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Again, it is a shame that some folks have lost this understanding of flowing blood, because it is God's understanding of blood [unless of course one rejects scripture!].

This is not a Hebrew tradition but a universal one. The prohibition on drinking warm living blood was applied by God to the Hebrews, but everybody knew that the life is in the blood!

Again, I urge you to consider the warm flowing blood of Christ and explore its significance and linkage with the prohibition on consuming the warm flowing blood of animals and people [unless one rejects the real presence of Christ's blood in the eucharist!].

Try this one folks: Why do we add hot water to the Chalice??????????

One of the points that I made earlier, was that pregnant women are not expected to abstain from the eucharist! It proves the whole point. The issue has to do with warm flowing/(living) blood.!

In the living Christ,
Andrew

Dear Reader Andrew,

As a diabetic who regularly has to submit to pinpricks for purposes of glucose testing, BELIEVE ME when I say I truly do appreciate the issue of flowing blood . . .

Denise, now this really IS weird!

Alex

To keep it from freezing? Any connection with the flowing water from Christ's side? Hurry, tell us!

Why did altars get smaller and iconostases get taller and more tightly closed the more north one got?

Joe

Dear Cantor Joseph,

And high-back phelonions too?

Alex

Ah, yes. The Russian liturgical storage space around the neck of the phelon. I've always wondered what they stored there - - methinks it's about the size of a nice warm tabby. Hmmm. And why do the Armenians have a little 'shelf' back there? What's up with that?

I guess that Brother Rubis' nexus of flowing/living blood and "life-force" might still be seen as one interpretation, but most contemporaries don't deal with blood in the ways that our ancestors did; i.e., we get our meat from the market, and don't experience the draining of 'life' from a deceased animal. And if one of us gets to 'bleeding', we race to get the disinfectant and band-aid. I think that this image no longer has the "oomph" it once had and perhaps it should be superceded by some other. (I think of all those folks who faint dead-away when they see blood.) And to derive clean/unclean labels based upon blood seems to me to have no real relevance whatsoever to contemporary urban life, regardless of what the Old Testamentarians mandated. (Of course, those who live on farms, etc. will have a different perspective.) Hopefully we can find something else upon which to hang our graces.

Christ is Risen!!

Relativism will cost us all understanding of scripture and Tradition. We will have a Church that speaks to ourselves only but not to our children and grandchildren.

The Christ came and went as a Jew. God crafted this people to receive the Word and the Good News. Why did a portion of them accept it first and others peoples later? Because they understood what he was talking about. The question is: do we?

Perhaps, the only thing that may convince folks of this point would be for them to study the biblical era Jews in comparison with ALL OTHER GROUPS existing contemporarily with them. If one is convinced of the utterly radical anthropological exception the Jews were to ALL OTHER GROUPS, one may begin to see the point that I'm stressing.

At the same time, I would urge each of us to investigate how his or her own ancestors lived at the the same biblical period (the human sacrifices, the incest, the sodomy, the adultery and fornications, the murders, the abortions, the polygamy, etc., etc.).

Then compare how you live now with how the Jews lived then and you may find that the Word of God incarnate on earth and accepted by your ancestors has made you more of a Jew (I mean a son of Abraham) than you ever realized.

With love in Christ,
Andrew
Christ is Risen!
Andrew

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Axios:

"The actual practice of the Orthodox Church"

Axios,

that's not the practice where I live.

Christian

Dear Reader Andrew,

I fear you misinterpret Dr. John.

He is not a "relativist." "Liberal" maybe. But no relativist.

And he gets himself into "bloody" messes of all kinds every once so often . . .

Have a great day!

Alex

Dear Christian,

On a totally unrelated point, is there a great veneration for the Mother of God "OstraBramskaya" in Vilnius?

Is there an Akathist to that icon?

God bless,

Alex

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:

"On a totally unrelated point, is there a great veneration for the Mother of God "OstraBramskaya" in Vilnius?"

Alex,

yes, the Ostrobramskaya Icon of the Mother of God is venerated by people of three nationalities and two churches.

Lithuanian and Polish Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox (and I guess by Ukrainian Greek Catholics also, although they are not so numerous here, though there is a Basilian Monastery, and seminary I think, here in Vilnius, just across the street from the Orthodox Monastery and Cathedral of the Holy Spirit.)

The veneration of the icon is strongest among Polish Catholics, it seems, but I have the impression that they in general are more pious than Lithuanian Catholics and Orthodox Russians

Don't know if there's an Akathist, I'll try to find out.

Kristjonas

Dear Kristjonas,

Thank you!

The Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko was in Vilnius in the 19th century and noticed how people would "break their hats" before it as they passed by the Shrine.

But he noticed some Polish students who refused to do so.

He then wrote these lines: "And those Liakh students (Polish students) who refused to break their caps to Ostra Brama . . . but you can always recognize an idiot by the way he walks . . ."

Alex

Alex,

There is a memorial plaque (is the the right word?) to Taras Shevchenko at the entrance to Vilnius University.

And people do make the sign of the Cross when they pass under the chapel where the icon is. (The icon is situated in a shrine over the "Gates of Dawn" in the old city wall, as you probably already know..)

In the street leading down from the gate there is, besides form the Ostro Brama chapel itself, the Roman Catholic Church of St.Theresa, the Basilian Monastery and Church of the Holy Trinity (where Josaphat Kuntsevich lived for a while, or did he even found the Monastery maybe?) and the Orthodox Monastery and Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, where the bodies of the Vilnius martyrs, Ss.John, Anthony and Eustathius are.

Christian

Dear Christian,

You are blessed indeed to live in such a holy and historical place!

Josaphat didn't found that monastery, but did give it fame for Eastern Catholics when he lived there as an ascetic.

I grew up with a strong veneration for Sts. Anthony, John and Eustace (or "Ostap" in Ukrainian).

I bought an antique, brass finish icon of Ostra Brama in New York City that I have framed.

It was one of those icons that Orthodox Christians sewed into their coats to carry with them everywhere they went.

God bless you, Holy Orthodox Servant of Christ!

Alex

And so my Jewish neighbor came by on Saturday to give us her best wishes and see our newly-born son, Isaak.

She raised the glass and said, "le'chaim." ["To life!"] (surely most of us recall that toast from "Fiddler on the Roof," if not from real life)

I couldn't help but wonder out loud if "le'chaim" ["to life"] and "haima" ["blood"] are etymologically related.

With love in Christ,
Andrew