was pre-announced by both Saint John the Baptist and the Saviour Himself (Mt. 3:11, Acts 1:5) and which He said would happen by “water and the Spirit” – baptism neither by water alone, as with the baptism of John, nor only by the Spirit (Jn. 3:5). These two elements, the one visible and the other invisible, constitute the two most necessary prerequisites for the one and only Christian baptism. If, with respect to the practice of this mystery, some still speak only of water or only of the Spirit as constituting the main element of this Mystery, let them know that the Mystery is one and only one and its two elements are inseparable.
Inq.: Each Christian should have within him the Holy Spirit. The members of a certain Christian brotherhood say that while they can give evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit within them through the practice of speaking in foreign speech, the Orthodox are not able to show this by any means. Consequently, they say that the Orthodox are not true Christians due to the absence of this work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
EC: It is true that each Christian should have consciously within himself the Holy Spirit. Yet, the presence of the Holy Spirit is not only made manifest via glossologia. The Apostle Paul tells us that
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance . . .” (Gal. 5: 22-23).
Do you see, therefore, that among the fruits of the Holy Spirit the practice of speaking in foreign languages is not referred to anywhere? This is the case because it is a gift of the Holy Spirit that was given for a certain period of time in the Church, while the gifts referred to here by the Apostle, all Christians, of every epoch, must have throughout their life. Whoever has the fruits of the Spirit has also the Holy Spirit within him. The gift of glossologia is not a common gift of grace but something special and not given to everyone (1 Cor. 12:10). How, then, can we consider it a precondition of salvation and a prerequisite for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life when it is not given to everyone? The Apostle Paul says,
“Do all speak in tongues?” (1 Cor. 12:30).
Consequently, then, those who do not speak in tongues can also be good Christians. In the community of true Christians everyone does not have the same gifts. The Apostles did not require this gift from all the Christians, and indeed, in quite a few it was revealed that this talent was profitless. The Apostles themselves did not use this gift, apart from exceptional cases when they had a certain aim, as on the day of Pentecost. So, therefore, it should be clear that they did not call upon every Christian to have this gift as a means of salvation.
Inq.: I would like, after all that we have said concerning glossologia, for you to summarize exactly the main points of our discussion.
EC: Listen, brother, and guard well within your mind: True glossologia as a gift of the Holy Spirit can be recognized only when it is combined with the following presuppositions.
1) If someone, by inspiration [of the Holy Spirit], speaks a language, it should be understood by all those who stand nearby, as happened in the case that we cited from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-13).
2) When someone speaks a language among the residents [of Jerusalem, Corinth etc.] that they do not understand, then another gift, the gift of translation of this language into the language of the people is necessary. Without this translation the foreign language is babbling and lunacy (1 Cor. 14:23).
3) Glossologia was not given to the Church forever, but only in the beginning of Christianity in order to awaken the idol-worshippers and Jews to belief in Christ. This is why the Apostle Paul said that the gift of glossologia would at some point cease to exist in the Church (1 Cor. 13:8).
4) Since we believe that Christ is our true God we no longer have need of glossologia, given the fact that the knowledge of foreign languages by inspiration [of the Holy Spirit] is a sign (miracle) necessary only for the unbelieving and not for the faithful (1 Cor. 14:22).
5) From the beginning of Christianity the gift of glossologia was one among the lesser in the Church of Christ, while the others, such as that of prophecy, interpretation of Scripture, of love and the rest, were much greater.
6) It is totally out of the question for speaking in tongues, as a gift of the Holy Spirit, to mean a delirium in a non-existent and incomprehensible language, for then it wouldn’t be speaking in languages, but our own [exclusive] language (Mk. 16:17). Moreover, it comes into clear contradiction with chapter two of the Acts of the Apostles.
7) The inarticulate voices, lunacies and incoherent utterances which we often hear from the self-proclaimed speakers of tongues very much resembles the scenes the idol-worshippers would make before their idols of Dionysus, as well as with quite a few of the Montanists, Gnostics, Quakers, and later Pentecostals, all of whom the true Church of Christ anathematizes (See the first and second Canons of the Sixth Oecumenical Council).
Thus, brother, foreign to the Spirit of God is the speaking in tongues of those who think they are grace-bearers and make bold to misconstrue the true glossologia, a gift of the Holy Spirit which existed at the outset of Christianity.
Source: Preachers Institute
