C. I. X.

Alice,

My apologies for assuming your devotion was politically directed rather than through piety. Some saints the Slav�s have may be sitting at the throne of God but the reasons they were painted with halos sometimes has little to do with Christianity and more to do with chauvinism. The double headed eagle theory backwards.

Saint Josaphat can be one. Being an Orthodox Slav he embraced the Union with Rome and was struck down for it. Literally. The Polish Roman Catholics pushed for his sainthood blessed by the Vatican, where by the way his body is displayed for veneration. Any one with an opinion about Him is usually boiling or iced seldom tepid. Here is as lukewarm an synopsis as you will find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jozafat_Kuncewicz

The Tsar and his family bore a tragic cross at their end, but others bore heavier ones due to these Royals contributing to it, and in many cases buried the history to cleanse their Golgotha. Maybe my embracing them is as I imagine Greeks embracing Turks. We Slavs probably possess more positive stories concerning the Ottoman Empire than the Greeks. After all Roxyiana was one of us: Turkey - now
For instance Hurrem Sultan - known as Roxana in the West - was thought to have bewitched Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent because he was so attached to her. ...
www.turkey-now.org/default.aspx?pgID=785 [turkey-now.org] - 45k

Like the post before AMM and I would bump heads to be the first to kiss the cross, but everything else we would bump heads because as I see clearly he is inflected with an ethnic stigma.

Mykhayl