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Pope's trip to Cyprus has strong ecumenical dimension

CWNews.com -When he travels to Cyprus this weekend, Pope Benedict XVI will be making the first trip of his pontificate to a predominantly Orthodox country. In choosing Cyprus as the site for the release of the working document for this October's Synod of Bishops, the Pope is signaling that the Eastern churches are an essential part of any initiative in the region.

Orthodox Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus is welcoming the Pope, and reprimanding those Orthodox prelates who have denounced the papal visit. The trip will provide another sign of the warming trend in Vatican relations with the Orthodox world.

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No Hiding Allowed

When You will come to earth in glory, O God, * all things will tremble and the river of fire shall flow before Your judgment seat; * and the books will be opened and all hidden things revealed. * Deliver me, from the unquenchable fire * and make me worthy to stand at your right hand, O righteous Judge.

Wisdom from the Church Fathers

Even a pious person is not immune to spiritual sickness if he does not have a wise guide -- either a living person or a spiritual writer. This sickness is called _prelest_, or spiritual delusion, imagining oneself to be near to God and to the realm of the divine and supernatural. Even zealous ascetics in monasteries are sometimes subject to this delusion, but of course, laymen who are zealous in external struggles (podvigi) undergo it much more frequently. Surpassing their acquaintances in struggles of prayer and fasting, they imagine that they are seers of divine visions, or at least of dreams inspired by grace. In every event of their lives, they see special intentional directions from God or their guardian angel. And then they start imagining that they are God's elect, and often try to foretell the future. The Holy Fathers armed themselves against nothing so fiercely as against this sickness -- prelest.

Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky
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